Science Operations and Engineering Impacts to Lunar Outpost Design
Recent work by scientists and engineers at the Johnson Space Center ha led to a better understanding of the requirements and interfaces needed at an initial lunar outpost to enable scientific...
Thermal Regeneration of Spent Lithium Hydroxide
Exploration of planetary surfaces will require portable life-support systems to provide a continuous supply of breathable air. These systems will need to be regenerable in order to support...
Logistics Carriers for the First Lunar Outpost
This paper describes that aspect of logistics concerned with the design parameters and operation of hardware that may be used to deliver and protect spares and resupply items for NASA's...
Surface Payload Unloading and Deployment Options for a Lunar Return Mission
While planetary exploration studies have focuses on many areas that are critical to mission success, such as landing space transportation vehicles on other planets, a preferred method...
Utilization of Liquid Carbon Dioxide for Planetary Exploration
The major component of the atmosphere of Venus and Mars is carbon dioxide CO2. This proposal is to use this carbon dioxide for planetary exploration...
Lunar ISRU: An Evolutionary Approach
The goal of this paper is to provide the reader with a vision of the individual steps required to bring ISRU from the current technological readiness level of lab experimentation, to large...
Transferring Construction Technology to the Moon and Back
This paper examines past NASA contributions to the construction industry, analyzes the challenges ahead for space-based construction, cites examples of new technologies currently used...
Engineering Implications of Levitating Lunar Dust
In this paper an attempt is made to provide a physical understanding of these various phenomena and their long-term effects on the lunar environment. This understanding is then applied...
Lunar Base Construction Using the Reinforce Earth Method with Geotextile
This paper focuses on the construction of layered embankments using regolith and filmy materials (called geotextiles) with a robot machine before setting up of the cylindrical module on...
Construction of Large Lunar Structures by Fusion Welding of Sintered Regolith
Regardless of material used, construction of large lunar structures using indigenous resources is likely to requires joining of simple blocks or pieces. Fusion welding using an optical...
Terrestrial Analogs: Implications for Lunar Lava Tubes
Earlier work has demonstrated that lava tubes did form on the Moon. Comparison of terrestrial lava tubes to their lunar counterparts suggest that they are very similar despite the order...
A Generic Inflatable Structure for a Lunar/Martian Base
The first steps in the human expansion into space, which inevitably will occur during the next century, consist of the establishment of a human-tended base on the Moon followed by human...
Lunar Oxygen Production - A Maturing Technology
Research on oxygen production from lunar rock and soil has made significant progress in the past two years. An extensive series of experiments on natural and synthetic analogs has concentrated...
Kinetic Interpretations of First Reactivity Experiments on Lunar Basalt Samples
For the first time, water/oxygen production from Apollo program lunar samples has been experimentally demonstrated. The experiments gave extremely encouraging results as all ilmenite was...
Oxygen Generation from Synthetic Moon Soil Using a Plasma Reactor
A series of experiments were performed to evaluate the potential for generating oxygen from silica powder, alumina powder and a synthetic moon soil powder. A non-transferred arc plasma...
Lunar Oxygen Production in a Hydrogen Cold Plasma
This paper examines the concept of oxygen production from unbeneficiated lunar regolith using a non-equilibrium or 'cold' hydrogen plasma. An experimental investigation has indicated that...
Carbon Formation Theory for Space Oxygen Processes
Production of oxygen from the Martian atmosphere or lunar soil and the recovery of oxygen in manned space environments may include carbon formation from CO as a unit process. Thermodynamic...
Oxygen from Lunar Soil via Fluorination
This paper considers oxygen extraction from lunar soil via fluorination, for reasons of its high effectivity of oxygen release from most silicates. In addition to theoretical investigations,...
Sintering Bricks on the Moon
Sintering of full-scale 'bricks' from lunar soil simulant materials can be accomplished by radiant heating to 1100?C for approximately 2 hours, followed by slow cooling. Small-scale precompaction...
Lunar Base Aspects for Biotechnology Industry
A lunar base can provide unique services to biotechnology research, development, and production. A lunar location as well as the vacuum environment can protect experiments from contamination...
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