Colonizing the Moon
This is a project that will surely be implemented in one
form or another during the 21st Century. The political stakes are
too high for any superpower not to attempt it. It is also a necessary step
towards the real challenge – Colonizing Mars.
It will be a while before you can buy business class tickets
to the moon and back! All you can do now is what millions of immigrants have
done in the past; go to a faraway land with no guarantee of return. A project that
plans only a one-way trip is far simpler than one that aims for a safe return
trip soon.
A one-way trip will find many volunteers above the age of 50
if they believe that life expectancy of astronauts in this project would be at
least 20 years from the beginning of the lunar trip.
This means that the project design should aim to keep risks
low enough to give a good chance for its crew to live 20 years or more on the
moon. This may not be that difficult, given that a NASA astronaut Mark Vande
Hei has spent 355 days on the International Space Station (ISS), beating the
previous record by 15 days.
The project may take various forms, but I will outline one
possible form below, to throw light on the feasibility of the idea.
Constructing infrastructure before human’s land
The project could begin with the design and fabrication of several
electrically operated mini-earth movers, say with a one-meter blade to dig
trenches on the moon. They should be computer driven and be capable of carrying
out a few tasks autonomously, with some remote supervision such as
1)
digging a trench 4 meters wide and 4 meters
deep, to build underground living quarters for the pioneers.
2)
depositing cement/concrete type of lining on the
walls and floor of the trench.
3)
move prefabricated slabs to build a roof for the
trench.
4)
level a patch of the lunar surface, say in the
shape of a hexagon or octagon, within a circumscribing circle 12 meters in
diameter.
A few earth movers and construction material would first be
sent using an unmanned lander. The earthmovers under remote control from the
earth would build a landing area for the manned landing, and an underground
trench which would ultimately become underground quarters. The trench can be
finished later, after the project team arrives. The lander should ideally be
designed to serve as the initial residence and be available later as an
alternative residence to meet contingencies.
The layout of the lunar base should be highly modular. It should
grow over a period to include multiple landing zones connected by trenches.
Some trenches would be residential, and some would house equipment like
batteries. Yet others would have transparent roofs to raise crops like lettuce, tomatos, spinach, mushrooms. The crops would be kept alive during the lunar nights by
ultra-violet lighting. This effort to grow food would be considered
experimental and would not be depended upon to ensure crew survival.
Replenishments
It would take a long time to harvest any oxygen or water
that is available on the moon. The project should ensure that unmanned supply
spaceships are sent every quarter. We know from the experience with the ISS
that water, such as urine, and carbon dioxide in the air arising from human
breathing can be recycled, reducing the need for oxygen and water to be
replenished from the earth. Taking all this into account, it might be
sufficient for the project to send a few tons of replenishments every quarter,
including oxygen, water, food and other needs.
The lunar base should have adequate storage facilities to
store six months of oxygen, water, and food, to face any contingencies.
Power
ISS generates approximately 100 KW of power. The lunar base
should ideally generate 300 KW of power and have adequate battery capacity to
last out a whole lunar night.
Project Staff and what they will need to do
Planning, selecting, and training a team for this project
would be the most critical requirement. The team will need to have a variety of
requisite skills and adequate redundancy so that more than one or two personnel
are available to handle any situation. One of them must be a doctor, who can
handle minor surgery if need arises. He will require a store of medical
supplies and equipment, including an X-Ray machine and an ECG instrument.
Engineers to handle all systems and communicators who can anchor videos for TV
broadcasting on earth would be necessary.
Role assignments should ensure adequate rotation, and time
to do exploratory work in their specialist areas: searching for lunar
resources, developing farming techniques, operating specialized equipment such
as a moon-based telescope to send data to observers on earth, etc. Everyone
should have the opportunity to do creative work and publish their findings, as
this would be their major reward. Of course, they should be paid a salary.
Growing the colony
While we may not be able to plan a return to earth as of
now, we might be able to add to the project staff by sending one or more small teams
over a period as the infrastructure is extended.
Recycling is a fundamental requirement for maintaining any
lunar base. For instance, consider the small landers that would arrive every
quarter. They need to be reusable. One option is to make them vehicles for
lunar exploration. With no significant air drag, and with a gravity one-fifth
of what we experience on earth, such vehicles would be practical to hop a few
dozen miles at a time. Choice of suitable landing sites, and stability after
touch-down would be basic requirements they should meet. Extendable legs could
increase stability. A longer-term solution would be for prefab slabs that could
be carried during initial trips to build small landing pads at different
places. Each landing pad would be say, 3 meters by 3 meters in size.
Infrastructure Building
A Lunar Positioning System (LPS), like the GPS we all use,
can easily be created for the moon. A few satellites in an analog of the
Geostationary Equatorial Orbit would be needed to cover most of the surface of
the moon. A few polar satellites in lunar orbits would be necessary to serve
the polar regions. Ideally, all these should be created by international
cooperation and be available to teams from all nations.
In fact, the whole project would benefit from multinational
cooperation and investment.
Srinivasan Ramani
