Rishabh Garg, India
Space Settlement Design
National Aeronautics & Space Administration USA
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Permanent Orbital Settlement in Space Name
Rishabh Garg
Grade & School
Grade-8, Delhi Public School Bhopal
Address for Communication
HIG - 50, A - Sector Sonagiri, Bhopal 462021 MP India
Contact Nos.
+91-94244 17792 +91-94244 85498
e-mail
[email protected] [email protected]
“Home is available for short stay. Landscape is airless but is a magnificent desolation. Closest grocery store is a quarter of a million miles away”.
Introduction
To date all manned space explorations have been relatively short in duration and obviously they could not cover up much distance from Earth. It is well-known that high radiation levels, beyond Earth‟s surface, pose the biggest challenge to deepsea human explorers. With contemporary space-craft technology, astronauts are exposed to high amount of radiations if they venture to sail beyond Earth‟s orbit for more than a year or so. Consequently, many fascinating targets in our galaxy, even with in our own solar system, remain unapproachable to human investigation till date. Owing to frequent star blasts and other dramatic happenings at one or the other distal point of the Universe, like Supernovae or super-massive black holes, high energy particles are fired into the space at the speed of light. Earth is unescapably thrashed by galactic cosmic rays but our atmosphere and magnetic field deflect most of these fast moving protons. Beyond the protective cocoon of the Earth‟s magnetosphere, there is a universe, full of space radiations. These radiations comprise of atoms in which the electrons ward off, leaving the nucleus of the atom alone. The cosmic rays are difficult to shield against and occur on
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Rishabh Garg, India
Space Settlement Design
each space mission. Though they are easy to predict but are often more hazardous than occasional solar flare episodes.
RISHABH GARG DPS BHOPAL INDIA
In such a milieu, expedition up to Mars can be intended but if humanity wants to venture beyond it, like Jupiter‟s Moon – Europa, improvements in spacecraft shielding would be a pre-requisite. Mission time and distance is often limited by the following factors :
Objective
i
Carrying capacity of the space craft
ii
Crew (Number of persons on Board)
iii
Life supporting and sustaining requirements.
Essentials of a Space Settlement The aim of Space Settlement Design is to construct a space colony that integrates habitat, agriculture & live-stock production, food processing, mining, manufacturing, transportation, intra & inter-planetary communication and so on in such an intricate way that the demands for energy, raw material, man power, transport and waste disposal can be accomplished by the overall system itself. The system must be self-sufficient to cater the architectural, cultural, physiological, psychological, social and aesthetic necessities of a permanent human colony, simulating Earth like environment, with minimum cost and maximum comfort. It should have variety, flexibility, motivation and meaningful involvement with the surrounding. Over & above, it should not give a sense of isolation of living in space.
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Rishabh Garg, India
Space Settlement Design
Infrastructure
Requisites
Challenges
Mission decides what to carry on to space is based on launch mass : volume measurements that costs around $ 10,000 per pound weight to launch anything into space. However, while designing space settlements, no compromise can be made with respect to :
Habitability of the environment;
Availability of Life Support System; and
Efficiency
The space settlement needs to have provision for :
Residential Units ~ 40 m3, Private lawns, Pedestrian access.
Business Houses ~ 9.25 m3, Malls, Shops, Go-downs and Offices.
Public Space ~ Government Offices ~ 3.0 m3, Hospitals ~ 1.5 m3, Schools, Shrines, Gardens ~ 200 m2, Recreation Centers ~ 3 m3, Play-grounds ~ 500 m2, Swimming pools ~ 150 m2, etc.
Industries and Manufacturing Units ~ 25 m3.
Supplies : Water, Electricity, Telecommunication ~ 18 m2.
Surface, air and Water Transport ~ 75 m2.
Animal and plant breeding ~ 800 m2.
A colony of few hundred or thousand people cannot sustain economy, education, medicine or technology. Trade & Commerce can be possible with a population of 150,000 ± 50,000 individuals and any industry would require 300,000 ± 100,000 inhabitants to survive. Small colony would aggravate its dependence on Earth. It would neither be feasible to cater high demand of material supply, inventory control, banking & insurance, everyday health-care, technology and research, nor would it be possible to depend on Earth for every trivial need. Long distance between the space settlement and Earth will isolate the colonists from the home planet.
Potential Alternatives
Architectural spaces should be light weight, flexible, preferably modular, simple to manufacture and easy to erect in terms of cost, material, time and space.
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Space Settlement Design
Rishabh Garg, India
Places should be individual (private) as well as common (community) for social interaction. Instead of artificial simulations, aesthetics should be enhanced through utilityaimed natural environment. Landscapes may be developed by creating water receptacles, fish farming, animal culture and crop-fields. Colonies should be developed on geometric pattern and not arbitrarily. Actual useable area or floor space can be magnified by constructing level, one above another. Population density (number of individuals per unit area or territorial area per person) must be kept around ~ 35-40 m2 per person to avoid over-aggregation, pollution and ensure proper services and facilities.
Challenges
Space receives 16 times sunlight than an average Earth day with absolute darkness owing to lack of radiant energy. The temperature varies from -100oC to 120oC.
Galactic cosmic radiations, electrically charged particles from Sun and coronal mass ejections throw bursts of charged particles that travel with the speed of light. Space radiations can even produce neutron when they strike a space-craft or an astronaut inside it – a phenomenon alluded to as secondary effect. They are very serious; they damage cell and bring about breakage or cluster DNA strands and eventually cause cataracts, cancers or even death. Unlike Earth, Mars and other space destinations does not have a global magnetic field to shield it from solar flares and cosmic rays. Mars‟ atmosphere is hardly < 1% as thick as that of the Earth.
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Space Settlement Design
Rishabh Garg, India
Space radiations are higher at orbital inclinations, where Earth‟s magnetic field concentrates ionizing particles; or at higher altitudes, where the Earth‟s magnetic field is weaker. Crew on board of an International Space Station receives 160-320 milliSieverts (mSv) per year of radiations as compared to 2 mSv per year on Earth. Space debris and micro-meteorites, travelling at very high velocities, can damage the outer layer of space-craft or puncture a space-suit. At 450-500 km above Earth‟s surface, there are very few molecules of atmospheric and inter-planetary gases. These gases exert no pressure as compared to Earth that has 29.92” Hg = 1013.25 mb. The human body is not equipped to survive in space with vacuum – no air pressure. Dissolved gases would expand forcing liquids and solids apart. Human skin would inflate like a balloon, rupture and the tissues will decompress, circulatory system may collapse and anoxic conditions may prevail. The absence of gravity can interfere with swallowing, digestion, circulation, excretion and eventually with decalcification, altered heart-beat, decreased cardiac silhouette, muscular reflexes, venous pooling or leukocytosis. Since body draws calcium from blood and bones to correct electrolyte imbalance, it is obvious that lack of movement and gravity may set a new chemical equilibrium in cytoplasmic fluid. Though physiological changes are reversible, but free fall state of endocrine glands may lead to hypo or hypersecretion, vascular changes and immunological deviations which may not
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Space Settlement Design
Rishabh Garg, India
rescind. Biodynamic Stress : The long term interactive and cumulative effects of atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, galactic radiation, hypo-gravity, Coriolis force, temporal and spatial factors can be detrimental to the space voyager. For long space trips, constant supply of life supporting and sustaining needs is neither technologically nor economically feasible.
Requisites
For humans to survive, they need active temperature regulation system to maintain temperature. Radiation exposure should not exceed 0.5 rem/year. Therefore, space ships and space suits should be constructed from material that limits the amount of solar particles. In space magnetic field density should be ≤ 100 T
