Lunar Habitat - Habitable or Not?

You are an astronaut, sent to the Moon, and told to set up camp.

I mentioned that to save your fingers in constructing your Lunar Camp
you could drop in an inflatable.

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http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/02/22/65477.aspx
Bigelow Shots For The Moon
Posted: Thursday, February 22, 2007 6:36 PM by Alan Boyle

Even as Bigelow Aerospace <http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/> gears up
for launching its second prototype space station
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16639526/> into orbit, the company has set
its sights on something much, much bigger: a project to assemble
full-blown space villages at a work site between Earth and the moon,
then drop them to the lunar surface, ready for immediate move-in.

In an exclusive interview this week, Las Vegas billionaire Robert
Bigelow confirmed that his company has been talking about the concept
with NASA � and that the first earthly tests of the techniques involved
would take place later this year. The scenario he sketched out would
essentially make Bigelow a general contractor for the final frontier.

Snip

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/Components/Photos/070222/070222_Bigelow_hmed_1p.jpg
An artist's conception shows a Bigelow Aerospace complex in Earth orbit.
Such a station could serve as the precursor for prefabricated lunar bases after
2020.
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http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16639526/

Maurizio Morabito mentioned that I didn't say anything about protecting
the Astronauts from radiation.

In looking for information about Radiation Shielding I found a very
interesting and informative 30 page paper on the topic. Only one
problem, Maurizio talks about 12 feet or so of regolith to cover you and
keep a person working in the radiation industry below 5 rem a year
exposure. The article talks about much less thickness and only a need to
protect and Astronaut from 50 rem a year exposure.

In David Schrunk and company's book, "THE MOON - Resources, Future
Development and Colonization", page 310 says the general public maximum
whole-body radiation dose rate should be less than 0.5 rem/year and
those who work with radiation should be less than 5 rem/year.

The paper is very interesting and I will give you the link.
- LRK -
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http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19910008686_1991008686.pdf
Radiation Protection for Human Missions to The Moon and Mars.
NASA Technical Paper 3079, 1991
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That said I was reading some of Maurizio's blogs (see his note below)
and I thought I would see if I could find the reference he sites.
It turns out that on the newly updated NSS web site we have a nice list
of reading material and you can find the links there.

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http://www.nss.org/settlement/library.html
http://www.nss.org/settlement/moon/library/index.htm

*1985: Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21st Century. *Edited by
W. W. Mendell. Lunar and Planetary Institute. 866 pages. [Complete
online copy <http://ads.harvard.edu/books/lbsa/>] [Buy from Amazon
<http://www.amazon.com/Lunar-Bases-Space-Activities-Century/dp/0942862023/sr=1-1
/qid=1158774577/ref=sr_1_1/102-3575799-6704137?ie=UTF8&s=books>]


Page 663 is where your article starts.
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1985lbsa.conf..663S
There are other references to radiation shielding in articles on pages
141, 211, 363, 375, and the one on 663.
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Shielding is going to be something that has to be dealt with. Heavier
metals in stopping high energy tend to make for secondary emissions that
are lower in energy but give that energy up in blood forming tissue in a
rather disruptive manner.

Water and plastics have hydrogen bound up and that is a good match to
stop a lot of energetic particles without making a lot more nasties in
the process. Metals on the other hand need to be thick enough to slow
the high energy particles as well as the secondary emissions.

Regolith, the dirt of the Moon, is high in aluminum content and is more
like a metal than water.

Depending on which of the reports you want to consider you are talking
about inches or feet in thickness. Lugging thick metal slabs into space
will take some energy. Living inside your water supply is a
consideration, well not in the water but with the water storage part of
the surrounding walls.

Wrapping yourself in plastic wrap might be good too. The spacesuits are
multilayer and so is Bigelow Aerospace's inflatable.

I don't know if an Astronaut is considered stronger or just more
expendable. :-(

I am sure some of you who have worked with things radio active would be
better informed than I.

Now you have to look out for the dust, physical exertion, and radiation
exposure.

Next?

Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update

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Note from Maurizio - LRK
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Larry

There is one important thing obviously missing from these suggestions.

The thought of spending more than a couple of days virtually
unprotected on the Lunar surface should not enthuse anybody.

It has been computed (*) that on average a maximum 20% of time should
be spent by humans outside the protection of a minimum 4 meters of
regolith.

http://omnologos.wordpress.com/tag/moon/
(*) R Silberberg et al, 'Radiation Transport of Cosmic Ray Nuclei in
Lunar Material and Radiation Doses', in W W Mendell, ed, 'Lunar Bases
and Space Activities of the 21st Century', Lunar and Planetary
Institute, 1985, p668

If we seriously consider going back to the Moon, resources should be
spent investigating how easy it will be to bury those Habitats
(inflatable or otherwise) either under excavated regolith _OR_ in lava
tubes _OR_ in artificial giant caves. Especially the caves should be
easy to create with explosives, if there is no water in the lunar
rocks.

regards
maurizio
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http://omnologos.wordpress.com/2006/06/15/www-moon-the-why-what-and-when-of-a-permanent-manned-lunar-colony/
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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