Building Habitats on the Moon: Engineering Approaches to Lunar Settlements

Description

Designing a habitat for the lunar surface? You will need to know more than structural engineering. There are the effects of meteoroids, radiation, and low gravity. Then there are the psychological and psychosocial aspects of living in close quarters, in a dangerous environment, far away from home. All these must be considered when the habitat is sized, materials specified, and structure designed. This book provides an overview of various concepts for lunar habitats and structural designs and characterizes the lunar environment - the technical and the nontechnical. The designs take into consideration psychological comfort, structural strength against seismic and thermal activity, as well as internal pressurization and 1/6 g. Also discussed are micrometeoroid modeling, risk and redundancy as well as probability and reliability, with an introduction to analytical tools that can be useful in modeling uncertainties. Front Matter ....Pages i-xiv Thoughts on the Moon (Haym Benaroya)....Pages 1-11 Overview and context (Haym Benaroya)....Pages 12-41 The lunar environment (Haym Benaroya)....Pages 42-84 Structures (Haym Benaroya)....Pages 85-141 Habitat studies (Haym Benaroya)....Pages 142-171 Lunar-based astronomy (Haym Benaroya)....Pages 172-177 Materials and ISRU (Haym Benaroya)....Pages 178-196 Structural design of a lunar habitat (Haym Benaroya)....Pages 197-207 Thermal design (Haym Benaroya)....Pages 208-223 Probability theory and seismic design (Haym Benaroya)....Pages 224-248 Reliability and damage (Haym Benaroya)....Pages 249-285 Airplanes, redundancy and lunar habitats (Haym Benaroya)....Pages 286-298 Advanced methodologies (Haym Benaroya)....Pages 299-306 Concluding thoughts (Haym Benaroya)....Pages 307-309 Back Matter ....Pages 310-314