CONCEPTS FOR 1st GENERATION HYBRID AND INFLATABLE HABITATS WITH IN-SITU RESOURCE UTILISATION FOR THE MOON, MARS AND PHOBOS: RESULTS OF THE HABITAT DESIGN WORKSHOP 2005

摘要

Those who will face the challenge of stepping away from Earth to explore the solar system are currently studying at schools and universities, or are just beginning their careers. The challenge over the coming decades is to create and execute a sustainable programme of exploration, utilisation and settlement of the solar system. This challenge is inherently interdisciplinary, meaning that science and technology developments go hand in hand with economics, industry, politics and society. The Habitat Design Working Group is a postgraduate led programme of interactive, international and transdisciplinary projects, which aims to get undergraduates and young professionals actively involved in MoonMars projects, workshops and other related events. This paper presents the results of the first of these activities: an 8-day long Habitat Design Workshop, held at ESTEC, the Netherlands. The workshop, bringing together 40 postgraduate students and young space researchers from across Europe, contained expert lectures covering subjects like the Moon/Mars environment, systems engineering, architectural design, human factors etc. and culminated in a design exercise which lead to the development of design concepts of Lunar, Martian and Phobos habitat. This paper gives an explanation and discussion of developed habitats and scenarios that integrate new technologies, materials and strategies underlining the features of sustainable concepts through detailed discussion and illustrations. The added value of this Habitat Design Workshop is the combination of analysis and design of habitat concepts from a systems engineering and natural sciences perspective with an architectural design and human factors perspective. Reflecting the multi-disciplinarity needed for the development of extraterrestrial human habitats, the participants comprised of students from disciplines such as engineering, medicine, physics, architecture and industrial design. The Habitat Design Working Group believe that overcoming the challenges of a sustainable programme of exploration, utilisation and settlement of the solar system, an interdisciplinary approach to extraterrestrial habits is essential for success.