Talk:Outpost

From OpenLuna
Jump to: navigation, search

NOTE ON THE OUTPOST PICTURES - Look, they are desktop bitmaps. People download these for their computers. Navigaiter It would be better, for the appearance of the page, to merely LINK to the desktop-compatible images. There's a lot of scrolling required now and most surfers aren't interested in changing their desktop. Nice pictures, you are justifiably proud of them and one can see a lotta work went into them.

Well done.

I am of the opinion that we should not allow the posting of purely commercial links on the pages. Comments? Paul 22:20, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Outpost todo list <--- This is a list of tasks that need to be completed prior to the construction of the analog/real Outpost.

Ideas For Consideration <-- This is for those wild ideas.


Assuming the outpost described has flat endcaps (bulkheads) and at least a 2.5-meter (8 feet) floor-to-ceiling height, the module would have a floor 3.75 meters wide by 6 meters length for a total area of 22.5 square meters. Total volume would be 301 cubic meters. Actually, this is pretty good. A crew of five would each have about 60 cubic meters for habitable volume.

More assumptions:

Individual bunks are 2 meters by .75 meters in area and are stacked up to three high in two stacks.

A galley table is a 1 square meter fold-away not unlike a card table.

A sink/countertop combo unit is 1.5 meters long by .5 meter wide.

All other partitions are provided by stacking storage containers, each of which is a cube 30 centimeters on a side.

A 'honey-bucket' toilet system is utilized where waste water is stored in an under-floor, collapsible water tank prior to processing. The compartment for this is also 1 square meter of floor area.

Up to this point we have used only 5.75 square meters, or about one-fourth, of the available floor area.

Underneath the floor is considerable volume for fresh water storage, waste water storage, power storage (batteries) and ventilation gear. The floor itself is a fabric stretched taut by the inflation of the cylinder.

Hatches are installed at both ends of the cylinder and both are equipped for docking folow-on units. A system of inflatable cylinders interspersed and interconnected with cargo module airlock units enables the Base to grow indefinitely in both horizontal and vertical directions. --Paul 18:08, 29 October 2008 (UTC)


(10/28/08) If we are prepared to accept a 2% increase in circumference for the inflatable outpost, we may be able to expand available floorspace by 30%.

A true cylinder 4 meters (12.8 ft)in diameter, constrained to a 2.5 meter (8.0 ft)floor-to-ceiling height, will have a floor approximately 3.8 meters(12.16 ft)wide. The circumference of a 4-meter diameter cylinder is 12.56 meters (40.19 ft).

A half-cylinder, or quonset, shape 5 meters in width will have a circumference of 12.85 meters - a 2.3% increase - yielding a floor area 1.2 meters wider - an increase of 30%. The floor-to-cieling height remains the same at 2.5 meters.

Actual curvature of the walls is increased yielding a slightly greater distance from the centerline for a quonset configuration based on these dimensions.

Given that floorspace and overall volume are always at a premium, I would recommend going with the quonset style for an inflatable. There would be the same number of seams (potential leakage points) in its construction as the cylinder and only a somewwhat greater complexity in construction, but actually this trades one complexity (installing a floor in an inflatable cylinder) for another (installing two 'D'-shaped endcaps to the ends of a fabric with non-uniform dimensions)for a net balance in effort. I'm drawing up an internal arrangement concept for this design.

=

OK, Certainly willing to go in that direction. We were going to use a flattened cylinder to make it wider, but if this can be made, all the better. Pretty much as soon as we get anything that looks like a usable floor plan, I'm going to build one (analog) to pressurize and test it. --Paul 18:08, 29 October 2008 (UTC)


(10/28/08) Crew size is currently envisioned as five or six. For the volume being considered (@ 300 cubic meters) there are major problems with sizing crew accomodations. Bunk space, for example, has to be divided by three bunks stacked. If total floor-to-ceiling height is 2.5 meters, each bunk would have to allocate just 83 centimeters each to stack three bunks. This would have to assume the lowest bunk was on the floor. This might seem a trivial point except that bare-minimum accomodations can be a very major morale buster - particularly if sleep quality is effected. This same general problem exists all the way through the design process. Not just for the outpost/habitat, but for the transport system as well.

By way of recommendation, the evidence suggests reducing BASIC crew size to four. Outpost expansion can be calculated in multiples of four crewmwmbers with fairly comfortable/robust margins based on the initial outpost mass being considered a standard design point.

== Not so sure I like that. There are some overhead costs that make more crew members cheaper. (head, shower, airlocks, cooking facilities, etc.) my experience in the Mars Society habs and in mountaineering lead be to believe that we could pull this off easily at an eight person occupancy. I am willing to build one, and try several 2-4 week analog operations in it to verify this. (Which is what I think will be the only way to answer this question.) --Paul 18:08, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

(10/29/08) There are two functional issues here: cost effectiveness of the design and crew perfomance. I was addressing both issues in the context of a single unit inflatable which is actually not the case -several inflatables are planned to be added. My point was that for the mass represented by the INITIAL base structure (not yet totally calculated) it seemed five or more crewmwmbers was eliminating safety margins and would likely impact crew morale and, hence, effectiveness. Work effectiveness directly impacts cost effectiveness as work not accomplished by the first crew will have to be bumpped to a later crew. Something we want to avoid.

With regard to overhead I suspect any cost savings realized by sending a larger crew would be countered by the need to install greater power capability to keep said crew healthier and by the need to send more mass to accomodate larger crew sizes.

FINAL size of the crew can be anything (8, 80, 800. . .) but the first one or two crews should be sized for minimal mass requirements. NavigaiterDr. Robert Zubrin, in "The Case for Mars" page 85, recommends four crew for the long duration Mars expedition. Smallest crew which can still possess the variety of skills needed; two systems mechanics to assure everything keeps functioning and two field scientists to get the science done and make the trip worthwhile. That's all 8-O. but I think a captain/cook/medic would make a good fifth person??

As far as I'm concerned we don't discuss anything Dr. Z says. He really has no practical experience here. The intended outpost is 6-10 people, we are thinking 8 is out first choice. The requirements for a lunar mission are vastly different than that of a Martian mission. We are not concerned with His Mars missions. Paul 02:08, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Whew, excuse meeee. Paul, which mission are you talking about that can support 8 crew? That would be way down the line from the first construction mission, 5-A that I was referring to in my Zubrin comment, in which they would have to live in the lander until the hab is finished?? Would you call the 8-man mission Mission 5-B or higher? Navigaiter

Special Interior Considerations

By: Robert Hawk

Humans are diurnal creatures, meaning we thrive off of daylight cycles. At the equator of the moon, the moon experiences ~14 Earth Days of "Day" and ~14 Earth Days of "Night." This can lead to many problems with sleep, stress, and even depression. Even at the proposed base site on the Moon's south pole, we would experience mostly sunlight. While this is good for producing power for the base, so much constant sunlight can be a problem. This is solved largely by placing the base underground, thus giving us the option to control how much light the crew is receiving on a daily basis. Since we need to emulate the sun as nearly as possible, we should implement full-spectrum lighting (actual, florescent full-spectrum lights, not the cheap incandescent knock-offs). Lamps such as those available from the Light Energy Co. (for example) have the advantage of using less power, providing more light, and lasting several years at normal use (in contrast to months for an average incandescent light.) Thus, while the initial investment may be greater (but not by much) than incandescent or fluorescent lighting, it pays for itself in the long run not only in cash, but also in crew morale and mental and physical health. See link below for more info.

Related Links:

Solar power systems Full Spectrum Lights

Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Toolbox