MMM Classics Year 10: MMM #s 91-100 - Moon Society

y Peter Kokh
We are back on the Moon, to stay it seems, and we’ve
detected a number of lavatubes from orbit, some handy to our
first beachhead outpost. The catch is that there are so many
things needing priority attention that we cannot afford the
manpower and equipment costs to outfit even a single lavatube
exploration expedition. But if we don’t “go in” and actually
explore and survey, how can we plan intelligently to “move
inside” in concrete particulars?
Here is a way we can survey in detail all the lavatubes
we have detected remotely from photographic evidence, from
orbiting radar and infrared equipment. The costs, in comparison
to a single limited human expedition, would be negligible.
A surface crawling drilling rig, using high resolution
orbital radar lavatube location data, finds its initial drill point
over an indicated tube site. This rig can be teleoperated or
manned. Given the repetitive nature of the tasks involved, a
highly automated remote monitored operation will be ideal.
(1) Its first task is to drill and stabilize (with a sleeve?
with side-wall fusing or sintering lasers?) a hole through the
surface and penetrating the lavatube ceiling some tens of
meters down. The hole might be only a few inches in diameter.
(2) Next the rig winches down through the shaft hole a
radar-mapping instrument and/or CCD optical camera down to
a height midway between lavatube ceiling and floor (determining
that position is the first task of the radar device). Then a
flare attached to the bottom of the instrument package is
released and dropped. The radar mapper and camera pan 360°,
and from near vertical up (zenith) to near vertical down (nadir).
The instrument package is retrieved. A latitude/longitude/altitude
benchmark is then lowered to the tube floor directly
below.
(3) The rig then winches down to the same point a
length of fiber optic cable, securing the top end to the collar of
the shaft hole. At the top end is a solar light concentrator which
passively gathers available dayspan sunshine and channels it
into the optic fiber cable. At the bottom end a light diffuser
scatters this light in all directions.
The idea is not to provide future human explorers
within the tube with enough light, throughout the surface
dayspan period, to find their way around with the naked eye,
but only with enough light that they can find their way using
off-the-shelf night-vision goggles. Of course they will carry
battery-pack spotlights to light up areas needing closer
inspection, as well as for emergencies e.g. they are forced to
stay inside after local sunset on the surface above.
(4) Meanwhile, data from the radar/camera probe is
being turned into a contour map of the lavatube’s inner
surfaces. From this map, it will be clear in which direction the
lavatube runs and the location of the next drill hole can be
determined, picked so that data from it (and the reach of the
left behind “solar flashlight” overlap conveniently).
As the instrument package is removed from each
successive shaft hole, another passive solar flash light chandelier
is installed. On and on until the entire intact lavatube is
surveyed from source to outflow. The rig then moves to one
end of the next orbitally detected site to be investigated.
The result will be a set of tube surveys and maps from
which preliminary rational use scenarios can be put together
all prior to commitment of man-hours and man-rated equipment
packages. Now , with all of these robotic surveys, safely
made, when we do go in to explore or set up shop, we can be
sure that the tube section picked is right for the purpose
intended, including the offer of adequate expansion room for
foreseen development options.
This is the basic idea. Possible embellishments are
designing the solar flashlight chandeliers to serve as line-ofsight
relays for radio communications by exploring crews,
and/or as direct radio antennas to the surface.
If the tube surveyed by the surface-crawling robot
drilling rig has already been picked for future development, a
“sleeve-bag” of sundry provisions and resupplies could be
lowered to the tube floor beside the benchmark prior to sealing
the shaft with the solar light fixture apparatus. These provisions
would lighten the burden in-tube explorers need carry along.
Alternately, the solar light fixtures could be removable if the
shaft is needed for lowering provisions or other narrow
diameter equip-ment to the area below it.
This exploration plan will only work, of course, for
those near surface tubes that have been sniffed out by our
orbiting probes. But that will be an important start!
Brainstorming an Early Lavatube Town
by Peter Kokh
Many of our readers will be familiar with the classical
Island II “Stanford Torus” space settlement design [Space
Settlements: A Design Study, NASA SP-413, 1977]. Not
counting multiple levels, this ring with an overall diameter of
1800 meters and a torus cross section of 130 meters, has a
Moon Miners’ Manifesto Classics - Year 10 - Republished January 2006 - Page 92