Illustration of Intuitive Machines’ Lunar Lander. Credits: Intuitive Machines
As part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, NASA has selected Intuitive Machines to deliver ice harvesting equipment called Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment (PRIME-1) to the Moon’s south pole. In a press release from yesterday, Intuitive stated that the instrument package includes a drill to excavate ice ladened regolith and a mass spectrometer to characterize the volatiles, the data from which will be used by the VIPER mission to follow shortly thereafter. Knowing how much water is available and how accessible it is will inform subsequent in situ resource utilization efforts needed for sustainable human outposts planned for later this decade.
Artist’s rendering of settlements on the Moon. Credits: Taylor Herring/Samsung via Futurism.com
A melding of multiple disciplines is required for creating a positive human space future that will enable space settlement. In addition to aerospace engineering, architecture and the traditional physical sciences we associate with space exploration, the fields of sociology, philosophy, art, space law and may others will be needed. A method for integrating these fields and coordinating them across the private sector, universities and government has been developed in The Interplanetary Initiative, a pan-university venture created at Arizona State University. The innovative research model is described in a paper in the September 2020 issue of New Space. The program turns students into team leaders and collaborators, equipping them with the skills and knowledge to solve problems anticipated to be encountered as humans expand out into the solar system.
RegoLight mobile printing head as implemented. Credits: RegoLight Consortium / Space Applications Services / International Astronautical Federation
Project RegoLight was an in situ resource utilization program funded by the European Commission to study automation of a process using solar energy to heat lunar soil to form building elements for a lunar settlement. The project ran from 2016 – 2018 and was intended to raise the technology readiness level from 3 to 5. The conclusions of the project were presented at the 69th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) held in Bremen, Germany in October 2018 and summarized in a report available on Academia.edu.
RegoLight had several primary objectives including automation of additive manufacturing of building elements under ambient conditions, fabrication of larger structures with a mobile printing head, demonstration of solar sintering under vacuum conditions, production of building elements using simulated lunar soil, material characterization of the building elements and other related processes in the context of a lunar settlement architecture. These activities would support plans for the Moon Village.
Conceptual view of an operational lunar base. Credits: RegoLight Consortium / LIQUIFER Systems Group / International Astronautical Federation
Artist’s impression of a lunar settlement. Credit: ESA/Foster + Partners via universetoday.com
The 2020 virtual event sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics held in August brought together 200 space industry leaders from all over the world to discuss and respond to NASA’s ARTEMIS Plan. The event was summarized in a proceedings report that captured the group’s consensus on the technological and economic conditions needed for a sustained and economically viable lunar settlement. The attendees discussed the role of national space agencies, governments, and industry in addressing those conditions. The report defined a sustained lunar settlement as meeting the test of continuous survival and operation over time, and an economically viable settlement as one for which the long-term cost of maintenance is sustained by private capital.
When polled on the key technologies needed for a long term permanent presence on the Moon, the group identified the gaps in the chart below as those areas needing higher Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) to enable a permanent lunar settlement.
Technology areas needing further development. Credits: Jessica Todd et al.* / AIAA
The authors* then summarized the economic conditions identified at the workshop conducive to sustained lunar settlements, information needed to close the technology gaps and the roles of government space agencies as well as non-aerospace industries (e.g. healthcare, agriculture, food processing, utilities, mining and construction). _________________________________________________________________________________
* Authors of the ASCEND Ensuring Economically Viable Lunar Settlements Proceedings Report 2020 include:
Jessica Todd, Graduate Research Assistant, Aerospace Engineering in Autonomous Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Research Institute George Lordos, Ph.D. Candidate, Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Becca Browder, Graduate Research Assistant, Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Benjamin Martell, Graduate Research Assistant, Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cormac O’Neill, Graduate Research Assistant, Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Artist depiction of Moon Town settlement in Lalande crater. Credits: Kim Holder / Moonwards.com
At some point in the future there will be settlements on the Moon. What will daily life be like in them? How will the architecture be designed? What crops and animals will be there? Will it be safe? What will the tech and culture be like?
Now you can virtually experience a realistic and sensible facsimile of such a town at Moonwards. The settlement is envisioned to be a multination facility that is based on sound technical and economic principles. Located in Lalande crater, Moon Town beckons with an immersive experience temping you to be a part of the development of its culture by helping to building the settlement, making your own home and attending events. Everything is set up for you with scientific accuracy: ships, rovers, habitats, machines and more. You can enjoy lunar parks, garden in the farm atriums, drive around and participate in all sorts of lunar life activities. Moonwards’ founder Kim Holder says:
“It’s all open source and you can use it however you like. It’s as open-ended as our future is right now. There are no cliches here, no fantasies. The day is nearly here when real ships will launch to really settle another world. There is a great deal we need to think about before then. Be a part of Moonwards.”
Artist’s depiction of an interior space of Moon Town. Credits: Kim Holder / Moonwards.com
Artist’s concept of an O’Neill space colony. Credit: Rachel Silverman / Blue Origin
J. N. Nielsen has a theory…or four. Picking up where he left off in his previous Bound in the Shallows post on Centauri Dreams about the origins of a spacefaring civilization, Nielsen explores the possibility that the nuclear rocket or fusion power may be the indispensable transformative technology that will enable breakout of a spacefaring future. But even if we develop the capability of nuclear propulsion, it may not be sufficient. We need a “mythology” to enable humanity’s next central project. As Nielson defines it, a mythology “… is a kind of recapitulation in which the contributions of ages past—whether biological, psychological, social, or cultural—are each given their due, and these antecedents serve as a springboard to something authentically novel, something unprecedented that facilitates human beings to transcend their past and to accomplish something unprecedented.”
As happens every time, whenever I dig into Nielson’s rich writings I loose myself in a beautiful philosophical landscape of culture. Give yourself some time to ponder and absorb these insightful hypotheses on what is needed to settle the solar system and beyond…and visit his Grand Strategy: View from Oregon site for more politics, economics, warfare, religion, and philosophy with a focus on civilization which often leads to consideration of the future and space exploration.
Illustration of SPEAR (Swarm Probe Enabling ATEG Reactor), an affordable nuclear electric propulsion spacecraft using a custom designed fission reactor. Credits: Troy Howe, Howe Industries LLC
The 2020 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Symposium just rapped up it’s virtual event. The NAIC Program supports early studies of visionary concepts in space and aeronautics that develop and assess revolutionary, yet credible, aerospace architecture, mission, and system concepts. These studies showcase ideas that will enable far-term capabilities, and spawn exciting innovations to radically improve aerospace exploration, science, and operations.
There were a wealth of new ideas presented at this year’s meeting with Phase I, II, and III posters and presentations available as PDFs on the NAIC Symposium website. To give you a taste, above is an illustration of Howe Industries’ Phase II concept for a small, affordable nuclear electric propulsion spacecraft using a custom designed fission reactor with advanced thermoelectric generators (ATEGs). The innovative design would allow private entities, universities, or other interested parties to carry out missions across the solar system at relatively low cost.
Another favorite of ours was Trans Astronautica’s Mini Bee asteroid capture concept in which they will deploy, then chase down and “swallow” a test object in LEO as a precursor to an asteroid mining mission.
Illustration of Trans Astronautica Corporation’s Mini Bee spacecraft chasing down and capturing an artificial asteroid in LEO. Credits: Joel Sercel / Trans Astronautica Corporation
Artist’s concept of an O’Neill space colony. Credits: Blue Origin
In a thread on Twitter Philip Metzger, a planetary physicist at the University of Central Florida, updates his bootstrapping vision from a few years back in which he and colleagues at NASA published a paper on how robotics, 3D printing and in situ resource utilization could be leveraged to accelerate a solar system civilization. In a series of 9 Tweets, Metzger makes the case for his “Rapid Bootstrapping Scenario” as the preferred course out of three possible alternatives to get us there faster.
Many space enthusiasts, including Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos, advocate for what Metzger calls a solar system “Civilization Fully Revolutionized”. This is a future where most industrial manufacturing is done sustainably in space and Earth is preserved as a beautiful natural environment.
If we continue on the current path, down what Metzger calls “The Slow Growth Scenario”, space agencies like NASA will continue paving the technological highway for private entities to slowly develop their profitable enterprises. But because space exploration and development is difficult, a different approach is needed to prime the pump. Metzger suggests the preferred course of action is intentional pre-economic bootstrapping in which “…visionary individuals with means, citizen-led movements, or governments that see the long-term benefit of getting beyond our planetary limit…create a coalition of likeminded citizen movements and enlightened governments committed to a good future so we reach the ‘ignition’ point first by being fast”.
Source: Philip Metzger/UCF. @DrPhiltill. www.philipmetzger.com
Artist’s impression of an inflatable habitat on the Moon. Credits / NASA, Gary Kitmacher
Haym Benroya, Distinguished Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Rutgers University and author of Turning Dust to Gold, Building a Future on the Moon and Mars gave a presentation recently at a workshop of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. EPSRC is the main funding body for engineering and physical sciences research in the UK. The event kicked of a project sponsored by the EPSRC called Designing for the Future: Optimizing the structural form of regolith-based monolithic vaults in low-gravity conditions. Benroya shared his presentation with me in which he discusses the design challenges and solutions to optimize a reliable and safe lunar habitat.
The design of space settlements on the Moon will have an array of engineering challenges including protection from radiation, meteoroids, temperature extremes and Moonquakes. In addition, human factors such as psychological and physiological aspects associated with isolation and the lower gravity conditions need to be taken into consideration. This presentation summarizes all the key design constraints, especially those surrounding the thermal and seismic conditions, laying the engineering groundwork for safe dwellings that will be erected when we return to the Moon, hopefully this time to stay and thrive.
For the technically inclined who want more information on lunar settlement design methodology be sure and check out Benroya’s excellent book Building Habitats on the Moon: Engineering Approaches to Lunar Settlements.
And don’t miss our appearance along with Dr. David Livingston of The Space Show and Moonwards‘ Kim Holder at the Icarus Interstellar 2017 Starship Congress.
One of the biggest challenges of space settlement facing humanity is procreation off world. We simply don’t know if its possible for a baby to be carried to term in less then one gravity. There are obvious ethical considerations of simply going there and trying it out. NASA is studying the problem but until we have a variable gravity centrifuge facility in space that will enable us to determine the “gravity prescription”, it will be a while before we have an answer.
In an article in The Space Review, Fred Nadis discusses some of the medical challenges of human reproduction in space and why one company, SpaceLife Origin, who’s mission was to enable human reproduction in space decided to suspend its planned missions for “Serious ethical, safety and medical concerns …”
These medical unknowns about reproduction in any gravitational field less then 1g is the obvious attraction of O’Neill type free space settlements which provide Earth normal gravity. But the huge scale and investment necessary to build such large scale settlements puts this approach far in the future. Al Globus thinks a better way might be to start with smaller spinning habitats in low earth orbit.
Asgardia’s has a key scientific goal of facilitating the first human childbirth in space which they believe is a crucial step on humanity’s “path to immortality as a species”. In preparation for that goal, the organization is creating the first sovereign nation in space. A good introduction to their plans can be found in an interview with Dr. Lena De Winne, the Head of Administration to the Head of Nation of Asgardia, who appeared on the Space Show recently.
Artist’s impression of the first human born in space. Credits: Asgardia
