Benefits Of Standardization: New Opportunities For Reduced Cost Crewed Space Analogs

摘要

A key barrier to the construction and operation of crewed space analogs is the high cost of design and construction. Analogs such as Mars 500, the Mars Society's MDRS and FMARS research stations and the HI-SEAS outpost in Hawaii range in cost from several hundred thousand US dollars to several million. More complex analogs such as the various Antarctic research stations and Biosphere 2 can carry significantly higher construction and operational costs. Additionally, current space analogs are designed to simulate space agency style missions which are characterized by small crews with no population growth, fixed volume habitats and a science mission focus. The advent of private sector missions aimed at establishing permanent human settlements in space and on other celestial bodies also introduces a problem of scaling, which will affect both mission design and governance processes. Simulating settlement missions using current analog design architectures is cost prohibitive, but lower cost solutions can be achieved by employing a modular design approach that leverages existing technologies rather than designing one-off structures for each analog. This paper will present a cost analysis for constructing an analog with architecture similar to that used by the Mars Society using commonly available materials such as shipping containers, pre-fabricated temporary structures and other off-the-shelf components. Such an analog could provide emerging space nations, interested individuals and others who are typically excluded from space analog participation with a low cost means to simulate crewed space missions. Deploying multiple low cost analogs in a single location could also affordably simulate the scaling population inherent to current space settlement efforts which are largely based on modular, standard sized habitation modules.