Engineering Approaches to Lunar Settlements Haym Benaroya Building Habitats on the Moon Engineering Approaches to Lunar Settlements More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/4097 Haym Benaroya Building Habitats on the Moon Engineering Approaches to Lunar Settlements Haym Benaroya Professor of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Rutgers University New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA SPRINGER-PRAXIS BOOKS IN SPACE EXPLORATION Springer Praxis Books ISBN 978-3-319-68242-6 ISBN 978-3-319-68244-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68244-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017958446 © Springer International Publishing AG 2018 This work is subject to copyright. 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Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Back cover image courtesy of Berok Khoshnevis, Professor of Engineering, USC and CEO, Contour Crafting Corporation Cover design: Jim Wilkie Project Editor: Michael D. Shayler Printed on acid-free paper This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................... viii Dedication .................................................................................................................. ix About the Author....................................................................................................... x Preface ........................................................................................................................ xi 1 Thoughts on the Moon ........................................................................................ 1 1.1 J.F.K. at Rice University ............................................................................. 1 1.2 Edward Teller: Thoughts on a lunar base .................................................... 6 2 Overview and context ......................................................................................... 12 2.1 Why the Moon, and how ............................................................................. 12 2.2 Other thoughts on a lunar base .................................................................... 18 2.3 The historical dimension ............................................................................. 21 2.4 The economic justifications ........................................................................ 22 2.5 Agreements and ethics ................................................................................ 28 2.6 Pioneering visions ....................................................................................... 29 2.7 Future histories ............................................................................................ 33 2.8 Interview with David Livingston ................................................................ 34 3 The lunar environment ....................................................................................... 42 3.1 Partial gravity .............................................................................................. 47 3.2 Interview with James Logan ....................................................................... 48 3.3 Radiation ..................................................................................................... 60 3.4 Regolith ....................................................................................................... 71 3.5 Soil mechanics ............................................................................................ 73 3.6 Abrasion ...................................................................................................... 79 v vi Contents 4 Structures ............................................................................................................. 85 4.1 Classes ......................................................................................................... 85 4.2 Concepts and designs .................................................................................. 89 4.3 Lunar architecture and engineering ............................................................ 92 4.4 Interview with Marc Cohen ........................................................................ 93 4.5 Rigid structures ........................................................................................... 105 4.6 Inflatables .................................................................................................... 114 4.7 Interview with David Cadogan ................................................................... 130 5 Habitat studies ..................................................................................................... 142 5.1 Frameworks ................................................................................................. 152 5.2 Structures and living on the Moon .............................................................. 157 6 Lunar-based astronomy...................................................................................... 172 7 Materials and ISRU ............................................................................................ 178 7.1 Interview with Donald Rapp ....................................................................... 183 7.2 Lava Tubes .................................................................................................. 187 8 Structural design of a lunar habitat .................................................................. 197 8.1 Habitat geometry and loads ........................................................................ 197 8.2 Habitat details ............................................................................................. 201 8.3 Habitat erection and appearance ................................................................. 203 9 Thermal design .................................................................................................... 208 9.1 A static analysis .......................................................................................... 210 9.2 A thermal analysis ....................................................................................... 216 10 Probability theory and seismic design ............................................................... 224 10.1 A definition for probability ......................................................................... 225 10.2 Random variables ........................................................................................ 226 10.3 Mathematical expectation ........................................................................... 230 10.4 Useful probability densities ........................................................................ 231 10.5 Random processes ....................................................................................... 232 10.6 Power spectrum ........................................................................................... 235 10.7 Random vibration ........................................................................................ 236 10.8 Seismic activity ........................................................................................... 238 10.9 A seismic design ......................................................................................... 239 11 Reliability and damage ....................................................................................... 249 11.1 Risk ............................................................................................................. 250 11.2 Risk at a lunar base ..................................................................................... 252 11.3 Reliability engineering ................................................................................ 262 11.4 Failure types ................................................................................................ 266 11.5 Fatigue life prediction ................................................................................. 271 11.6 Micrometeoroids ......................................................................................... 275 11.7 Concluding comments ................................................................................ 283 Contents vii 12 Airplanes, redundancy and lunar habitats ....................................................... 286 12.1 Aircraft certification .................................................................................... 287 12.2 Redundancy ................................................................................................. 288 12.3 Accidents ..................................................................................................... 290 12.4 Regulation and certification ........................................................................ 292 12.5 Lessons learned ........................................................................................... 294 12.6 Lunar structures .......................................................................................... 296 13 Advanced methodologies .................................................................................... 299 13.1 Dempster-Shafer Theory ............................................................................. 299 13.2 Performance-based engineering .................................................................. 300 14 Concluding thoughts ........................................................................................... 307 Index ........................................................................................................................... 310 Acknowledgements I humbly acknowledge all those who have dedicated their lives, some literally, to the exploration of space, and the acquisition of the knowledge necessary to do so. I also thank my students, who have contributed greatly to our understanding: Stephen Indyk, Sohrob Mottaghi, Zach Porter, Srikanth Reddy, Florian Ruess, Jackelynne Silva, and Jordan Smart, whose work with me has been published in archival journals and books. I am also glad to thank Dr. Yuriy Gulak for his assistance with this project, as well as many other research efforts over the decades. I take this opportunity to thank the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Rutgers University for providing me with an exceptional setting to do my research, as I see fit. I thank Mike Shayler for his expert and gracious project editing of this book, making it better organized, grammatically correct, and easier to read. I am very appreciative of Maury Solomon for supporting my publishing efforts with Springer, and of Clive Horwood, who recruited me to Praxis Publishing’s space book series. Gratitude goes to Jim Wilkie for the cover design. Lastly, but not in the least, I am grateful to my family for providing me with the founda- tion that is needed to go forward and think about things that may not happen for decades. viii To Esther and Alfred, my parents