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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
Log Book for February 27, 2006
by Moonbase Team
Log Book for February 27, 2006
Commander's Check-In
Peter Kokh Reporting
Projects underway! Today was our first full day. We are now settled in and got a start on several projects: the Human Factors project (William); the Space Frontier Diet simulation project (Laurel); Project MAST (Hugh); putting together our sponsors banner (Peter) and getting our Moon flag ready to put up tomorrow (Peter). Last night?s dinner, a vegetable curry with basmati rice, was a clear thumbs up winner, and will be the first entry in our Space Frontier Cookbook.
EVA: We had our first EVA today! William and Guido suited up today, William in a blue Mars skinsuit that he had made himself, and Guido in the standard EVA suit. Guido our journalist, is a professional and is posting radio and web reports daily to a number of media.
Crew Physical Status: One crew member has a bad cough, but otherwise we are all well and happy to be here.
Plans for Tomorrow: Tomorrow our ongoing projects will continue. Peter plans to begin assembling the arched top sections for the simulated pressurized tunnel to connect the GreenHab with the Hab. Getting beyond that depends on when Don can deliver the 40 PVC pressure pipes that we had on Big Blue before it died a noble death en route to the Hab from Salt Lake City on Saturday afternoon.
Miscellaneous: The sky was overcast last night at bedtime, but by 3 am every sky in the universe shown out the commander?s stateroom window. The commander resisted the temptation to share his excitement with the rest of the busily sleeping crew.
Maintenance: All utilities performed perfectly today, and that made Steven a happy camper.
Inventory: Plenty of food and other supplies. We did forget a few things in our shopping efforts, but with ingenuity, we?ll do just fine.
Support Requested: None.
Report Transmission Schedule:
1. Commander's Check-in, 19:00
2. Engineering Report, 19:30
3. EVA Report, 21:00
4. Science Report, 21:00
5. Journalist Report, 21:00
6. Photographs, 21:00
7. HSO Report, 21:00
"Denver, we have a problem!" - Peter Kokh
by Moonbase Team
------------
"Denver, we have a problem!" Today was supposed to be the first full day of the first Moon Society crew ever at MDRS (temporarily renamed the Moon Desert Research Station). But in fact, only one crew member, coming in via Grand Junction, CO arrived yesterday. The five us driving south from Salt Lake City had a simulated pressurized rover malfunction. The Mars Society's trusty 1983 Ford Crew Cab pickup, despite obvious signs of mechanical aches and pains, pushed on valiantly. But then alas, our faithful steed took its last breath about half way between Price and Green River. We thank it for picking the one small cellphone hot spot along the way. We were able to call for help.
Several people passing by stopped to see if they could be of assistance. Final, Don Foutz, our fix-anything can-do agent in Hanksville, arrived. After trouble shooting battery cables, the oil system and a loose starter, we finally got the engine to start only to hear the characteristic racket of a bad rod. We waited a couple of hours more for a tow truck. The crew packed in Don's van and we followed the tow truck with Blue, finally arriving in Hanksville a bit past 9 pm. A command decision was made to spend the night at the Whispering Sands and get a good nights sleep before coming out this morning. The alternative would have been to transfer all the luggage and cargo and to arrive by midnight, maybe.
After morning showers for all and something to eat, Don drove us out to the Hab about 8 am for our briefing by Crew 44 and the handover of the Hab. We had arrived with minimal essentials, so while waiting for the rest of our luggage and cargo to arrive, we held short planning meetings, and took a tour of the facilities to acquaint first timers with everything. We didn't expect the cargo to arrive before late evening, but the departing crew pitched in to transfer it from Blue to a trailer, and it was delivered about 3:30 pm. Thanks to Danielle, John, Jonathan, and Lealem !!!!
We are all in good spirits. Tomorrow will be our first full day and we expect to get a start on our various projects. Meanwhile, for the balance of today, the order of business is to unpack, have a good meal, settle in, and relax.
Peter Kokh, Commander
Artemis Moonbase Sim 1
MDRS Crew 45
February 26,2006