the importance for lunar pioneer mental health of being “at ease” with the barren, seemingly...
TRANSCRIPT
The Importance for Lunar Pioneer Mental Health
Of being “at ease” with the barren, seemingly life-squelching radiation-washed lunar surface, the “Out-Vac” -
Peter Kokh
The lunar surface can be intimidating!
• In addition to the risks of prolonged exposure to the cosmic elements, “moon dust” has been getting a bad name as insidious, mischievous, gear-fouling, able to induce silicosis, etc.
Plenty of ways to make pioneers feel “at home” inside
• Modular Construction of rather spacious homesteads will be possible once lunar building materials come online: concrete, metal alloys, glass-glass composites etc.
Plenty of ways to make pioneers feel “at home” inside
• Periscopic picture windows open up onto the surrounding moonscapes
• As heliostats funnel sunshine inside
Plenty of ways to make pioneers feel “at home” inside
Plenty of ways to make pioneers feel “at home” inside
Early use of lunar materials, such as
• cast basalt tiles • carved basalt • raw glass
• steamed sintered regolith, etc.
will say “This is a Lunar homestead!”
Plenty of ways to make pioneers feel “at home” inside
• Living Walls, garden spaces, and ample planters will fill the interior with sweet fresh air, luxuriant greenery, colorful flowers - a reassuring, codling, sample of “Earth-life!”
Plenty of ways to make pioneers feel “at home” inside
• Water features can add their reassuring sounds and repetitive motion • We can even bring the green forests of Old Earth inside, bonsai style
Plenty of ways to make pioneers feel “at home” inside
• We’ll even replace an Old Earth cliché with a one just right for the Moon, to “filter” and “green” the barren moonscapes outside
As for travel “in town” …
• Homesteads will open onto pressurized “middoor” “streets,” also sunlit and full of greenery.
• Settlement streets will hold the bulk of the mini-biosphere
And for travel between towns ..
• Your coach will dock using androgynous locks at both ends of your trip, allowing you to travel in street clothes anywhere on the Moon.
• “Look, ma, no spacesuit!”
Perhaps many pioneers would put on a spacesuit only in a “decompression drill”• Yet prospectors, geologists, and
some construction workers will work on the surface regularly, limiting their “rad” exposure
• There will be hobby “rock hounds,” nature hikers, and amateur astronomers
• And there will be the “outdoor” adventurer sportsman types like road rally fans, even lava tube “spelunkers”
• But others “need not” ever go “outside”
And if you never “have to” go “really” outside, then ….
• There is the danger that a subset of the pioneer population will develop a phobia or neurosis about the lunar surface. As a result, they may never accept the setting in which they live as “home.”
• And that kind of situation could lead to widespread mental health issues
• The Challenge is to develop “out-vac” attractions & events that encourage more and more pioneers to “get their feet dusty” so that they can truly feel “at home” on the Moon, not just inside!
There are some times when being out on the surface will not be so intimidating
• Early “morn dates” - the period when all the Apollo missions were “on the ground”
• Late “afternoon dates” when the sun is also low• During eclipses when the Sun is hidden and the moonscapes take
on a “Mars at twilight” look• Night excursions to look at the stars without sun-glare
Guided Nature Walk Excursions
• Both for adults, and especially for school field trips
• Participants would learn about Moon rocks and geological features
• And most of all, get “out-vac”
QuickTime™ and a decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
As the settlement grows, why not an “out-vac” amusement park?
• A Roller Coaster that plummets at high speed toward an apparent crash, a surface trap door opening just in time!
• Leisurely cableway rides, much more!
Other “out-vav” activities
Some old favorite outdoor activities will survive indoors
• People can go boating in trout streams and lagoons within the settlement
• Human-powered flight only will be possible in high ceiling indoor arenas
• Skiing might be enjoyed in pressurized sloping cylinders set on crater inner walls
There is an easier way: “Lee-Vac” Vacuum protected from the Cosmic
Elements
Inside this kind of environment, protected from the cosmic elements, lighter-weight “counter-pressure” “skinsuits” can be worn with far less fatigue, as well as allowing greater freedom of movement
This will allow warehouse workers, for example, to work longer periods in greater comfort
The “counter-pressure” “skinsuit”
Due to increasing budget constraints, NASA has stopped any further research on these kind of spacesuits.
Others, such as Mars Society Australia, are continuing to develop the idea
How counter-pressure skinsuits work
• An MCP suit differs from a gas-pressurized suit by exerting pressure on the body using form-fitting elastic garments.
• It also does away with stiff mechanical shoulder, elbow, wrist, hip, knee, and ankle joints.
• Webb and Annis published the concept and early experiments of a MCP suit in 1967
• MCP garments offer dramatic improvements to gas pressurized suits in reach, dexterity and tactility due to replace-ment of stiff joints and bearings with light, flexible elastics.
• Further advantages: safety (because a tear or hole would remain a local defect rather than cause a catastrophic puncture), lower suit costs and vastly reduced weight and volume.
“Paris, there is a problem …”
• Skinsuits conform to one’s body shape, thus revealing any of those imperfections, you would rather not display in public.
• Not everyone, of course, would be bothered by that
Skinsuit “outerwear” Fashion Shows to the rescue!
Fabric materials you wouldn’t want next to your skin will work fine.
A robe, a cape, medieval chain mail, fantasy designs: whatever works to get more pioneers to venture out from their cozy indoor and middoor pressurized spaces!
QuickTime™ and a decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
QuickTime™ and a decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Introducing the lee-van Arena
Inside this environment, attached to the main settlement complex, people in skinsuits could exercise or experiment with sports playing to low-gravity with zero-air resistance.
The first such protected but unpressurized arena will surely give birth to all new sports, even no lunar dance ballet!
QuickTime™ and a decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Skinsuits, with or without outerwear, would be fine for short periods out on the surface
Especially under low-sun or no-sun conditions, skinsuit wearers could go “out-vac” for nature walks, or visit sculpture gardens, or other surface attractions.
QuickTime™ and a decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
The idea is to improve overall settler mental health and sense of being truly “at home” on the Moon
Peter Kokh - [email protected]
1630 N 32nd Street, Milwaukee, WI 53208
1-414-342-0705 ~~ 1-888-266-2385