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To survive in the long run, we must settle beyond Earth. We are taking the first steps now, but there are major problems. Lunar or Martian settlements will be very far away and low gravity is a serious issue for children. Free-space settlement designs have typically been kilometer-scale spacecraft weighing millions of tons, requiring both large sca...
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... The most frequently proposed locations for space settlements are the Moon, Mars, or in rotating space stations [16,[25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. For any settlement beyond Earth's protective magnetosphere [30], settlers will need to protect themselves against space radiation, which differs from the kinds of radiation we typically encounter on Earth [32,33]. ...
... Communication delays from Earth to Mars will range from three to 22 min, depending on where Mars is in its orbit relative to Earth [52]. Trip times and communication delays in rotating space stations will depend on where the station is situated, but at least one proposal puts the station in Equatorial Low Earth Orbit where settlers could return home quickly and communication could happen in live-time [28]. However, even under favorable conditions in orbital mechanics, finance may prove difficult. ...
... Early design studies of space habitats were done by O'Neill and others in the 1970s [8,7]. High launch costs have since prevented their realization, but it has also been proposed to start with much smaller and lighter habitats in low Earth orbit [4]. A review can be found in [2]. ...
Space habitats as free-floating ecosystems require supply of light and electricity and removal of waste heat. This paper aims to estimate size and mass of cooling, lighting, and electricity systems. A scalable physical model is developed that assumes cylindrical space habitats with constant power per volume (so the habitat power is used as a proxy for size). Solar energy covers both electrical and light demand, the latter by concentration and distribution through light channels. Heat is dissipated through the hull and by circulation of a coolant between the habitat interior and radiators. The coolant can be a liquid, the habitat air, or it evaporates during heat absorption and condenses in the radiator. The model allows an approximate optimization of the power to counter friction in the cooling system. Both lighting and cooling are more challenging for larger habitats as the distances between interior and mirrors or radiators increase. For default parameters, heat transmission through the hull suffices only up to 4kW of habitat power, and un-concentrated lighting through a transparent hull up to 500kW. A limit for cooling is reached around 10 13 W, where liquid coolant would start dominating total mass, vapor would need too much volume, and air would require too much fan power. Also at this habitat size, light channels would take up too much interior volume, demanding electric lighting. Since the burden of shielding mass decreases with surface per volume, a region of low mass per power is found at around 10 11 W (on the order of a million inhabitants). At this size, the cooling system mass is estimated at 0.12 kg W for liquid, 0.05 for vapor, and 0.03 for air, while lighting amounts to 0.003 and electricity to 0.005-much less than interior (assumed at 2.5) and shielding (0.7).
In this work we show the design and measurement of ultrasonic wireless sensor network in on-earth Columbus Module. The module is a copy of the original module attached on International Space Station (ISS) and it is usually used for testing any new hardware before launching them to the ISS. An analog mixed signal 350 nm technology Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) was designed to handle ultrasonic modulation and signal conditioning. The sensor node comprises three pairs of ultrasonic transmitters and receivers. Smart sensors such as humidity/temperature sensor, air pressure sensor and visible/infrared light sensor are utilized to minimize power consumption, computational time and save weight. A low power micro controller ATMega238 is added to interface the smart sensors and ultrasonic ASIC. In order to achieve simple installation procedure for the astronauts, an innovative sensor node casing was designed to allow easy mounting and easy signal directing when attached to the wall. One access point and two sensor nodes were built for testing the signal range on various location in the module. During the test, the ultrasonic signal managed to propagate and received within the entire module. A constant speech signal was added (e.g. human conversation in the background) in order to simulate real mission condition. The power consumption of the sensor node in active/communication mode is less than 60 mW that ensures high durability. The total weight of the sensor node including 400 mAh battery, casing and sensor node holder is less than 50 g.
Agricultural science has accumulated deep knowledge about plants, animals, and agriculture on this planet over 7 millennia and within our local gravity level (1 g). Researchers have, over the past few decades accumulated on Mir and the ISS a body of factual data about some species of plants and animals, living in micro-gravity (about 1/1000th g). But this knowledge base is insufficient to prepare for the creation of new permanent homes for humanity beyond Earth. Future settlements need accurate data on the growth, development, and interactions in full biomes of plants and animals and their associated microorganisms, in gravity levels between zero and one. The most critical gravity levels for research are sixteen percent (Earth’s Moon), thirty-eight percent (Mars), and ninety-one percent (Venus) since space settlements have been proposed for each of these celestial bodies. This paper proposes a conceptual design for a facility designed to house all three gravity options within one structure in order to conduct such research in the appropriate gravity levels. The goal of this proposal is to minimize the infrastructure cost, and to allow for redundant and parallel experiments in a series of habitats. Risk is always present in such research, and redundancy will be a critical need. Although generally more is learned from the failures than success, it is still important to design the redundancy into to keep the damage from a failure to a minimum. The central facility proposed to house these habitats will also provide a construction jig to facilitate the construction of more such facilities for other purposes.
