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Models & Displays Wish List
11|15|2002
Trial Balloon Lunar Settlement Flag
- black of space
- gray of Moon
- yellow of sunlight
- green of agriculture
- blue of water
two variations have a small circle at the focal point to indicate human settlement
- dark gray for settlement structures
- coral
to indicate human blood in a
race-neutral way
Considerable input has been received from participants on artemis-list, with quite a few variations using the same color scheme. We have not yet mulled them over and come up with an ideal design
In February, 2002, we collaborated with Shaun Moss of Australia to produce a matched pair of Earth and Moon flags
We have a Lunar Prospector model kit ready for someone to assemble
- email us
- call 414-342-0705 (Peter)
If public outreach is a major thrust of our activity, well-chosen, well-designed display items are most useful. We want them to have these characteristics:
- attention-getting - we want people to stop and take a look, not walk by
- imagination-stirring - we want people to start thinking about future possibilities
- realization-producing - we want people to suddenly realize that "this future stuff" is a lot more feasible and could become a nearer term reality, than they had ever realized
- involvement-suggesting - we want people to see that here is a project that can use their talents, that can give their discretionary time some direction and excitement
In addition to the very fine display items of the Milwaukee-based Lunar Reclamation Society to which we already have access, the following might serve our purpose especially well
- Models of Various Vehicles
and Hab-in-the-can modules
- Artemis' Spacehab-complex starter Moonbase - Completed 11|12|02
- Artemis' exciting open two-couch Ascent Vehicle "motorcycle" - U.C. 11|12|02
- The "Frog", an "amphibious" landing craft that doubles as a surface taxi or coach Frog/Toad
- An Earth-Moon ferry with artificial gravity for both loop-the-Moon tourists and outpost and settlement personnel enroute to the surface.
- you get the idea
- Models of more advanced
surface complexes and settlements - it is essential
to get across that unlike the case with the Apollo
Project, the Artemis Society goal is not a
do-it-and-get-it-over-with "achievement" of the "Flags
& Footprints" variety, but to jump start permanent,
resource-using settlement of the Moon, and expansion of
Earth's economy into an Earth-Moon economy. To do this,
models and dioramas of more advanced yet realistic lunar
surface outposts and settlements will help create lots of
personal "eurekas" - just the effect we need. Here are
some possibilities:
- A Lavatube Model - following the instructions by Gus Fredericks of the Oregon L5 Society who has put one together.
- An outpost within a lunar lavatube - most people do not know that the Moon has such spacious harboring "Hidden Valleys" - all they see is a barren and monotonously desolate rockpile and dust pile
- Models of
the
hybrid-rigid-inflatable
"moonbagel" concept first broached in an
LRS' 1991 space development conference paper, and
since adopted and engineered for special applications
by the NASA-Johnson TransHab team. We might consider
two "cutaway" interior-exposing versions, both
partially brainstormed by the LRS team:
- an elbow room providing outpost living quarters complex
- a highly-automated agricultural unit
- a laboratory / workstation unit
- since these "moonbagels" can be grouped on a hex pattern, we could add additional illustrative units on the same table-board.
- On 11|05|02 we began acquiring parts and materials for producing a test "moonbagel" model
- "Prinzton" - LRS entered
a preconception-bursting design for a lunar settlement in
the 1,000-5,000 category in the National Space Society's
1989 Space Habitat Design Competition and won second
place. Called Prinzton, not because one of the
judges was from the Princeton, New Jersey based Space
Studies Institute, but because it was located in the
bottom of an E-W oriented rille near the crater Prinz,
LRS has detailed diagrams and even detailed plans for a
pair of table top models to showcase its concepts
- a 32" x 48" diorama of the overall site
- a
4' x 8' table top
cutaway model of one of the three
rille-bottom villages, to illustrate how people
could live in a comfortable sunlight and vegetation
filled environment with picture postcard level village
interior views. Unlike grow-as-you-go settlements that
consist of individually pressurized, shielded, and
linked modules, Prinzton is a pressurized
mega-structure for a thousand people which in turn can
be duplicated in sausage-link fashion along the bottom
of a long rille valley (remember Hadley Rille at the
Apollo 15 site?)
- Displays that elaborate on
the concepts illustrated by LRS' "Moon
Manor" tabletop model which
is available for use at ASI-MKE sponsored events. We
already have a unit that demonstrates the
periscopic picture
window concept. Additional
display units could include:
- A unit that demonstrates how sunshine can be brought into an 'underground' complex and directed where it is needed
- A unit which illustrates the environmental toilet concept that uses human wastes, purifies the waste water, freshens and sweetens the air, and fills the home with luscious green vegetation. This illustrates the concept of "modular biospherics" which breaks down the "biospherics problem" into bite-size point-source challenges. We have a video that illustrates the system, and a model would complement that.
- The "hermaphroditic" dock-port system, whereby surface vehicles can hard-dock with one another and with pressurized habitat areas, so that personnel on the Moon can go virtually anywhere without a personal space suit
- The "turtleback" space suit design which allows a suited person to enter a habitat without a traditional air-wasting, dust-importing airlock unit
- The whole idea is to get across to people, that we could return to the Moon and live in a much more comfortable way than did the Apollo astronauts. They were "aliens" in an "alien land" - we want to be "at home" in our "adopted new home world" - and that's a remarkable night-and-day difference
- Storyboards
illustrate in a 2-dimensional way and are thus much
easier to store and transport - and much cheaper to put
together. While they do not have the punch of
3-dimensional models and dioramas, they are certainly
better than flyers and other informational paper items to
get across eye-opening new ideas. We intend to put
replication instructions for these storyboards on the
Space
Chapter Hub website. (any
linked items below are completed and online) Here are
some possibilities:
- Have / have-not lunar materials: the Moon is rich primarily in inorganic materials. That means the settlers will be using more items made of metal alloy, glass and glass composites, ceramics, cast basalt, and concrete and much less of wood, plastics, and other organic synthetics. A storyboard with a few illustrative sample materials glued on will get across the point of how living on the Moon will require resourceful substitutions
- The recycling toilet system alluded to above
- Sunshine introduction and channeling to where it is needed
- Nighttime energy storage for use during the Moon's two-week long nightspans
- The Turtleback spacesuit system
- The dock-lock system
- Simulated
Lunar pioneer Arts &
Crafts - art is how Lunan
pioneers will first demonstrate that we can learn to live
on the Moon on its own terms and make ourselves "at
home". While art may be of limited and minor economic
impact, its psychological impact on "morale" can be
awesome. In fact, we will not succeed without it.
- we already have some "regolith impressionism paintings" using metal oxide pigments suspended in sodium silicate (an inorganic adhesive like liquid at room temperatures when not exposed to open air) applied foreground first to the reverse side of glass panes - all these ingredients could be processed or fabricated out of common moondust in a resourceful early lunar settlement.
- pioneers could use their own hair clippings as an art stuff - it HAS been done before
- "sand paintings" using sifted moondust of sorted shades between two glass panes - an art form long practiced in the desert southwest
- ceramics using various lunar soil simulants
- metal alloy sculptures - the Moon has abundant aluminum, iron, titanium, and magnesium - the four basic "engineering metals"
Problems & Challenges:
- Money is not a problem if the item's design has been tweaked to be economical. As long as the model, diorama, or storyboard is available to the Lunar Reclamation Society for its events, LRS may be able to pick up the tab from its ISDC '98 conference earnings.
- Time is not a big problem. We can work on items on an unscheduled basis whenever we have free time
- Work space is not a big problem. Basements and other spare rooms are available
- Talent could be a problem. I have put together everything in the LRS display "armory" but have no detailed advanced amateur model-making experience.
- Storage is a big problem - my own home's storage space is already "full" to the point of being unmanageable
- Transportation
is a big
problem - we need available wagons, vans, pickups, or
hatchbacks
Check out our
Current
Project Log
(414) 342-0705 (Peter)