Table Of ContentEngineering 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
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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
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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
