Space Colonies - Lunar Settlements. Chapter 2. Rutgers 2007 Symposium On Lunar Settlements

9

2Rutgers 2007 Symposium on Lunar Settlements

Paul D. Lowman, Jr.Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, Maryland

Paul D. Lowman Jr. is a geologist in the Planetary Geodynamics Laboratory at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The first geologist hired by NASA, in 1959, he has been involved in most major manned flight programs, includ-ing Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, and the Shuttle. His main research area is comparative planetology as applied to the origin of the Earth’s conti-nental crust. He has worked in lunar sample analysis, orbital photography, and orbital radar. From 1973 to 2004 he shifted to global tectonics, producing a map of global tectonic and volcanic activity of the last one million years. He is author of several books, most recently Exploring Space, Exploring Earth (Cambridge University Press, 2002).

AbstrAct This paper summarizes the major themes and ideas presented at a 4 1/2 day symposium on lunar settlements held at Rutgers University in June, 2007, sponsored by the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and organized by Haym Benaroya of that department. Presentations cov-ered the political and economic aspects of lunar settlements, structures and transportation, the lunar environment, energy and power, medical aspects of lunar settlements, outpost site selection, and use of the Moon as a platform for astronomy. A keynote paper by H.H. Schmitt covered topics including legal aspects of lunar settlements and possible economic products such as helium-3, demonstrably valuable for production of short-lived medical isotopes and per-haps for thermonuclear energy. Potential medical problems, discussed by sev-eral speakers, including J. Logan and W. Rowe, included radiation exposure and the effect of long-term hypogravity. Lunar resources discussed by sev-eral speakers include lunar water from possible polar ice deposits, hydrogen, helium-3, and oxygen from the lunar regolith. Outpost site selection has been narrowed to the south polar regions, with Shackleton Crater and Malapert Mountain the most-favored candidates. Lunar settlement shelters were pro-posed by several speakers, a consensus being that these must be largely under-ground because of the radiation problem. The feasibility of agriculture in lunar settlements has been demonstrated by operating greenhouses in the Antarctic.

83325_C002.indd 9 12/1/09 2:40:46 PM

© 2010 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

10 Lunar Settlements

The overall result of the symposium was a summary of the problems, pros-pects, and practicality of such settlements, now benefiting from three decades to assimilate the lunar experience of the 6 Apollo landing missions and the many robotic missions, American and Soviet.

Introduction and Overview

A Symposium on Lunar Settlements was held at Rutgers University dur-ing the first week of June 2007. In the planning stages for about two years, the Symposium was organized by Professor Haym Benaroya of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department. While his research focused primarily on lunar structures, the Symposium was organized so that the focus was the lunar settlement, and as such all relevant disciplines were included. The Symposium was a single-track 4-day meeting, with a half-day on the 5th day used for a ret-rospective and summary group meeting with thoughts on both content and for-mat. Details on this symposium as well as copies of presentations are available on the website http://www.lunarbase.rutgers.edu/. It is possible to also review the book of abstracts and to find contact information for the presenters.

Key Presentations

The Rutgers Symposium was 4 1/2 days in duration. It was a productive and stimulating meeting that will be summarized here. It was organized and run by the Center for Structures in eXtreme Environments. An abstracts volume is available at the symposium website http://www.lunarbase.rutgers.edu. In order of importance, here are summaries for a few of the main talks.

Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 Astronaut

Schmitt gave the keynote talk “Return to the Moon: Expanding the Earth’s Economic Sphere.” His first point was that a return to the Moon will help insure the long-term survival of the human species. Humanity has benefited from exploration for some 40,000 years, referring to migration of mankind from a point of origin into successively larger areas, for living space and resources. Exploration of America eventually permitted extension of free institutions to a new continent.

Economic factors affecting a permanent return to the Moon include initial capitalization, economic self-sufficiency, affordable access, and compatible

83325_C002.indd 10 12/1/09 2:40:46 PM


Rutgers 2007 Symposium on Lunar Settlements 11

space law. He cited government estimates of $150B for settlement of the Moon, but said we should stress annual costs, not cumulative ones.

Schmitt discussed He-3 at length, comparing it to “steam coal.” However, as in his book Return to the Moon, he stressed the near-term potential of He-3 for fusion reactors to produce short-lived medical isotopes. U. of Wisconsin is apparently close to achieving D-He-3 fusion at a level high enough to pro-duce these isotopes. There was much more, but most of what he said about this is in his book.

The question of mining He-3 on the Moon brought up the question of legal-ity. Schmitt said the 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibited territorial claims on the Moon, but did permit mining. He recommended ignoring the 1979 Moon Treaty, which like the Law of the Sea (LOS) would make lunar resources the common heritage of mankind. He said the LOS is still under study, and that it will be important to see if it restricts sea-bed mining and by implication lunar mining.

In the question period, Schmitt discussed the ISS, which he had barely mentioned. He said the ISS could be a valuable medical research facility for study of osteoporosis, and that he had been trying to persuade NASA to cooperate with NIH to explore this possibility. He raised the interesting point that space station astronauts can generally recover their lost bone mass in a few months, but that old people on earth with the condition do not. This has triggered considerable interest in the medical community.

Haym Benaroya, CSXE, Rutgers University

This was a very broad talk, “Lunar Structures,” covering all aspects of the return to the Moon. Benaroya made the point that we must get off the planet to insure the long-term survival of humanity. It will also be a great educational stimulus, attracting young Americans to the hard subjects—engineering, science, and mathematics—where enrollment is declining. He covered the political aspects of the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE), referring to mani-fest destiny in relation to emerging space powers such as China.

The Moon also offers a site for development of “space legs,” i.e., to learn how to live on other planets, which cannot be done only in LEO. Benaroya argued that a return to the Moon would be a great antidote to “societal pes-simism,” by providing a positive and uplifting vision for humanity.

There are many problems remaining before the Moon can be settled, but the basic knowledge of “lunar structures” is growing continually, and a small but “exciting” initial settlement is clearly feasible. Major problems remaining include radiation and long-term low gravity.

James S. Logan, Space Medicine Associates

This talk, on “biomedical showstoppers for long duration lunar habitation,” was an extremely important one for the lunar outpost concept. Logan has

83325_C002.indd 11 12/1/09 2:40:47 PM



a long career in aerospace medicine, and is now at JSC, but attended this symposium at his own expense and stressed that his views were strictly his own, not NASA’s.

Logan gave a detailed summary of the medical problems on the Moon: lunar dust, radiation, hypogravity, and probable synergistic effects. The dis-cussion of lunar dust was unusually interesting because terrestrial experi-ence was cited. Within 5 years of the drilling of the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel through Gauley Mountain in West Virginia in the 1930s, hundreds of miners died of silicosis even though they had been exposed for only a few months. The incident was arguably one of the biggest occupational health disasters in U.S. history. During the dry drilling process miners had been exposed to fine quartz dust kicked into the air. Medical experts are concerned activated fine lunar regolith may possess similar reactivity because of weathering by solar wind and repeated vapor deposition due to micrometeorite impacts. The issue will be to empirically determine the toxicity of activated lunar regolith compared to known terrestrial hazards such as TiO2 (minimally reactive) and quartz (highly reactive).

Logan’s discussion of radiation was equally informative. He pointed out that permissible exposure limits have been steadily lowered in recent years, citing the recent NRC study of space radiation. He concluded that short sor-ties on the lunar surface are feasible, but longer-term occupation is much more problematic due to elevated radiation exposures over time. Prolonged lunar surface habitation will effectively be precluded without substantial shielding. Because the space suit provides virtually no radiation protection, multiple lunar EVAs (by the same crew members) will most likely be severely constrained.

He discussed “hypogravity,” i.e., the low lunar gravity (1/6 Earth gravity). No permanent deleterious effects were observed in Apollo missions but exposure times were very short. (Lunar missions were approximately two weeks in total duration with no more than 3 days on the lunar surface.) Longer duration exposures (6 months) to microgravity have demonstrated significant effects, most of which appear to be reversible upon return to earth. However, recent data utilizing more sensitive measuring techniques suggest the rate of bone demineralization may be almost twice initial esti-mates. Worse, these changes may not be fully reversible in all crew members. He pointed out that lunar gravity may be very deleterious for the developing fetus, infant or toddler. If confirmed, microgravity effects could prohibit per-manent “settlement” (i.e., men, women, children and multiple generations) of the Moon or even Mars.

Logan’s warning against multiple EVAs has direct implications for pos-sible human service missions to the JWST, which at a Lagrangian point will be far beyond the magnetosphere. Dan Lester had an imaginative artist’s concept of a JWST service mission in a Nov. 2006 Physics Today article, but Logan’s discussion indicates that such missions would be problematic if they involved significant cumulative exposures during multiple EVAs.

83325_C002.indd 12 12/1/09 2:40:47 PM



Logan did not go into detail on “synergistic effects,” beyond warning that there would be such effects. All in all, this talk was perhaps the most impor-tant of the symposium in its implications for long-term settlement of the Moon or Mars, as outlined in the VSE.

In the question period, Larry Taylor said the space medicine people argued for either equatorial or polar base locations because they permitted return to Earth at any time. Lowman has pointed out in several papers that such locations permit abort from the surface to an orbiting spacecraft without any plane changes. (This is why the early Apollo missions were equatorial.)

William Rowe, Medical University of Ohio at Toledo

This was another important paper by a medical doctor with a background in space medicine: “Moon dust may simulate vascular hazards of urban pollution.” Rowe discussed several space flight factors with possible car-diovascular effect, by producing changes in the endothelium (artery lin-ing). Fine urban dust has been found to produce vascular constriction and high diastolic blood pressure. Rowe studied the Apollo 15 mission, which put great stress on Scott and Irwin, from which they took weeks to recover. Rowe suggested that the lunar dust might have been a contributing factor. He also suggested that a magnesium deficiency could have had an effect. In the question period, it was mentioned that JSC had prescribed massive doses of orange juice for the following missions in the belief that a potassium deficiency might have been responsible; he replied that both potassium and magnesium were probably involved.

Werner Grandl, Consulting Architect and Civil Engineer

Grandl presented “Lunar Base 2015: A Preliminary Design Study.” This was actually a detailed and specific proposal for a modular lunar station made of six cylindrical modules, each weighing 10.2 tons. These would be double-walled, with regolith for shielding. This base could be established with 11 Arianne 5 launches. This paper was interesting in that it showed how a lunar base could be developed with an existing launch vehicle. An obvious implication is that given the funding and motivation, Europe could produce a lunar base on its own.

Charles Lundquist, University of Alabama at Huntsville

Lundquist discussed “Apollo Knowledge Transfer.” This is a major and broad-based effort by the University of Alabama at Huntsville to bridge the 40-year gap since Apollo by archiving all sorts of data from the Apollo era. It includes all sorts of Apollo documents from retirees, oral histories, and many computer archives. The problem of changing these archives into for-mats readable with today’s equipment is being worked on. Lundquist said

83325_C002.indd 13 12/1/09 2:40:47 PM



that there is a Lunar Orbiter image recovery program going on at Ames, and that LO tapes have been sent from Goddard to Ames.

In the question period, Paul Lowman said that the National Space Science Data Center is working on the same problem, reformatting lunar data such as that from the ALSEPs into modern versions for re-analysis.

Larry Taylor, University of Tennessee at Knoxville

Taylor gave an excellent broad review of “In Situ Resource Utilization on the Moon.” He stressed the interrelation of science and exploration, and warned against separating the two, as in recent trends. Apollo was a success partly because of close relations between the engineers and scientists.

He presented well-illustrated discussions of potential oxygen, hydrogen, helium 3, carbon, and nitrogen resources, all solar wind-implanted. He also stressed the value of high-Ti basalts, since oxygen can be produced from ilmenite by hydrogen reduction. He discussed the problem of lunar dust, suggesting that a magnetic filter could remove part of the fine fraction, which has metallic iron.

Gregory Konesky, SGK Nanostructures, Inc.

Konesky discussed “hierarchical roving,” telerobotic lunar rovers of vari-ous sizes. His company has built working models, with a large rover about the size of a wheelbarrow carrying smaller ones to be deployed from it. He showed slides of Mars from various rovers, pointing out that there are argu-ments for large and small rovers depending on the nature of the terrain. Sojourner, for example, landed on a very rocky terrain, but was able to drive between the rocks better than a large rover might have. A large lunar rover could serve as an anchor point from which small tethered rovers could go down steep slopes.

There was discussion of letting the public back on Earth drive such rovers. Lowman has recommended this as a means of arousing public interest by letting students and others take direct part in exploration of the Moon.

Roger Launius, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian

This talk also emphasized the problem we face in returning to the Moon, chiefly public attitudes and budget limits. Launius showed a number of graphs illustrating public opinion about space exploration over the last sev-eral decades. Right after Sputnik, support was at an all-time high because of fear of the Soviets. However, it dropped off sharply. A 2007 Harris poll asking people how to reduce the federal deficit had 51% saying cut the space program, right at the top of the list. An earlier poll showed that 14–18-year-olds have little or no interest in a return to the Moon, and about 27% in this age range think the Apollo landings were faked.

83325_C002.indd 14 12/1/09 2:40:47 PM



Launius said that the primary driver for a new lunar program would have to be, like Apollo, national prestige and geopolitics. He quoted John Kennedy as saying that he was not really interested in space. The motivation for his proposal to go to the Moon was the Bay of Pigs fiasco followed shortly by Gagarin’s flight.

Launius showed that we got 3.8% of the federal budget at the peak of Apollo. He warned that we would probably have to live with a NASA budget under 0.9%. In summary, we really have a job ahead of us to sell the public on our programs.

Brent Sherwood, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

“What Will We Actually Do on the Moon?” was Sherwood’s title, and his reply was a broad summary of various ideas put forth at recent NASA meet-ings. Two of these were to establish simple observatories on the Moon, and stimulate public interest with “high-fidelity telepresence.” The latter sounds like Lowman’s recommendations for publicly accessible robotic telescopes and telerobotic rovers to be driven by the public. Like Launius, Sherwood said the public has little interest in the VSE.

Yuriy Gulak, CSXE, Rutgers University

In this talk, “Heat Pipes: How to Increase the Capillary Heat Transfer Limit,” Gulak outlined work on increasing the effectiveness of heat pipes by using a wick whose porosity varies along the length of the pipe. This would be appli-cable to Earth, Moon, and zero g conditions, where it is necessary to control internal temperatures in spacecraft.

Gregory Konesky, SGK Nanostructures, Inc.

This was the second paper by Konesky. It was a detailed quantitative discus-sion of optical data links, on the Moon and from the Moon to Earth. Such data links point to point on the Moon are limited chiefly by the Moon’s topography, in the absence of an atmosphere.

Konesky presented a detailed quantitative study of Moon-Earth optical links. The power requirements are in principle modest: a 1-watt laser on the Moon, sent from a 1-meter aperture, could be received on Earth with a 1-meter dish. However, the actual requirements would be much harsher, because of the atmo-sphere, clouds, etc. He discussed the problems of an orbital optical link.

Gene Giacomelli, University of Arizona, Tucson

In terms of sheer novelty, this was one of the most interesting papers in the symposium. The title, “Development of a Lunar Habitat Demonstrator,”

83325_C002.indd 15 12/1/09 2:40:47 PM



refers to work being done at the U. of Arizona in Tucson and at the South Pole Amundsen-Scott base. This group has established at the South Pole a green-house in which hydroponics farming under high intensity sodium lights produces continuous supply of fresh vegetables. The greenhouse is tended partly by volunteers, who enjoy the warm humid atmosphere. There is a small café/lounge attached where station personnel can meet for meals and conversation. It has tables with tablecloths, dishes, and cutlery. The green-house generates oxygen, not needed on Earth but of obvious importance for a lunar base. The U. of Arizona group is now building a similar structure on Tucson designed specifically for the Moon.

Tom Taylor, Lunar Transportation Systems, Inc.

In “Lunar Commercial Logistics Transportation,” Taylor drew lessons from transportation to remote locations on Earth, such as Prudhoe Bay, Alaska and proposed a commercial lunar transportation architecture that is modu-lar and flexible. He estimates that the Moon is 50 times more remote and 100–1,000 times more expensive than the Arctic, as well as more severe an environment. This architecture is based on refueling a fleet of fully reusable spacecraft at several locations in cislunar space, which creates a two-way highway between the Earth and the Moon. Coming from one who is a key investor and venture capitalist for space ventures, his views are valuable.

Paul Eckert, Integrated Defense Systems, The Boeing Co.

Eckert as well is a major player to identify business opportunities within the Return to the Moon, for both aerospace and other companies. The title “Attracting Private Investment for Lunar Commerce: Toward Economically Sustainable Development” summarizes the focus of his efforts over a number of years. He has led a number of meetings of business leaders who are work-ing to encourage development of truly commercial, self-sustaining space activity involving non-government customers, rather than simply extending government contracting. It is clear that NASA or the Federal Government alone cannot develop space. We will be fortunate if they begin the develop-ment of the transportation system and the initial lunar infrastructure upon which businesses can build their plans.

Steve Durst, Space Age Publishing Company

Durst discussed the International Lunar Observatory Association, a group incorporated in Hawaii as a 501c to promote establishment as early as 2010 of a lunar observatory, the ILO. The ILOA is administered by Space Age Publishing Company/Lunar Enterprise Corporation, based in Waimea, HI. The ILO is planned initially as a robotic mission with optical and radio astronomy capability, on Malapert Mountain, which can eventually be visited

83325_C002.indd 16 12/1/09 2:40:47 PM



by a human servicing mission. The ILOA involves the large astronomical community on the Big Island, where there are 13 observatories on Mauna Kea with control centers in Hilo and Waimea. Space agencies in India, China, and Japan have expressed interest in the ILO, which has been in the planning and organization stage since 2003.

Manny Pimenta, Lunar Explorer, LLC

This paper was titled “Malapert Base,” which gives its essence briefly. Pimenta’s group has designed a large modular base to be built underground at Malapert Mountain. It would be designed for maximum habitability, with large spaces reminding us of the underground shopping malls in Toronto. Pimenta has had no contact with the first author, so his recommendation of Malapert was an independent one, probably based on David Schrunk’s pre-sentation at the 2003 Waikoloa meeting.

Paul Lowman, NASA Goddard

This paper, “Malapert Mountain: A Recommended Site for a South Polar Outpost,” was given on the first day, and there was time to hear reaction during the remaining days. It was apparently well received though there was only one question. However, several other speakers beside Pimenta mentioned Malapert. Durst’s proposed ILO would be located on the top of Malapert.

An aspect not mentioned in this presentation is that an outpost in con-tinual sunlight, and in continual view of the Earth, would be more benign psychologically than other recommended sites. Since several speakers at the Rutgers symposium brought up psychological stress problems, a few words about this aspect might have been added to this paper.

summary and conclusions

This was a very serious and somewhat sobering meeting, attended chiefly by very senior and high-level people. The main points from it appear to be the following.

1. The VSE has little public support. Most people have little interest in a return to the Moon, in particular the 14–18 age group, from which the scientists and engineers of the next generation must come. Part of the problem is that the public has no idea at all how little NASA spends. The first author suggests that this problem must be coun-tered through two channels. First, the press must be persuaded to

83325_C002.indd 17 12/1/09 2:40:47 PM



stop emphasizing the cost of NASA missions. Second, the educa-tional community must be brought into the VSE, both teachers and students.

2. The problems of the lunar segment of the VSE are now well defined. They are in order of priority radiation, dust, and hypogravity. The combination of these will probably have synergistic effects. The dust problem (for manned missions) is well understood and probably controllable. However, radiation outside the magnetosphere remains a severe problem for long-duration lunar surface EVAs and surface structures. Hypogravity (1/6 g for the Moon) is no problem for short missions, but may well be a severe one for permanent settlements. It may in fact prohibit settlements involving large populations and families.

3. Lunar surface missions up to a few months are possible with present technology and knowledge, but “settlements” may not be for the foreseeable future. Manned Mars missions are probably decades down the road from a return to the Moon, the radiation and hypogravity (in space and on Mars) problems being major obstacles.

4. There is a real requirement for a robotic soft-landing lunar program before the return of humans to the Moon. No one brought this out specifically, except for Durst, but manned missions to regions very poorly known, specifically the South Pole, would be extremely risky without precursor robotic missions. The Apollo missions were pre-ceded by seven Surveyor ones, five of which were successful.

5. The commercial space sector is now seriously interested in a return to the Moon, and has much of the necessary technology in hand or nearly so. The Apollo Program was a government-funded and administered effort. However, the commercial opportunities of a return to the Moon are now much clearer. There appear to be no major legal barriers to private sector lunar programs, such as He-3 extraction and export to Earth.

To summarize this summary, it isn’t 1961 any more, when the lunar program was carried along on a wave of public support. So we have a lot of work to do to reignite this support.

83325_C002.indd 18 12/1/09 2:40:47 PM


Technology

Space Colonies - Lunar Settlements. Chapter 2. Rutgers 2007 Symposium On Lunar Settlements