Technical Resources
Hello, all. I thought that it would be beneficial to set up a separate forum to post relevant, useful resources to keep everyone up to speed on the "state of the union" as it relates to lunar development. Please feel free to post reports, articles, and presentations - technical or public-level - that you think might be useful!
Note 04/2007: the link(s) immediately below link to separate threads. I apologize for any confusion.
All-
Please see the attached (however brief) statement from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, entitled, "Robust Implementation of Lunar Settlements with Commercial and International Enterprise," which is also subtitled, "Moon Base 2015." The statement/report can be found here: http://www.aiaa.org/content.cfm?pageid=535
While farther-looking, the basic points of the statement line up nicely with the Planetary Society report that 'launched' the lunar waystation as a topic, and this is a great read for those who wish to familiarize themselves with the necessary steps toward a full-fledged and operational lunar community.
Please link below for a recent presentation from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Lunar Precursor and Robotic Program.
http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/library/3-05LPRP-Plescia.pdf
This is an excellent resource, which details the current plans and timeline from NASA for lunar exploration over the next two decades.
All,
Please link below for a presentation given last month from John Connolly of the Lunar Lander Project Office. This is a nop-notch visual presentation that details future lander options, lunar outposts and potential sites, and plenty of new visuals:
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2007/Connolly.AIAA.02.20.07.pdf
Hello everyone,
quick intro: my name is Giorgio and I am a ph.d. student in the field of Aerospace Engineering. I just joined today and I am trying to get my bearings straight. Have we decided what to focus on?
As far as my initial approach is to engineering problems, I want to suggest that any space endeavour needs to be put into perspective. Space applications are extremely costly and the higher the cost, the higher is the chance to have the project put to rest due to over-budget issues. Other than that, cost-to-performance should be a good figure of merit to assess how feasible our design ideas are.
This is just a general point of view that I wanted to share while I try and learn which point of progress the team is at.
Cheers,
Giorgio
Welcome, Giorgio!
It appears, with people signing on with different backgrounds and preconceptions about this project, there is some confusion propagating through the post threads about our purpose here, so I can understand it being a little difficult to get your bearings. If you follow the bulk of the "Setting the Ground Rules" thread, you will be largely up-to-speed on the technical discussions so far on the boards as they relate to the project objectives set out by the Planetary Society. Please feel free to join the discussion as we narrow in on our research objectives, and again, welcome aboard!
Ashish,
Please reserve this thread for linking to technical resources as they relate to lunar surface infrustructure, in-situ resource utilization, or other technical documents and/or references that might help us approach the objectives set out by the Planetary Society report:
http://www.spacegeneration.org/index.php?q=node/39
Life support systems on the ILWS must not only supply oxygen and remove carbon dioxide from the cabin's atmosphere, but also prevent gases like ammonia and acetone, which people emit in small quantities, from accumulating. Vaporous chemicals from science experiments are a potential hazard, too, if they combine in unforeseen ways with other elements in the air supply.
Most people can survive only a couple of minutes without oxygen, and low concentrations of oxygen can cause fatigue and blackouts. To ensure the safety of the crew, the ILWS will have redundant supplies of that essential gas.
The primary source of oxygen will be water electrolysis, followed by O2 in a pressurized storage tank. Most of the station's oxygen will come from a process called "electrolysis," which uses electricity from the ILWS solar panels to split water into hydrogen gas and oxygen gas. Each molecule of water contains two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Running a current through water causes these atoms to separate and recombine as gaseous hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2).
Hydrogen that's leftover from splitting water combines with excess carbon dioxide from the air in a chemical reaction that produces water and methane. The water would help replace the water used to make oxygen. Various uses for the methane are being considered, including expelling it to help provide the thrust necessary to maintain the Space Station's orbit.
In absence of electrolysis of water astronauts uses breathed oxygen from "perchlorate candles," which produce O2 via chemical reactions inside a metal canister.
Carbon dioxide is removed from the air by a machine based on a material called "zeolite," which acts as a molecular sieve.The removed CO2 will be recycled.
In addition to exhaled CO2, people also emit small amounts of other gases. Methane and carbon dioxide are produced in the intestines, and ammonia is created by the breakdown of urea in sweat. People also emit acetone, methyl alcohol and carbon monoxide -- which are byproducts of metabolism -- in their urine and their breath.
Activated charcoal filters are the primary method for removing these chemicals from the air.
A safety review for each proposed experiment will determine the level of containment that the rack-mounted experiment facilities must provide. In the event of a release, the crew will seal off the contaminated module and then follow procedures for cleanup, if possible.
But careful planning and well-designed hardware should minimize the risk of this scenario, enabling the crew of the Space Station to breathe easy.
Ashish,
The reason I named this thread "technical resources," (and please see the opening post for additional clarification,) was to establish a place where we could link to outside published papers and reports that could help us in our discussion in other threads. Think of it like an archive.
So, general discussion of life support systems, etc., should really be reserved for another discussion thread if we are to retain any of the utility of this thread as a technical resource database.
Hey guys,
After reading some of your posts, I think that an International Lunar Way Station will require lots of planning. This is kind of an obvious statement, but I really think we should try to break down this discusion further. Discussing general ideas like this on a forum doesnt seem to be getting us anywhere. How about we break this forum into smaller topics, such as life support (which you guys are mostly discussing so far), architecture, method of transportation, etc.
I'm thinking if we really want to get places with this, we need to be a little more methodical. How about we start making additional forums? Ideas anyone?
~Nick Alterio
Nick-
I completely agree with you. If at all possible, I'd like to help maintain this particular thread as a database for linking to external reports, etc., so that everyone can contribute NASA reports, other papers, etc., that we can use as resources for discussions in other threads.
Feel free to create any new threads that you feel would be helpful (that's what I did), and hopefully we can streamline the discussion and progress here.
I thought the NASA Exploration Systems Architecture Study would give us an idea of the angles from which we could approach this. Here are the intros along with sections 3 (ground rules and assumptions) and 4 (lunar architecture).
I've also linked to sections 1 and 2 for completeness.
This is not at all adequate for a waystation to be used by international partners, but the ideas and format might give us a starting point.
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2005/ESAS.REPORT.01.PDF
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2005/ESAS.REPORT.02.PDF
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2005/ESAS.REPORT.03.PDF
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2005/ESAS.REPORT.04.PDF
Hey Ashish,
This is just to reinforce what Ben had mentioned before. I had been going through some of your thoughts/comments/suggestions on delivery of our product through discussions. At present, we are at the preliminary stages of the project by identifying the key scope/objectives and discuss/collect technical resources for our work. So, I believe it is prudent to think of meaningful discussions by developing necessary thread links.
Also, I think you had completely misunderstood the relevance of this project, based on your comment on using GPS on Moon and using non off-the-shelf technologies as Anti-matter propulsion. In order to have a better vision, I suggest you to look at the planetary Society website and scan through the following page and the hyperlinks on the side frames:
http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/aim_for_mars/lunar_waystation...
It would be highly appreciated if you do not create threads which are unnecessary at this stage and confuse new visitors and contributors to this forum on what is going on.
Thanks.
Aravind
thank you arvind for your opinion , but whatever i have written is about life support systems required for the settlement of human being on lunar way-system , because their is maximum use of lunar way station compare to iss because main use of ILWS is for establishing habitat on moon most of the controlling is done from ILWS .....astronauts first reach on ILWS and from there they will go on moon i.e. the whole mission is divided in two phases ...the two spacecrafts are required one to go from earth to ILWS and second one is to go from ILWS to moon...both spacecrafts are manufactured according ot their application to the atmosphere like to earth or moon.....this is the future of moon trip..it becomes economic with the built of ILWS......
following lines are from planetary society website suggested by mr. arvind. please read it carefully:
"A Lunar Way Station would serve as a test bed for operational aspects of Planetary Outposts in a closer-to-home environment and would focus lunar missions in the coming decade"
" The Planetary Society recommends establishment of an international Lunar Way Station - as a first step towards a Planetary Outposts exploration strategy,which systematically builds sustained robotic, then human assets at selected sites on a given planetary body"
that is whatever i am talking.....
thank you kevin for your suggestion uptil i am understanding that the ILWS is between earth and moon , but now i understand what exactly it is .......actually i am confused about station so sorry for this to all ....thank you lots , now onwards i wil think according to it ........
Although it doesn't link directly to the waystation I thought that the following links may still be useful as background information on some of the discussion so far by various organisations promoting ISRU.
In situ resource utilisation Links:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar_knowledge/LTaylor.pdf
http://www.mines.edu/research/csr/Files/Commercial_Space%20_ISRU_Roadmap...
Satinder
link to International Conference on Moon Base:
http://www.moonbase-italia.org/mos-proceedings.htm
Perhaps, it's already in your list. :)
You can download the presentation files from the proceedings of each workshop.
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Joined: 2007-02-14