Location
Cocoa Beach
Start Date
7-12-2012 3:30 PM
Description
To explore the solar system effectively, we need to develop outposts on the Moon, Mars, and other surfaces so that we can make use of their in situ resources, stage equipment for further exploration, and perform more in-depth scientific investigations in those chosen locales. This strategy will differ from our previous sortie missions to the Moon in that it will require engineers to develop infrastructure on planetary surfaces and thus export features of human civilization into space. One example of the need for engineering is the development of launch and landing pads on the Moon. Without these pads, the high velocity rocket exhaust would eject regolith as an intense sandblasting spray onto the outpost and surrounding hardware, ruining coated surfaces, jamming mechanisms, pitting windows and optics, and possibly causing damage through gravel and rock impacts. Our analysis indicates that landing pads should consist of a stabilized surface, blast barriers (such as berms or fences), navigation beacons, lighting, video cameras (to monitor spacecraft health and debris transport), roads to move spacecraft off the pads, and infrastructure to access the spacecraft (for servicing, safing, and loading/unloading). This paper describes the methods and technologies necessary for lunar landing pad construction and describes our progress in developing them.
Launch and Landing Infrastructure on the Moon
Cocoa Beach
To explore the solar system effectively, we need to develop outposts on the Moon, Mars, and other surfaces so that we can make use of their in situ resources, stage equipment for further exploration, and perform more in-depth scientific investigations in those chosen locales. This strategy will differ from our previous sortie missions to the Moon in that it will require engineers to develop infrastructure on planetary surfaces and thus export features of human civilization into space. One example of the need for engineering is the development of launch and landing pads on the Moon. Without these pads, the high velocity rocket exhaust would eject regolith as an intense sandblasting spray onto the outpost and surrounding hardware, ruining coated surfaces, jamming mechanisms, pitting windows and optics, and possibly causing damage through gravel and rock impacts. Our analysis indicates that landing pads should consist of a stabilized surface, blast barriers (such as berms or fences), navigation beacons, lighting, video cameras (to monitor spacecraft health and debris transport), roads to move spacecraft off the pads, and infrastructure to access the spacecraft (for servicing, safing, and loading/unloading). This paper describes the methods and technologies necessary for lunar landing pad construction and describes our progress in developing them.
Comments
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