From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Thu Jul 01 2004 - 13:28:38 PDT
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From: NASANEWS_at_mail.arc.nasa.gov<mailto:NASANEWS_at_mail.arc.nasa.gov>
To: ames-releases_at_lists.arc.nasa.gov<mailto:ames-releases_at_lists.arc.nasa.gov>
Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2004 1:31 PM
Subject: NASA RESEARCHERS CONSIDER MOBILE LUNAR BASE CONCEPTS
John Bluck
June 29, 2004
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Phone: 650/604-5026 or 604-9000
E-mail: jbluck_at_mail.arc.nasa.gov<mailto:jbluck_at_mail.arc.nasa.gov>
Release: 04-64AR
NASA RESEARCHERS CONSIDER MOBILE LUNAR BASE CONCEPTS
Landing mobile bases on the moon is an idea whose time has come,
according to a NASA researcher.
Lunar bases that can travel on wheels, or even legs, will increase
landing zone safety, provide equipment redundancy and improve the
odds of making key discoveries by enabling crews to visit many lunar
sites, according to Marc Cohen, a researcher at NASA's Ames Research
Center, in California's Silicon Valley. Cohen recently presented his
concept in a research paper at the 2004 American Institute of Physics
Forum in Albuquerque, N.M.
"If you set up a base at a fixed location on the moon, you are very
limited in the sites of scientific interest that you can reach,"
Cohen said. "What it comes down to is if you're landing a habitat on
legs and wheels, it doesn't take a lot more investment to make it
highly mobile, provided you have enough energy resources that would
enable it to travel great distance across the moon with or without
the crew onboard," Cohen explained.
Linked mobile moon habitats might travel like treaded trains without
tracks, or they could cross the moonscape in a line like Conestoga
wagons crossing the American West. Walking or rolling habitats could
dock to one another, or circle close together, when they reach a rest
or research site, according to designs suggested by engineers over
that last three decades, Cohen noted.
In contrast, a common scenario for exploration of the moon is that
one or more astronauts would travel to a remote site in a pressurized
or unpressurized 'rover.' An unpressurized rover trip would only last
hours because the astronauts would be in spacesuits for the entire
trek. A pressurized rover could sustain astronauts for a much longer
trip, lasting days or weeks.
"If you are trying to conduct research with pressurized lunar
vehicles, you run into many safety issues," Cohen said. To avoid
life-threatening or other compromising situations that might occur
with only one rover traveling to a remote place, a second rover might
travel with the first.
"But what if the second rover runs into a problem, too - the same or
a different problem? Well, that means a third rover," Cohen said.
"So, why not make the entire base mobile, so that all the resources,
reliability and redundancy of the lunar mission move with the
excursion crew?" Cohen reasoned.
"In addition, there's risk if you land lots of immobile modules in
one spot -- there is a danger you'll have a very long commute to a
place of scientific interest, or can't get there. Then you've wasted
billions of dollars. Mobile habitats greatly reduce the risk of
finding yourself on the wrong place on the moon," Cohen added.
Another advantage of mobile moon habitats is that they will be able
to move out of the lunar landing zone, which could be hazardous. "The
landing zone poses the problem that once a habitat lands on the moon,
it is not prudent to land another vehicle within several kilometers
because of safety concerns from ejecta in a normal landing, and in
case of an explosive failure on impact," Cohen said.
Cohen suggests that mobile habitats must have robust radiation
shielding for them to be practical. "Radiation protection remains a
challenge and a potential showstopper, as it does for all lunar base
and rover concepts," Cohen said. However, there are potential
shielding concepts that may well be reasonable, according to Cohen.
The Office of Exploration Systems, NASA Headquarters, Washington,
funds this research. Publication size images are available on the
World Wide Web at:
http://amesnews.arc.nasa.gov/releases/2004/lunarbase/lunarbase.html and
http://amesnews.arc.nasa.gov/releases/2004/mobitat/mobitat.html More information about space architecture is on the Internet at:
http://www.spacearchitect.org -end-
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