Lunar Capital City Competition

[StevoPistolero]

So I am an urban designer/city planner/architect. I heard about an design competition... for a lunar capital city on the moon!

http://www.shiftboston.org/moon1.html

I want to lead a team of designers to win this competition and represent the Orbiter community. The only reason I want to lead it is that I am in the field, I have the skills to do renderings, and I know what they are looking for. But there is no doubt a lot of talent out there in the forum, and we will need all of it, especially artistic talent but also conceptual talent.

They want us to look at the physics of living on the moon. Microgravity, vacuum, etc, there are some engineering challenges. They want a sustainable energy source. Most of all, they want us to imagine a reason for being on the moon. A lunar economy, a lunar culture. And they want it to be visionary; no bucky-balls left over from the 60s. They want some far-out architecture.

With our pooled resources from the forum, I have no doubt in my mind that we can win this thing. To begin with, we may need to open up a new sub-forum for discussion.

Who is with me? Let's get the conversation rolling!

P.S. There is a cash prize.

 

[Andy44]

As long as it generates some killer base add-ons, sounds like fun!

 

[T.Neo]

And they want it to be visionary; no bucky-balls left over from the 60s. They want some far-out architecture.

You get what you get, I suppose- the Moon is a pretty harsh environment. Little time for visionary architecture.

But hey, if the engineering looks cool then there's nothing wrong with that right?

 

[Andy44]

So where do we start? I'll sign on, although my free time's limited at the moment.

How comprehensive is it? Will it also include an explanation of how the necessary materials and equipment will be shipped to the moon and how the rest will be fabricated?

I've got some ideas for a large moon colony, although I can't claim they're very original. As T.Neo said, the harsh environment of the moon pretty much dictates how you do stuff. You need air, water, a way to grow food, space to live comfortably, power, and of course, protection from vacuum, meteor debris, and radiation.

 

[StevoPistolero]

Right now we are at a conceptual stage, so lets imagine how it would work. Once we understand the program, we can transition over to the design phase, where we work out the engineering and form it will take.

Why we are on the moon. What about a solar farm? What about tourism? What about helium for the fusion economy?

I think a winning design will solve the energy crisis.

So basically we have two strategies: tourism and resource extraction.
Oh, here is an idea: burn our coal on the moon! Clean coal, lol.

We need phasing, a near, medium, and long term phasing adapting to new technologies.

 

[Andy44]

Well, if you're thinking in terms of mega-engineering, and you're not shy about ruining the looks of the Moon, there's this idea:

http://www.shimz.co.jp/english/theme/dream/lunaring.html

Although I think there may be less visually impacting ways of using the moon for power generation, that would certainly be a huge construction project, and given that it spans the lunar equator, it would require at least one large town and maybe more to cut down on transportation time to the job sites.

The movie Moon had a plausible, if far out, reason for moon settlement: He3 extraction, although the film depicted a largely robotic operation with a very small staff.

 

[T.Neo]

I've never particularly been a fan of beamed power from the Moon, because the Moon sets in the sky on Earth. GEO should be better, because such a satellite will remain more or less stationary in the sky, and would also be in continuous sunlight for most of the year (to ensure continued power generation).

I've read though, that getting to GEO from the Moon can be tricky at best.

I also wonder how much power a band of panels like that would generate- or how practical they would be in terms of upkeep. Something like that would probably make Earth home to a type 1 civilisation. :lol:

He3 extraction, although the film depicted a largely robotic operation with a very small staff.

Perhaps that is the way to go, considering how the MER rovers, for example, can be operated far more remotely. Perhaps a small group of people could command a much larger fleet of partially automated harvesters.

 

[StevoPistolero]

What if instead of photo-voltaic cells we reflected sunlight to a collector satellite, reflected it to the earth, which caught it and sent distribution beams to earth, powering their solar farms on the planet?

Also, what do you think: above ground or below ground? It would be nice to get some natural sunlight.

 

[Andy44]

A big lunar colony would definitely need to be below ground for radiation protection and to guard against micro (and macro) meteor strikes. You could always build the "roof" of it on the surface, of course, with skylights to pipe in sunlight, etc.

The bases in 2001 and Space:1999 were mostly underground, although I would make mine deeper and not as sprawling.

 

[Izack]

Speaking of impacts, I'm sure that ring of solar cells would be an utter hell to maintain. Too difficult to maintain to justify its existence, IMO.
T.Neo was right. GEO sats would be much more efficient for mass solar energy collection than a moon base. They are in daylight much longer than any potential moon base, save one on a hundreds-kilometers-tall tower on one of its poles, and also much easier and cheaper to get to.

He3 mining is a plausible and interesting motive, though. It would require robotic scouring of the lunar regolith for extraction (I'm thinking of big crawlers like in Dune), and a series of processing plants across its surface. Also, it would require spaceports to ship the stuff to Earth and beyond.

 

[T.Neo]

A big lunar colony would definitely need to be below ground for radiation protection and to guard against micro (and macro) meteor strikes. You could always build the "roof" of it on the surface, of course, with skylights to pipe in sunlight, etc.

Perhaps almost like this romatic view of partial lunar paraterraforming:

 

[dougkeenan]

I'm in.

 

[StevoPistolero]

I don't know about the HEO solar farm. Wouldn't it be easier to maintain, access, and clean if it was on the lunar surface?

As for the underground part, I totally agree. I think there should be a tram on the lunar surface, along with a promenade. Then you descend into inverted skyscrapers burried into the ground. There would have to be light wells to get sun into the building. What if it was located on the rim of a crater, and light came in through the side... like cliff dwellings.

 

[dougkeenan]

How many citizens are we thinking?

 

[StevoPistolero]

Hmm, well, we should have staging, and a design that is expandable. It would probably start out as a lunar resort, and grow as the solar collectors come online. The natural size of the city all depends on how many jobs there are, and that depends on how big the tourism, solar, and helium mining components are.

Let's say that the initial resort starts off with 500 beds and 100 staff? You can always expand. The solar farm, I don't know, probably no more than a few hundred.

So we are looking at a village I think, a village that can be expanded if needed.

Where do you think it should be located? In a large crater? In a flat plane? On the side of a crater?

 

[dougkeenan]

I'd use a large crater containing several smaller subcraters providing all three terrain types nearby. Regolith mining could take place on the plain. Subcraters could be distributed by function - power, ECLSS, industrials, etc. For habitat, I'd want a crater wall condo for the hillside view.

 

[Andy44]

Inside a crater is a good start, I think, because the walls provide a little more protection from the environment.

Also, it's generally easier to start digging tunnel revetments horizontally into the side of a hill then it is to dig vertical shafts. You can use tram cars to carry out material, like an ore car in a terrestrial mine.

Once the project gets big enough, this will matter less, probably, because you'll be excavating much larger areas to build those inverted skyscrapers (core scrapers? core pokers?).

The NORAD base inside Cheyenne Mountain is, as I understand it, a bunch of buildings sitting on shock absorbers inside a large man-made cavern. This is another option; to just hollow out a mountain and build more conventional structures inside the hollow. There may be lots of drawbacks to this, but one advantage is that it will be easier to alter or replace the individual structures.

 

[KKinsane]

I hate to be the one to say it but what environment, the moon doesn't have an atmosphere to have environment in, unless your talking about heat exchange and dust, also water now LCROSS has been there (amongst other elements, there is unreleased data and I got a pretty good idea as to why...)

so, considering the heat exchange thing I'm assuming everything should in theory be white like nasa's space suits to stop ze solar rays? or no big deal?

as for shape i'd make it look like hp lovecrafts wet dream. if that gives any indication as to the arcitecture. for no reason other than 1 aliens would never mess with earth out of pure fear and 2 it would look awesome. think alien (the film) sort of thing with less living organism involved and your there. and this would cover the entire moon, and be the colour of cheese (just to bug certain people who swear the moon IS made of cheese. seriously these people exist.) or, i don't know, hexagonal looking things, multi purpose for ease of whatever you need the thing for (farming, He3 mining, cargo storage, comms etc.)

by the way, your/shiftbostons vision of the moon being vegas in the 22nd century is frankly horrific and should never occur, ever. not even. no.

one thing does come to mind considering the 1/6th~ gravity, though I don't think it will work as well as I first assumed but...basically upside down rooms and such, or ALOT higher rooms at least, for super parkour, on the moon maybe better in space for that idea but at least im thinking I suppose.

and, from what I can tell from the link, nasa want everyones ideas free of charge with the enticement of cash prize, no deal, you want people to think about how to keep vacuum out while growing plants and mining he3 while using the airlock, pay someone. making it look pretty ain't gunna solve those issues either. however if your throwing away cash gimme $20000 and i'll remind you how to purify water 100% lol. (@nasa)

either way let me tell you the one reason contained colonys won't work, illness. one person gets ill, virus spreads to life support though the air, oh dear theres no medicine on the moon and earth is that way and no ones coming.

thus the moon remains at best a mining outpost and the home of gutsy spacemen/women. or obama stops screwing with your space program and this happens. just don't wreck the place if you do find a way to pull this off.

 

[Andy44]

I hate to be the one to say it but what environment, the moon doesn't have an atmosphere to have environment in,

It doesn't have an atmosphere, but the moon, and even space itself, is an environment. It has radiation, micrometeoroids, and depending where you are orbiting, you may have atomic oxygen to deal with (low earth orbit) or even water (Enceladus). You have to deal with spacecraft charging due to charged particles, low or zero gravity, cosmic rays, magnetic field interactions, all sorts of things.

Go back and start the thread from the beginning. There is more to the word "environment" than a bunch of dolphins and trees and fresh air: [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_environment"]Space environment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

 

[dougkeenan]

As for location, might I suggest Copernicus?