The full CDF study report is available here. It would be extremely costly to build and technically challenging but it is conceivable given the rate of improvement in technology and engineering and provides us with a goal to aspire towards – just like planning to build the next, tallest skyscraper or planning a terrestrial city of the future.” “And the effort of designing this habitat is useful in its own right. On Earth the demands aren’t so absolute as space, but the experience offers ways to improve our design methodologies, such as selecting materials, integrated building technologies and minimising environmental impacts. Once the first habitat is in place, the SOM team envisages additional modules joining it in turn, customised for specific functions such as research, manufacturing, food culture and tourism – allowing the base to expand into a village, then eventually a city.Īs Daniel concludes: “We were only working on the Moon Village part time, but the project has informed our thinking on large terrestrial buildings like skyscrapers and airports in both a qualitative and quantitative way. As the manned missions would likely begin in space agencies have to strive for minimizing the mass of delivered, and a good way to do it is by producing food directly in space or in a habitats. The pressurised, four-level habitat modules can house four to six people and feature systems such as environmental controls and life support systems, logistics. The habitat, including all its pre-fitted internal equipment, would have a mass exceeding 58 tonnes, which would be beyond the scope of currently operating launch vehicles.ĭaniel adds: “Looking beyond the near term, we considered two options, one of which is NASA’s forthcoming Space Launch System launcher, and the other is SpaceX’s Starship, which would have no trouble with our mass requirements but is still at an early stage of development.” Another important aspect of building a sustainable Moon Village is to provide food for the astronauts. One of the biggest challenges the CDF flagged is actually getting there. And the habitat would interface with separate airlock shells devoted to dusting off spacesuits and equipment, to really mitigate the amount of dust into the habitat.” As Daniel explains: “We would actually land the habitat quite some distance away from its final destination and transport it into place overland, because the lander touchdown will drive up a lot of dust, which is harmful to both people and equipment. Another key design driver is minimising contact with clingy, abrasive lunar dust. Shipping resources to the Moon is expensive, 3D printing mooncrete structures with robots could reduce the risks, and costs of building the.
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