MEX-LUNARHAB:
A HISPANIC-MEXICAN HABITAT FOR SETTLEMENT ON THE MOON
Email: Declan O'Donnell
Jesus Raygoza Berrelleza (Director for U.S.A.)
Hector Omar Pensado Diaz (Director for Mexico)
Cayetano Santana Gil (Director for Spain)
Abstract
The Mex-LunarHab Station is the lunar operational mode of the Mexo-Hab
Project ("Hab" is a provisional designation until the word
"habitat" or "house" in Mayan is established). The origin of the Mexo-Hab
Project comes from te idea of the Mars Analogue Research Stations (MARS)
Program, key element in The Mars Society's (TMS) Mars Direct Plan(1) created
by President Robert M. Zubrin.
The Project Mexo-Hab began as a proposal from The Mars Society Spain
(TMSE) for Mexico, through its President Cayetano Santana Gil, who invited
Jesus Raygoza Berrelleza, Founder/President of the Mexican Space Society
(SEM), and Hector Omar Pensado Diaz, Founder/Director of the Institute for
Advanced Sciences (ICA) to participate in this activity.
At higher than 5,000 meters above sea level, on the Mexican volcano Pico
de Orizaba (PO), our intention is to establish two Mexo-Hab Space Habitats.
One, in her Mars operational mode, Mex-AreoHab, like a complementary station
to Dr. Robert M. Zubrin's MARS Program and the NASA Mars Design Reference
Mission(2). The other one, in her lunar operational mode, like a Lunar
Economic Development Authority, Inc. (LEDA) asset(3, 4). Both the
Mex-LunarHab and the Mex-AreoHab are being developed jointly with the
University of Xalapa (UX), and a company named Proyectos and Construcciones
MV.
We will be using the PO site as a place for scientific research and
conducting tests in similar conditions as the early Red Planet used to have
(radiation level, low pressure, topography, etc.). This idea has already
been proposed by the biologist Omar Pensado D. to Dr. Christopher P. McKay
from the NASA AMES Research Center in September 1997. Also, these geological
conditions at the PO site give us the opportunity for scientific research
and working activities as those needed to be accomplished on an inhospitable
place like the lunar surface, as proposed by Jesus Raygoza B. to mines
engineer Brad R. Blair, President of LEDA, and to Declan O'Donnell, Esq.,
President/Founder of the United Societies in Space, Inc. (USIS), founder and
member of the LEDA Board of Directors.
Another intention for conducting the Mexo-Hab Project simulation is to
generate interest in Hispanic-Mexican space activities. These space habitats
are envisioned to be the tip of the lance in developing joint programs for
supporting a much needed return to the Moon, first using simulated
scientific exploration; actual scientific and technological research in
several different areas; harnessing robotic as well as human Mars
exploration operations; and generating programs to stimulate planetary
missions in Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO); and also to generate other space-related
activities. Another major goal to be reached is to contribute to the
generation of excellence in international cooperation;
to encourage the long needed establishment of a Mexican Space Agency in
a short period of time; likewise, the formation of an Ibero-American space
agency; and, in the long-range plan, an international space agency.
The Mexo-Hab's Scientific-Technologic Research Program also includes the
following disciplines: Geology, Extremophyles Biology, Glaciology (9.5 km2
of glacial zone at PO), Meteorology, Medicine-Telemedicine, Psychology,
Nutrition, Exobiology, Vegetation Ecology, Mining and Energy.
Designing the Mex-LunarHab
The design of this spacecraft-habitat displays some technical innovations.
The concepts will be managed depending on the following aspects:
1. Activity Zoning and Optimization of Spaces in Each Compartment
2. Size Reduction
3. Astronaut Safety and Risk Reduction Protocol
Still under design review, the Mex-LunarHab Station will be a
spherical-shaped hab module, incorporating concepts listed above. Indeed,
Mex-AreoHab (under design review today, ahead of Mex-LunarHab), compared to
the MARS Station Project, it will be constructed under an approach of
optimizing compartments, a three-level habitat. It will be a vertical
cylindrical-shaped spacecraft-habitat 9.50m tall and 7.20m in diameter. The
level at the top will be a conical structure, with smaller diameter than the
rest of the vessel, with four seats (pilot, co-pilot, and crew); being also
used, being able to be operated as both command module and rescue module.
The importance of this conical structure, a capsule, is involved primarily
with human life safety and emergency rescue issues. In case of an accident
on the base, the cone shaped aerodynamic command-rescue module will be
launched and separated from the rest of the structure. Something similar is
intended to be designed for Mex-LunarHab.
For Mex-Areohab, the level below the command/rescue module will be the
sleeping compartment, resting and exercising areas, a toilet and a
bathroom. In the third and lowest level will be the infermery and
telemedicine compartment; laboratories for physical sciences, geology and
biology; a chamber for extravehicular activities (EVAs), containing two
airlocks for decontamination and dust-off, and another one for air
decompression. An auxiliary element of this spaceship-habitat is a
pressurized all-terrain vehicle*.
Powered by a set of engines, Mex-LunarHab is envisioned to land on the
Moon by itself. Therefore this makes this habitat a transit spacecraft as
well.
The outer space-related environmental parameters of high radiation flux,
low weight, and superior reliability constraints limits many typical
aerospace materials to a short list reducing high performance alloys,
nanocomposites and thin-layer metal laminates (Al-Ag, Al-Cu) with typical
dimensions less than the Frank-Reed-type (packing flaws or "weak" points
crystallographically) dislocation source.
The Pico de Orizaba Mountain: The Proposed Mex-Lunarhab Simulation Site on
Earth
The Mex-LunarHab will be placed on the PO at 5,747 meters above sea level,
higher than the peak's polar zone (4,200 meters above sea level). There, the
warm winds of the Gulf of Mexico's weather shore are still present along
with the cold weather of the wide glaciers. This site is on the leeward side
overlooking the State of Puebla, below the snow-covered areas. This is a dry
and desert area. The same mountain's high elevation stands as a natural
barrier against the East winds coming from the Gulf of Mexico.
The Mex-LunarHab will be set up at the glacier's foot, on flat land,
still to be carefully chosen, which will permit to make all kind of tests
with rovers (pressurized scouting vehicles) or human expeditions to be
cliffing the glaciers (including, a sandbox for touristic attraction, for
people to use remote-control robots).
The Pico de Orizaba Mountain possesses a total glacial area of 9.5 km2. It
is the largest in Mexico, and one of the most important glacial areas in the
tropical zone of the Northern Hemisphere. The glacier's dynamics will be
monitored, and an inventory will be made. Also, tests and development of
special drills are intended to be done.
The immediate benefits for the people living in that area will
intrinsically be related to a big improvement in their economical,
educational and natural environment situation. 1) An increased optimization
in agricultural development to generate immediate benefits to local
agriculture; an adaptation programmed for cultivating potatoes, using
technology for open greenhouses will be investigated. 2) Reforestation of
eroded areas at the Pico de Orizaba Mountain, which also is a national park,
by using techniques to stop the encroachment of deserts. 3) An improvement
in education for the younger population. And 4) an increased and
environmentally sensitive approach >for tourism activity.
A Possible Future Site for the Mex-LunarHab on the Moon: Somewhere Around
the Malapert Mountain
Selecting the site for the first, initially unmanned, permanent lunar base
is already in progress. A logical site for one of the first bases will be at
the highest latitude of the Moon that can provide a continuous line of sight
telecommunications link with the Earth, such as the south polar region.
Near-continuous sunlight is available at the north and south polar
regions of the Moon, along with the possibility of finding concentrations of
water-ice, hydrogen that are needed for industrial processes and for life
support systems, and they are suitable locations for the construction of the
first utilities grid. Obviously, for lunar power generation, nuclear
reactors have previously been considered a first choice compared to solar
photovoltaics, since most places on the Moon receive 14 days of sunlight
followed for 14 days of darkness. But, the south polar region has
geographical points of higher elevation that provides the placement of
provisional solar power and communication equipment for the first lunar
base. This is also applicable for the north polar region.
As the site for the first permanent lunar base, the preferred initial site
is on the Earth facing side of the Moon at approximately 85 grades S
latitude (85 grades S or N is also the highest latitude that permits
continuous line-of-sight teleoperation of robots from the Earth). That site
is the "Newton Base", in the Malapert Mountain in the south polar region, as
Drs. Madhu Thangavelu, Burton Sharpe, David Schrunk, and Bonnie Cooper have
pointed out so specifically (The Moon, pp. 26, 91, 121). "Newton Base" is
near the crater Newton, hence the name. That is a probable site for the
Mex-LunarHab to become part of a future lunar base.
A second unmanned site is on even higher ground at about 30 degrees W
longitude, 83 degrees S latitude (approximately 100 km north and west of
Newton Base). By its geographical position the Newton Base site may
receive more than 340 days of sunlight per year for near continuous solar
power generation.
There are some other potential sites for mining and industrial processing,
as engineer in mines Brad Blair has pointed out that "at the present, only
six locations on the lunar surface qualify as candidates for the design of a
mining and extraction system: The landing sites of the Apollo missions"(5).
There, through human-made activity on the Moon, detailed scientific
investigations were covered up.
At the late 1950s, it was believed the Moon had no water, and for
establishing an earlier lunar outpost sites were considered to be closer
to the equator rather than the poles, as the landing sites of the Apollo
missions. In the Project Horizon Report, the first lunar base ever
designed, it was stated that "... for a number of technical reasons, such as
temperature and rocket energy requirements, the area bounded by plus/minus
20 grades latitude/longitude of the optical center of the Moon seems
favorable... three particular sites have been chosen which appear to meet
the more detailed requirements of landing space,..."(6) (Project Horizon
Report, Vol. I, Chapter II, p. 8).
In our present time, using funding of the U. S. Department of Defense, as a
hardware developed by the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the
Clementine probe imaging experiment showed that such permanently shadowed
areas exist in the bottom of deep craters near the Moon's south pole. The
NASA-funded Lunar Prospector results showed a much larger areas having water
at the north pole. Anyway, much of the area around the south pole is within
the south pole-Aitken Basin, a crater 2,500 km in diameter and 12 km deep at
it's lowest point, and many smaller craters exist on the floor of this
basin, which, are never exposed to sunlight, and within them the temperature
would never rise above -173 celsius grades (100 K).
Thus, the Mex-LunarHab would be installed in that stable temperature, deep
inside the regolith, approximately 3m deep, somewhere in the Malapert
Mountain. Hence, her proposed spherical-shaped design, to easily be able to
resist the regolith's pressure upon her.
A Lunar Industrial-Manufacturing Park is Certainly Needed
The Mex-LunarHab would also incorporate in a not-so-far future, an
industrial-manufacturing park that is dedicated to in-situ resource
utilization, where raw materials will also be delivered and processed.
A lunar railroad will be the primary means of long-distance transportation
of raw materials on the Moon, which will be crossing the Moon from the south
pole to the north pole. "The challenge of building a circumferential lunar
rail system is virtually the same challenge as building the electric grid,
and both construction projects can be undertaken simultaneously..."(7)(as
quoted in The Moon, pp. 93-99). Teleoperated robots that will be delivered
from Earth to the Moon will be needed for the initial mining extraction of
hydrogen, oxygen, silicon, aluminium and iron; processing, manufacturing
(solar cells, construction materials, computer chips, electric cables,
ceramics, etc.); and transportation tasks of the circumferential utilities
grid construction project. In this condition, professionals of very many
different disciplines would be able to work on the Moon(8).
Human settlements on the Moon will require real substantial advances in
control mechanisms and monitors to stay operating for extended duration
and long-term control and maintenance for recycling air, water,
agricultural, and waste management systems, as well as very advanced
controlled ecological life-support systems (CELSS).
The Mex-LunarHab will also be conducting closed habitat tests for long
period of times on its Earth analogue site. Evidently, in order to get
reliable life-support systems, we are to operate indefinitely a required
substantial engineering. A big challenge for the design of CELSS will be the
establishment of agricultural facilities on the Moon. So far, the growth of
plants from seeds and their agricultural experiments have already been
conducted in the microgravity environment of space stations, but no food
crop cycle has been accomplished in space. One of the Mex-LunarHab's major
projects is to develop an extensive program of agricultural and forrest
experiments (the growth of food crops in the lunar soil could be one of the
activities in biology done in the Mexican habitat). The Moon cannot support
Life without the intervention of Man.
In Search for a Healthy Lunar Economy
We are very fortunate to be part of a double planetary system. Referring
to the Moon, Dr. Krafft A. Ehricke said: "It is a seventh continent, almost
as large as the Americas". The Moon is the logical proving ground which
alone offers the opportunity to create a strong exo-industrial economy based
on high-advanced fusion nuclear technology, cybernetic, and material
processing technologies, eventually capable of human industrial developments
and settlements. It is only 3 or 4 flight days away from Earth. No other
celestial body, orbiting space station, or asteroid in Near-Earth Orbit
(NEO), can more effectively permit development of the habitats, material
extraction, naturally carry out all the science, technology, and sociology
required for a succesful scientific method and method of organization
approach to human extraterrestrial operations. For human expansion into
Space, the Moon is our first step, next is Mars (the place which should
eventually put Earthling humans into expansion through the Solar System's
outer planets and eventually on their way to the stars).
In our first step, the Moon, we can eventually get those accomplishments
done. Of course, much has to be done, indeed. We still are starting from
scratch. One of the most briefly detailed description about the steps to
be done for a lunar settlement is explained in an article titled "Steps
Toward a Lunar Settlement" by Dr. Heinz Hermann Koelle(9). Economically, we
are to maximize investment returns, minimize return times, and keep
investment size manageable so that venture capital and private investment
can be attracted as rapidly as possible. Our goal must be the creation of a
nearly self-sufficient lunar economy based on trade and sovereignity.
Investments by private companies in the lunar economy, must be independent
and under a kind of government as outlined by a LEDA's administration.
Therefore, private industrial enterprises on the Moon will create mining
and manufacturing facilities to produce semi-finished and finished products
made from titanium, iron, silicon, sodium, magnesium and other raw
materials. A self-sufficient extensive use of lunar materials for
construction, shielding, growth of food plants, and for other purposes.
Studying the feasibility of mining lunar resources already comes from a long
period of time(10), it is not anything new.
In a documented article titled "Lunar Prospecting"(11), William Farrand
made a very good question: "Will Moon dust become the gold dust of the 21st
century?" Moon dust itself is a mixture of many different materials, and
nearly all of them contain oxygen in a considerable abundance. The Moon,
even though is 45% oxygen, is actually underoxidized. This is clear from the
fact that the regolith contains a high percentage of free iron (unoxidized)
powder fines, harvestable for the cost of a magnet, and that oxidized iron
is ferrous (FeO), not ferric (Fe2O2). And because approximately 85% of the
weight of a typical-chemical powered spacecraft at launch is the oxygen used
for rocket fuel, oxygen extracted from the regolith, condensed into liquid
stored in tanks made from lunar materials, might be shipped economically
from the Moon to refuel spacecraft throughout cislunar space.
Titanium, aluminium and silicon are up there waiting for humans to be
processed into a different variety of products. Some type of glasses are
likely structural materials with passive solar furnaces or photovoltaics
which would provide energy in polar regions. As a matter of fact,
intermediate silicon products would be manufactured in situ as proposed by
Gary J. Rodriguez, who has also explained that "the Apollo lunar missions
have provided confirmation through rock samples that sufficient silicon
exists in the lunar regolith so as to support glass production"(12).
Some Designs of Lunar Bases
Preliminary designs and technology work have been done by the former
McDonnell Douglas, where engineer William H. Siegfried worked for 33
years and he was part of a design team(13), and Shimizu in developing
construction technologies for the building of lunar bases. Precisely, in
1992, McDonnell Douglas and Shimizu, in a joint paper described the
development of lunar concrete for construction and shielding. Mostly, they
were designs for lunar habitats throwing regolith, or soil, on top of the
structure for shielding against radiation. It may work or not, but more
advanced bases would consider radiation shielding as part of the design
process(14). The disadvantage of using tons of regolith for shielding is
that requires increased structural support for the additional weight of the
regolith. The Shimizu concept was to use pre-fabricated lunar concrete
modules that be in the form of hexagonal prisms, and it may have some
applications for habitational construction. Yet, for real efficient results,
more research in this field must be done.
It had been thought, if there is water ice at the poles, concrete could be
that much cheaper to manufacture. Concrete is about 5% water, thus, the
oxygen for the water would be liberated from the regolith through
Shimizu's hydrogen reduction process, which also yields iron, useful for
reinforcement of the concrete. And, Shimizu's plan relied on importing the
hydrogen from Earth, in order to produce water with oxygen. Yet, more ideas
need to evidently be proven as useful as economically feasibles. So far, the
identification of potential frozen water deep crater bottoms around the
lunar southern pole may change the way oxygen is generated. Oxygen is
usually derived from heating soil and rock oxides on Earth, but with water
available plans may now be made to actually establish crater bases with
improved solar exposures and partial mass shielding of high dose radiation
around crater walls. Therefore, after all, the lunar bases around those
places as shown at those futuristic films and television series from the
1960s such as the "2001: A Space Odyssey's" U. S. moonbase in the crater
Clavius, and the "Space: 1999's" Alpha Moon Base, should eventually come
into reality.
A Not So Unrealistic Preliminar Lunar Outpost Approach: The Project
Horizon
Succesfully conducted by Army Brigadier General John B. Medaris,
Lieutenant General Arthur G. Trudeau, and others from the Army Ballistic
Missile Agency (ABMA), in June 8, 1959, the Project Horizon Report stated:
"Project Horizon represents the earliest feasible capability for the U. S.
to establish a lunar outpost by late 1966, with the initial manned landings
to have taken place in the Spring of 1965" (Project Horizon Report, Vol. I,
Chapter I, p. 4). The program was outlined to use as basic carrier vehicles
rockets Saturn I and II; then Saturn I had already been developed under the
Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). The lunar outpost consisted of
supporting a basic outpost of 12 men, beginning with two men for April 1965, living in
buried cylindrical tanks, 10 feet in diameter and 20 feet in lenght; using 4
nuclear reactors located off-site to power the base, which was including not
only living quarters, but a biological sciences laboratory, medical
hospital, and physical science laboratory. Also, more than accurate, the
report stated that "a wealth of scientific data can be obtained from
experiments conducted at a lunar outpost. Without doubt, the scientific
community will generate many new and unique applications as man's actual
arrival on the Moon draws nearer reality..." (Project Horizon, Vol. I,
Chapter I, p. 2). And, "... adapt conventional foods for use in orbit and in
lunar surface, and development of procedures for hydroponic vegetable
gardening at the outpost..." (Project Horizon, Vol. II, p. 262).
The report also said that "the design... is based on realistic
requirements and capabilities, and is not an attempt to project so far into
the future as to lose reality. The result has been a functional and reliable
approach upon which men can stake their lives with confidence of survival"
(Project Horizon, Vol. I, Chapter II, p. 8).
Many of the Project Horizon's technological goals were so possible to be
carried out in the 1960s and 1970s, as later so brilliantly exposed by
Krafft Ehrike(15), Michael B. Duke and Wendell Mendel(16), and many
others.
However, General Medaris faced opposition to his realistic proposals for a
stronger space program from the civilian sector as well as within the
military and civilian government. As an example, in 1960, an article in
Aviation Week magazine opposed Medaris's "own proposed $13 billion program
to initiate military operations on the Moon, as well as projects of
comparable fantasy (Project Horizon) periodically suggested by others in the
Pentagon"(17). But, actually, the total cost was estimated at $6 billion
dollars, in an average of approximately $700 million per year (Project
Horizon, Vol. I, p. 8). It was calculated over 8 1/2 years, which pointed
out that was less than 2% of the 1958 defense budget.
Referring why the Army was proposing this project, the report cited
historical precedents such as the scientific outposts of Antartica, making
emphasis that where others failed, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and
Medical Service conquered the elements of nature to build the Panama Canal,
and some other examples.
Moreover, few months before the ABMA team was to be transferred to NASA,
the Wernher von Braun team made a study titled A Lunar Exploration Program
Based Upon Saturn-Boosted Systems(18). And, it was not only to outlining a
full program for the scientific exploration of the Moon, but, the study
included a very interesting program for detecting microorganisms on Mars.
Yet, the opposition to human development and progress in Space has gone so
far to suggest (and only deceive whoever wants to get deceived) that not
only would there be not technological accomplishment in the future, but
there were not any such accomplishments in the past as the successful Apollo
Moon landing missions(19).
An Almost Everlasting Energy Source on the Moon Surface: Helium-3 (He-3)
As one of the Mex-LunarHab's scientific-technologic projects, the search
of plausible new, clean, and cheaper energy sources, the Mexican habitat is
also including lunar He-3 at the list of priorities.
Right here, we are faced to a problem. Not a technical problem, but
political. The same inability of our human society on Earth today to plan
and execute long-range plans in space is widely shown in the so diminished
research and engineering development budgets for fusion. But, just take a
glance at the following facts.
As early as 1970, Apollo samples were known to contain Helium-3 (He-3);
which has been deposited on the Moon over milleniums, from the solar wind.
Years later, fusion scientist Gerald Kulcinski and Harrison Schmitt, the
Apollo 17 astronaut and geologist, led to a detailed proposal for mining
this kind of clean, "everlasting" energy source for export to Earth(20,21).
Detailed plans exist today to get this done.
As the authors of The Moon: Resources, Future Development and Colonization
have clearly pointed out: "The lighter elements will have high value on the
Moon because they will be used for life support systems and for chemical
processes much as the production of plastics. The Helium-3 that is recovered
will also have potentially high value as a fuel of energy production and
rocket propulsion in future nuclear fusion reactors" ("Lunar Railroad",
Space Governance, July 1998, p. 164).
For many people, there are definable risks considered in using nuclear
reactors or the failure of a launch rocket containing radioactive
elements, and of the contamination of the lunar environment. Certainly, so
far, those devices are very well shielded for protecting the Earth and Moon
environments. Simultaneously, up to this day, political forces has been
succesful in blocking the construction of so-needed nuclear reactors in many
countries, and have also tried to prevent the launch of space probes
containing even small amounts of plutonium, the radioisotope thermoelectric
generators (RTGs), as those powering the Galileo (Jupiter) and Cassini
(Saturn) missions.
In 1999, during a gathering protesting the Cassini flyby, a former NASA
astronaut, Franklin Chang Diaz made an accurate statement reminding the
protestors that "nuclear energy in space has been subject to a lot of
irrational fear... Folks have to make it clear in the minds what the
choices really are... In space, power is life. We must have a power rich
environment"(22).
"Less Than a Town But More Than a Space Agency"(23): LEDA's Role for
Administering the Moon
Obviously, the existence of a system of governance of the Moon will be
required to oversee the work, construction, and development of the
utilities system. That government will also be needed to establish a
guaranteed property rights to companies managing mining, construction,
tourism, as well as other institutions that utilize regolith materials and
build the infrastructure elements as they be operating there.
LEDA is a prototype port authority for the Moon being developed by USIS
and its affiliated World-Space Bar Association (WSBA). An existing national
government or a consortium of governments could serve as the host nation for
LEDA; alternatively, an entirely new government in Space, called
"Metanation", which has also been proposed by Declan O'Donnell, would be
host government for LEDA. Whatever it turns out, LEDA would coordinate
planning, design, operations, missions and other benefits of lunar projects
for the common goal of lunar exploration and development.
Some other valid ideas have already been submitted several times, from the
law businesses and aerospace-related people such as Philip Harris, David
Schrunk, and others. For instance, Haym Benaroya, Professor of Mechanical
and Aerospace Engineering at Rutgers University, has proposed a new economic
paradigm for the further development of the Moon, and Space, in general.
Professor Benaroya suggested independent financeable units that have dual
use potential; the creation of a Lunar Development Corporation; at the end
of his article "Economically Viable Lunar Development", he asserts that
"LEDA would not actually construct facilities or develop technologies.
Rather, it would enable others to pursue this activity. LEDA will represent
governance at the lunar venue to administer the multi-nation and private
industry resulting consensus plan"(24).
About this governance for administering private industry of the Moon,
Declan has been stating several times, in many ways, that: "The LEDA, Lunar
Economic Development Authority, proposal reflects a municipal style entity
with special quasi-public authority. It is proposed by USIS, United
Societies in Space, Inc., and tendered to congresses and parliaments
worldwide for sponsorship. It is less than a town but more than a space
agency for coordinated civilian development of the Moon..."(23).
If LEDA becomes operational, it should have jurisdiction over the entire
territory and orbits of "the seventh continent". By awarding and upholding
contracts, LEDA will generate legal certainty for the use of lunar
resources.
Conclusion
The entire Mexo-Hab Project, the Mex-LunarHab and the Mex-AreoHab,
envisions to be the tip of the lance in the development of joint programs
with LEDA and various space agencies; also pressing for the robotic, and
then human exploration of Mars; to be generating joint programs for
simulated planetary missions in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO); one of the main
objectives, to create an excellent cooperative scientific-technologic R&D in
many areas; and, in a long-range, to effectively launch the Hispanic-Mexican
space activities into a long-term program, for fostering the establishment
of a Mexican Space Agency (then an Ibero-American space agency, and an
international space agency as well).
Without any doubt, the Project Horizon played a very important role for
the decision being made for going to the Moon. Probably, without that study
there could have been no Apollo Program. Today, a project designing a lunar
base in the Malapert Mountain ("Newton Base"), and the Mex-LunarHab station
included, may play a historic significant role for the decision to go back
to the Moon soon. This time to stay.
Notes_______________________________________
* Another one of her Martian operational mode is for the pressurized
all-terrain vehicle to carry a hookable, manageable ballon, using it as an
air observation platform, increasing the potential of the Mex-AreoHab
vessel. This brings up multiple advantages because two vehicles are
carried in one, so also optimizing space in the station.
References_________________________________
(1) Robert M. Zubrin, with Richard Wagner, The Case for Mars: The Plan to
Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must", Touchstone, Simon & Schuster, New
York, 1997.
(2) Human Exploration of Mars: The Reference Mission of the NASA Mars
Exploration Study Team, Stephen J. Hoffman & David L. Kaplan, eds., NASA
Johnson Space Center, Houston, 1998.
(3) Philip R. Harris & Declan O'Donnell, "Facilitating a New Space Market
Through a Lunar Economic Development Authority", Space Governance, Vol. 4,
No. 2, July 1997, pp. 122-130.
(4) David Schrunk, Burton Sharpe, Bonnie Cooper, and Madhu Thangavelu, The
Moon: Resources, Future Development and Colonization, Appendix F, John Wiley
& Sons, New York, 1999, pp. 279-293.
(5) Brad R. Blair, "The Commercial Development of Lunar Mineral
Resources", Earth Space Review, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2000, p. 82.
(6) Project Horizon Report, "A U. S. Army Study for the Establishment of a
Lunar Military Outpost", 4 Vols., U. S. Army Ordnance Missile Command,
Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, June 8, 1959.
(7) David Schrunk, Madhu Thangavelu, Bonnie Cooper, and Burton Sharpe,
"Physical Transportation on the Moon: The Lunar Railroad", Space
Governance, Vol. 5, No. 2, July 1998, pp. 162-165, 187.
(8) Stewart W. Johnson and Anis Johnson, "The Civil Engineer in Lunar
Industrialization: Space, Energy, Environment and Education", Space
Governance, Vol. 4, No. 1, January 1997, pp. 26-28.
(9) H. Hermann Koelle, "Steps Toward a Lunar Settlement", Space
Governance, Vol. 4, No. 1, January 1997, pp. 20-25, 29
(10) Kenji Nishioka, Roger D. Arno, Arthur D. Alexander, and Robert E.
Slye, "Feasibility of Mining Lunar Resources for Earth Use: Circa 2000 A.
D.", Vol. 1, NASA TM X-62, 267; Vol. 2, NASA TM X-62, 268, NASA Ames
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