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The National Space Society’s 2008 Space Settlement Calendar Art Contest - Cosponsored by the Moon Society
by kokhmmm 
Link: http://www.nss.org/settlement/calendar/
The National Space Society’s 2008 Space Settlement Calendar Art Contest - Cosponsored by the Moon Society
The NSS Announcement
The National Space Society is sponsoring an art contest in which artists are to create visions of a space faring future - a future of space settlement, be they on the Moon, on Mars, on asteroids, or orbiting independently in space.
Twelve winning entries will be chosen to illustrate the NSS 2008 Space Settlement Calendar. Judges include world-renowned space artists David Hardy and Pat Rawlings.
The Grand Prize winner will have their artwork featured on the calendar cover and as one of the monthly images. This winner will receive a Beyond-Earth Enterprises 8 ounce Flight Container for suborbital rocket launch and return (valued at $1,500); a physical copy of Mojoworld 3 Professional 3D software (valued at $480); a $250 cash prize; a 1 year complimentary membership in the National Space Society, which includes a subscription to Ad Astra magazine; and a complimentary copy of the calendar.
There will be four First Prize winners in the categories of Best Lunar Settlement, Best Mars Settlement, Best Asteroid Settlement, and Best Orbiting Settlement. In addition to being published in the calendar, each of the four First Prizes winners will receive a physical copy of Mojoworld 3 Professional 3D software (valued at $480); a Beyond-Earth Enterprises Large Photo Kit for suborbital rocket launch and return (valued at $74.95); a $100 cash prize; a 1 year complimentary membership in the National Space Society, which includes a subscription to Ad Astra magazine; and a complimentary copy of the calendar.
The remaining seven winning entries will each appear in the calendar and the artists will each receive an electronic download copy of Mojoworld 3 Professional 3D software (valued at $480); a Beyond-Earth Enterprises DNA Flight Kit for suborbital rocket launch and return (valued at $34.95); a 1 year complimentary membership in the National Space Society, which includes a subscription to Ad Astra magazine; and a complimentary copy of the calendar.
Deadline for submissions is January 31, 2007. For information on submission formats and other contest details go to
http://www.nss.org/settlement/calendar/
The Moon Society Involvement
With the strong support of both the Moon Society Board of Directors and of NSS’ Space Settlement contest committee, The Moon Society will contribute a $250 cash prize for the best Lunar Settlement artwork, for which “The Moon Society receives recognition as sponsor of the Moon entry prize, MS is identified as a sponsor in the calendar and on the web site, The Moon Society gets non-exclusive reproduction rights to the winning Moon image. Also Peter Kokh will be one of the 5 judges."
Our involvement was motivated by the desire to secure rights to high quality artwork depicting genuine lunar settlement, not just of a starter outpost. While there is no guarantee that we will find among the submissions a piece that truly meets our expectations, this is perceived by the Leadership Council as a risk worth taking.
If you are an artist and think you have an idea of how to portray a space frontier settlement, either in free sace, on the Moon, on Mars, or among the asteroids, why not try your hand at it? Visit the Space Calendar website link above for details.
11/02/06 02:28:34 pm, Building a Settlement in the Bottom of a lunar Rille Valley
by kokhmmm
Link: http://www.moonsociety.org/2003-pcsn/14-rillesettlement.html
Building a Settlement in the Bottom of a lunar Rille Valley
"Cross-Section of a Rille-bottom Settlement" is the current "feature image" posted August 8th to the Society front page, top center.
We try to change these featured images every two weeks. This one comes from a design study done by a Lunar Reclamation Society team as an entry to the 1988 NSS Space Settlement Design Contest, Category: "Lunar Settlement for a population of 1,000-5,000."
At the time, "Milwaukee" Lunar Reclamation Society (NSS-Milwaukee) was sharing Moon Miners' Manifesto with the NSS chapter in Seattle, the Seattle L5 Society. They had a standing research team called SLuGs, Seattle Lunar Group Studies (a very appropriate acronym, or mascot, for giant slugs abound in that neck of the woods!) To the point, SLuGs was heavy with Boeing employees, and we were challenged but not intimidated by their talents. So we put together a team of eight persons (one came up all the way from Chicago, a 180 mile round trip, for every design session meeting!).
The constraint of the contest, "for a population of 1,000-5,000," meant that we would not be designing a moonbase or outpost, but a real frontier town. The contest designers clearly wanted us to "think outside the box, 50 years or so beyond the first moonbase." So we did just that. We took a pass on a lavatube-based settlement design, however. The rules required us to specify an exact location. And while we were confident that lavatubes existed, we didn't know at the time just where, exactly, on the Moon to find one. Today, we'd have our pick of several specific locations.
We had another idea. We would have to provide shielding for our habitation areas, and that's a lot of bulldozing if you have to pile regolith "up and over" a structure. Why not build our town in a rille? A rille is a valley created by the collapse of a lavatube ceiling. See illustration below.
If we built our town in such a valley bottom, we could simply pull the regolith down on top of it from the valley shoulders above, letting gravity do much of the work.
We poured over the best photographic atlases of the Moon we could find. We wanted an East-West running rille segment, for maximum sunlight purposes, and we found an ideal rille segment just north of the half-buried crater Prinz, near Aristarchus in the Sea of Storms, Oceanus Procellarum. Of course, with us all being familiar with Gerard O'Neill's Space Studies Institute in Princeton, New Jersey, we just had to name our lunar village "Prinzton!"
We had our rille. Our next consideration is how we could provide a structurally sound "firmament" roof for our village. Taking our inspiration from the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, we decided on an inverted catenary arc. A catenary arc is the form a suspended chain takes. Inverted, it is the most stable form of arch, because all the pressures pass down through the arms/legs of the arch.
Another question was making the arched roof of our settlement strong enough to withstand the upward force of air pressure within, against the vacuum without. We decided to have two arches, with a space between them, stepping down the pressure. We specified 1/2 normal atmospheric pressure for the lower "Town field" level, with the normal amount of oxygen, but reduced nitrogen. For the space between the two arched vaults, we specified 1/4 normal atmospheric pressure, at the same mix. This upper level would be our agricultural area. Each vault would be covered with 25 ft. of regolith, a generous amount for total protection. The total burden adding the regolith over each arch would be 50 ft., enough to counterbalance the 1/2 air pressure in the lower level so that the upward and downward stresses on the arch vaults was fairly well balanced.
You will get an idea from the large image how we would bring in sunlight, and how we would circulate the air between the two levels, so that the farm areas would refresh stale air from the town area.
Our entry had much more to it than that, and you can read all about it. Our paper was serialized under the title "Ventures of the Rille People," in MMMs #26-29, 31-32. This series has now been reedited, reillustrated, and republished in MMM Classics, #3 and #4, and posted online as downloadable pdf files. You can freely access these at: http://www.moonsociety.org/publications/mmm_classics/
You can also read the fully reillustrated paper online in 5 installments with the title: PRINZTON: A Rille-Bottom Settlement for Three Thousand People at:
http://www.lunar-reclamation.org/papers/rille_paper1.htm
Oh yes. the contest. We placed second, and I got to shake Hugh Downs hand. The good part of it was that we beat SLuGs and a host of other also ran entries. The bad part was that we lost to someone who did not at all meet the published design constraints, selected because he was an architecture student, and the judges preferred to award first prize to a student in the field, not to a rag tag team of chapter enthusiasts. The bottom line is that it was a lot of work, a lot of fun, and we learned quite a bit. And it lead to other things, like LUNAX (see the entry on LUNAX in the Lunar Directory in the right hand "destinations" menu on our front page. http://www.moonsociety.org/lunar-directory/
The plan is, each time we introduce a new featured image on the front page, to post a background article about it on the blog. So this is the first of many, hopefully twice a month.
MoonSkin? Mechanical Counter-Pressure Suit (Day 02)
by Moonbase Team
MoonSkin? Mechanical Counter-Pressure Suit (Day 02)
Principal Investigator: William Fung-Schwarz
Crew Health & Safety Officer, Human Factors Research Lead
William Fung-Schwarz, was2@utah.edu
Observations:
Today I wore the MoonSkin MCP suit for the first time. The suit specifications are included in this report. Donning of the suit was incredibly easy. I substituted a modified knit cap for a neck warmer and substituted this for the full head MCP hood. The air unit, radio, and other equipment were stored in a traditional waist bag (see photos). Hydration unit tubes and air tubes fit comfortably into the protective helmet. The air unit was run in intermittent burst (mostly due to the fact that the system is so loud). Intermittent use was not sufficient to prevent fogging of inside of helmet. I consumed 2 liters of water during the 1.5 hour excursion. Sweating was a small issue, only light undergarments were worn beneath the MoonSkin MCP. Elastic neoprene socks allowed for copious pedal perspiration. A shower after the EVA/Surface Excursion was a very welcome way to end the trial run.
http://w3.marsstuff.com/media/mdrs/fs05/images/crew45/c45d02eva07.jpg
Project Goals:
1. Create a realistic analogue simulation of a Mechanical Counter-Pressure (MCP) suit [first described by: Webb (1967, 1968); Annis & Webb (1971); Hargens et al. (1987); Aratow et al. (1993)] and currently being developed by F.A. Korona and D.L. Akin (at the University of Maryland) and Dava Newman (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
2. Collect descriptive and subjective data from 1-2 users of the
MoonSkin MCP about comfort, utility of manual dexterity, and temperature of suit.
Suit Description
1. Body: Mens 3/2mm Tilos Titanium Skin Chest Full Suit Jumpsuit Wetsuit (Model #J3020, size 3XL)
2. Hood: Standard/Unisex 6/3 Scuba Diving, Snorkeling, Water Sports Hood w/Vent (Model #H6010BK, size XL)
3. Inner Footwear: NRS HydroSkin? Neoprene Socks (Black, Large, Item 722203)
4. Outer Footwear: La Sportiva Latok (TRK) Boots (US size 12)
5. Hydration: Camel Pack Rogue (70 oz/2 litres, Item 720121)
6. Protection: Black Diamond Bod Climbing Harness (size XL)
7. Helmet: BMW/Shoei RF-1000 Helmet (large, with clear visor)
8. Forced Air Apparatus/Ventilation: Coleman Quickpump Rechargeable (Model 5999C400)
Estimated Suit Cost
1. Body: $67.99 (purchased from all3sports.com)
2. Hood: $19.95 (purchased from all3sports.com)
3. Inner Footwear: $33.00 (purchased from REI)
4. Outer Footwear: 250.00 (purchased from Campmor.com)
5. Hydration: $45.00 (purchased from REI)
6. Protection: $60.00 (purchased from Black Diamond)
7. Helmet: (borrowed) estimated cost $200.00
8. Ventilation: $32.00 (purchased from Gart Sports)
Future Upgrades
1. Helmet: Reevu Rear-view mirro helmet (http://www.reevu.com/)
2. Ventilation: 3MT Belt-Mounted Powered Air Purifying Respirator (PAPR) GVP-Series
Pre-Mission Update from Hugh S. Gregory T-Minus 3 Days
by Moonbase Team
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Feb 22nd, 2006 00:02PST
. . . . . . this is Artemis Control at T-minus 3 days, 10 hours and 24 minutes until Descent Orbit Insertion commences for the Big Blue lunar (simulated) lander. At this time all crew members have reported in on their preparation for the first attempt in over 34 years to return a human presence (in simulation) to the lunar surface.
Mission Commander Peter Kokh reports that the plans for the construction of a tunnel from the Artemis One Lunar Habitat (actually the MDRS Habitat) to the GreenHAB grey water recycling greenhouse and farm are now complete and that the proper materials for this construction are awaiting collection at their various Depot's at the Selene Launching Complex in Utah (SLC aka Salt Lake City, Utah). This tunnel will be a perminent addition to the Mars Desert Research Station and wlll remain behind when the ascent stage of the Big Blue lunar lander/ rover lifts off on March 12 to return the Crew to SLC where they will change to their respective commercial Earth return transports.
Crew Scientist Leslie Wichman reports that her prepartions for her plans to upgrading the existing flow meters for the GreenHab water reclamation system to enable instrumented data output, as well as the addition of filters to allow the meters to function more consistently are proceeding on schedule. Leslie will also be installing and testing a "solar still" to try to harvest some of the GreenHab recycled greywater for drinking water purposes. She has also been corresponding with other crew members to figure out how to collect the crew activity and food consumption data she needs for one of her projects without impacting the already busy crew schedules. Finally, she reports that her recovery from a nasty bout with the flu is nearly complete and that she is on time and track for seperate arrival at the Artemis One landing site at approximately T plus 3 days and 2 hours into the Artemis One Moon Base simulation mission.
Telemetry at this time indicates all systems are nominal on the Big Blue lunar lander currently docked at the Comfort Inn portion of the Selene Launching Complex. Reports from the Engineering Desk indicate that the (simulated) nuclear power plant at MDRS failed to power up yesterday morning for a battery charging cycle on the MDRS Hab and current crew had to make a Rover EVA into Lowellville. There they requested the assistance of the Mars Society's local representitive and engineer to get the power plant affectionately known as Wendy fired up. Don Foutz made two EVA's to the lander site yesterday and latest telemetry indicates operations are once again nominal.
All of you back on Earth can observe the activities of the crew currently in residence at the MDRS hab by web cam. To do this point your web brouser to
Here you will also be able to observe the activities of the Artemis One Moonbase (simulation) crew as they live and work on the analogue Moon at MDRS starting on Saturday February 25th.
Further reports will be transmitted as events warrant.
This is Artemis Control. . . .
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Pre-Mission Update from Hugh S. Gregory T-Minus 5 Days
by Moonbase Team
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Feb 19th, 2006 23:35PST
. . . . . this is Artemis Control.
We are now at the T-minus 5 days, 12 hours and 25 minutes until the Big Blue lander commences Powered Descent Initiation to ferry the Artemis One Crew to Hanksville Utah and the start of the Moon Society's first every Lunar Surface Excursion Simulation. At this time the team members are continuing their final preparations before launching off of Earth for their respective flights to SLC where Big Blue (our simulated Lunar Lander) awaits us.
William Fung-Schwarz, our crew RN began his mission preparation about a year ago...after his return from MDRS Crew 33. After a summer of data synthesis, literature review, contacting other human factors scientists, he was left with a 264-page draft of "the survey"...although the human factors survey is only one portion of the overall study (there are focus groups, activities, and interviews)...it is the central feature that the whole study rests upon. William has since put in about 4 months of revisions, additions, deletions, and a field trial...he submited the survey (and other study documents to the ethics committee at the University of Utah...called an "Institutional Review Board". This is a big step for a new investigator. The IRB was very friendly and helpful and he was awarded "approval" in about 3 weeks to continue. Currently he is now helping Laurel and Peter coordinate "cargo" requisition and purchasing for our mission as well as making some last minute modifications to the mechanical counter pressure (MoonSkin MCP) analogue suit that he will be trialing during our Moonbase mission.
Our Crew Engineer Steve Winikoff has been finalizing his studies on MDRS Engineering Systems and between this task and his regular day job, he has found time to research, design and impliement a web based "fill in the blanks" Crew Engineers daily report form. This is a long overdue improvement for documenting engineering activities at MDRS and FMARS and his efforts to standardise this reporting process is greatly appreciated by the Mars Society Engineering Team.
Ben Huset reports his pre-mission conditioning for the cold of the Lunar Nights is proceding well as is own astronomical observation schedule has him outside for many hours under the crisp, clear, sub-zero winter sky's. Ben is looking forward to further upgrading work on the MDRS web cam system and together with Hugh S. Gregory, will be tackling further upgrades and repairs to the Musk Observatory. Both Ben and Hugh are Astronomers on the Musk Observatory Team and Hugh is the Principle Investigator of Project MOSS, the Musk Observatory Supernova Search.
At this time all systems are Go on the Big Blue Lunar Transfer vehicle, currently docked at the Comfort Inn portion of the Selene Launching Complex awaiting our arrival and instruments show that systems on the Artemis Habitat are reported to be nominal with no major red flag events having occurred since the last telemetry session.
We will keep you posted as events unfold.
This is Artemis Control. . . . . . . .
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