James D. Burke, Rungsak Dokbua – Practical Opportunities for Including Art in Coming Lunar Programs – 2004

For many years it has been evident that the Moon’s polar regions offer unique advantages for inhabited bases [1,2,3]. The recent observation of excess hydrogen in these locales [4] has strongly reinforced that prospect. Sunlight is almost continuous and always horizontal at the poles, inviting the design of energy-conversion and life-support systems that do not need to contend with the hot two-week days and frigid two-week nights that prevail elsewhere on the Moon.

It is, however, essential to evaluate the polar environments and demonstrate reliable systems at robotic scale before committing to much more costly ventures devoted to sustained lunar living. Obtaining environmental data and doing technical demonstrations are thus important goals for near-term robotic polar lander missions.

Needed technologies include precision landing at selected polar locations and demonstration of solar energy uses in the polar environment. In what follows, we describe a lander mission having these goals and including a demonstration of lunar polar art.

1. Future Lunar Base Power System

A possible system for gathering solar energy, converting it into three different forms for base support, and rejecting waste heat is described in [1,2,3]. Here is a brief summary of the concept.

Atop a lunar peak of perpetual light is installed a tall tower that rotates continuously (at about 1/2 degree per hour) to face the Sun. It has three elements: first, a photovoltaic array; second, a collector delivering heat at moderate temperature for use in the base; and third, a solar furnace delivering high-temperature energy for materials processing. In a nearby, permanently-shaded, frigid area is a radiator rejecting waste heat to dark space.

2. Robotic Precursor

The system described in this paper is a simplified version that can fit within the constraints of near-term lunar programs. It consists of a Surveyor-type robotic lander whose main payload is a cylindrical solar array like that of the Hughes/Boeing HS376 communicattions satellites. (Using exactly that type of array may not be practical because of excess heating and cooling due to the Moon’s very slow rotation, but the concept is what matters here.) Since the array’s circumference is covered entirely with solar cells it need not rotate to track the Sun.

Stowed inside the array cylinder during transport to and landing on the Moon is a large inflatable sculpture. After landing this is inflated to form the shape of a flower — a lotus.

The shape and coloring of the flower are intended to express the aesthetic values of a peaceful civilization incorporating elements of both Western and Asian design. The lunar frontier of human habitation presents a new physical and spiritual landscape that can be expressed through art. Art can integrate the elements of human consciousness and experience of living with (and exploiting) the Earth, thus prompting the public’s imagination and possibilities for lunar exploration and habitation. The Moon has had historical and spiritual significance in all cultures, thus a global peaceful inter-cultural conceptualization of lunar habitation is possible and can be integrated with scientific structures and design conceptualized in science and engineering. The lotus flower is a symbol of awakening, enlightenment and clarity in Buddhist cultures. This Lunar Lotus represents the goals and ambitions of human habitation and peaceful civilization on the Moon.

The flower will ‘bloom’ out of a cylindrical solar array. The Lunar Lotus can employ technology that will be needed for inflatable structures in future lunar missions, including occupied bases. Thus in addition to its artistic purpose, the Lunar Lotus is an engineering precursor experiment.

For students, educators and the public to enjoy the vision of the Lotus, on-site cameras will be needed to observe it. Cameras are commercially available with imaging performance adequate for this application. The lander will incorporate an ejection system for emplacing several such viewing units nearby.

In addition to its artistic goal, this mission is to answer some scientific questions and demonstrate a number of technologies that will be vital in later lunar polar missions both robotic and human. A partial list follows.

1. Precision Landing

Images show Apollo 12 astronauts’ visit to Surveyor 3. Though the Surveyor landers were not precisely guided to predetermined points, after landing their positions were very accurately located by radio tracking, so that (using the elaborate radio/inertial/celestial systems of the Apollo spacecraft plus visual human piloting) the astronauts were able to land their lunar module less than 170 meters from Surveyor 3. A discussion of future cislunar navigation prospects is given in [5].

2. Continuous Solar Power Supply

The cylindrical solar array will provide several hundred watts of electrical power while it is illuminated. As described in [6], some near-polar locations are illuminated more than 80 per cent of the time. During dark periods due to either topographic occultation of the Sun or eclipses by Earth, the system can run using batteries as is now done for communication satellites in eclipse.

In addition to its photovoltaic energy conversion and energy management devices, this power system will have monitors measuring environments important to power production on the Moon. Spacecraft at lower latitudes have observed the passage, near sunset and sunrise, of a cloud of scattered light within a few meters of the surface. This is thought to be due to static electric charging of fine lunar dust. Since sunrise/sunset conditions prevail continuously near the poles, this dust phenomonon will be different there; whether greater or smaller has not been predicted.

3. Erection and Maintenance of Inflatable Structures

The design and emplacement of the Lunar Lotus will exercise all of the principles and skills needed for the future use of inflatable structures on the Moon, at a scale compatible with launch by existing expendable rockets. Approximate allowable mass figures are given later below. Erection may take advantage of the new technology of electroactive polymers [7].

Observation, by both local cameras ond on-board position sensors, of the inflation process and its final result will yield valuable demonstrations of the relevant technologies. In addition, the blooming of the Lotus can be announced as an event to be observed by a worldwide public via the Internet.

4. Deployment of Small Objects

Small camera/transmitter units for local observation may be ejected, to distances of the order of tens of meters, by devices similar to a fisherman’s flexible rod and spinning reel, taking advantage of the Moon’s vacuum and low gravity. These units can be placed in operation before inflation of the Lotus so as to give a perspective on the lander’s unique surroundings.

5. Erection of Small Objects after Landing

After touching down and bouncing with airbags, recent martian landers have been able to right themselves in preparing to deploy rovers. The lunar viewing units can use the same principles in miniature, but no airbags are needed because small objects are inherently more rugged than bi

Increasingly in recent times, space agencies are demanding various forms of education and public outreach as parts of mission design. This polar lander mission is well suited to carry student experiments in addition to its main artistic outreach with the Lotus. The landed spacecraft is big enough and has enough power and communications capacity to carry a suite of small payloads designed and built by student teams. Once received on Earth, the students’ data and inquiries could be distributed via the Internet. A model for this exists at the Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telesccope site in California, where middle-school students remotely program and operate a former NASA deep space station having a 26-meter antenna.

Student experiments proposed and selected in response to an Announcement of Opportunity would not only provide hands-on educational experience and useful data; also they would enable students to develop the managerial skills needed for them to perform as experimenters in later space programs, including follow-on robotic missions and the eventual human return to the Moon.

It happens that a student team, working as part of NASA’s 2004 Research and Advanced System Concepts Academic Linking campaign, has designed a mission very similar to this one in regard to spacecraft and payload mass [8]. Launched on a Delta II Heavy vehicle, their spacecraft, with an initial mass near 2100 kg, can deliver more than 800 kg to a lunar polar site. Of this, more than 200 kg can be net payload — in our case the solar array, the Lotus with its erection system, the cameras and student instruments.

What we have sketched here is intended to stimulate thought, advocacy and action toward incorporating various forms of artistic expression into coming lunar missions. It is now past the time when the fine and lively arts should begin to find hospitable lunar accommodation. The purpose of our example is not to declare it as the best or first possibility. Rather, we have intended to show that exciting art can exist within the constraints of missions in an acceptable launch cost class. Art of this kind can display peaceful intercultural values for the interested world community during practical, near-future robotic expeditions to the Moon.

[1] J.D. Burke, « Energy Conversion at a Lunar Polar Site, » Radiation Energy Conversion in Space, vol. 61, Progress in Astronautics and Aeronautics, K. Billman, M. Summerfield, Eds., New York: AIAA, pp. 95-103, 1978.

[2] M.F. McKay, D.S. McKay, M. Duke, Eds. Space Resources (4 Vols.) NASA SP – 509, Washington, DC: NASA, 1984.

[3] J.D. Burke, « Merits of a Lunar Polar Base, » Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21st Century, W.W. Mendell, Ed., Houston: Lunar and Planetary Institute, pp. 85-93, 1985.

[4] S. Nozette, W. Feldman, R. Elphic, P. Spudis, « Integration of Lunar Polar Datasets », Return to the Moon II, Las Vegas: Space Frontier Foundation, pp. 225-231, 2001.

[5] J. D. Burke, R.J. Cesarone, R.C. Hastrup, M.W. Lo, « Cislunar Navigation », Satellite Navigation Systems: Policy, Commercial and Technical Interaction, M. Rycroft, Ed., Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 1-8, 2003.

[6] D.B.J. Bussey, P.D. Spudis, M.S. Robinson, « Illumination conditions at the lunar south pole », Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 26, No. 9, Washington, DC: pp. 1187-1190, 1 May 1999.

[7] Y. Bar-Cohen, JPL, Personal communication, April 2004. See also http://eap.jpl.nasa.gov

[8] P. Bonzell et al., (NASA RASC-AL student team), « LIL/O – Lunar Ice Lander/Orbiter », Prescott, AZ: Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, 2004