Doing Without Space Suits

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The entire set of space suits would be an encumbrance to a moon colony. They are more suited to robots than to people. If a ditch needs to be dug on the moon's surface, a remote controlled power shovel is the tool to use. If a screw needs to be turned outside, a remote controlled screw driver on the end of a remote controlled robot arm is needed. Indoors a man uses a screwdriver without a space suit. If a colonist needs to move from one place to another across the moon's surface, a vehicle with a pressurized cabin and an air lock that can mate to the air locks of colony living quarters is preferred as transportation over a space suit. Being able to scratch ones elbow and otherwise be comfortable and able to move quickly are advantages of a motorized vehicle with a pressurized cabin. For redundancy a vehicle can have two sections separated by a set of pressure tight doors with independent sets of legs and life support equipment for each section. That kind of redundancy is hard to get with a space suit. When people arrive on the moon by rocket, They should be in a passenger compartment that doubles as a land vehicle. A mobile platform from the colony should come up to the descent vehicle so the cabin can detach from the lander, walk onto the platform, and be lowered to the ground. Then it can walk to the colony air locks.

To produce a successful human colony on the moon, people must be able to imagine what the successful colony is like before it is built. The division of labor between remote controlled devices and people doing hands on work is this: Robots will do all work outside in the vacuum and robots will do routine easily automated industrial tasks indoors. People will work inside pressurized environments doing tasks that are not easy to automate. Such tasks include analysis of samples brought in from the lunar surface for scientific and economic significance, analysis of production samples to determine the efficiency of industry, repair of machinery, and fabrication of small numbers of devices. When some of this work involves working with machines or materials that would be harmed by exposure to oxygen or moisture, a person can wear a Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus (SCIBA) in a compartment pressurized with inert gas or some other non-oxidizing gas. A SCIBA does not restrict a person's dexterity and mobility as a space suit does, because it is worn in a one atmosphere pressure environment instead of in a vacuum environment; and so has no tendency to blow up like a balloon. Also there is no long preparation time of breathing low pressure pure oxygen before using a SCIBA. It works with a breathing gas that is one atmosphere pressure, 20% oxygen just like the inhabited portions of the colony. If for any reason a task usually handled by remote control from Earth is not so handled, the task can be undertaken by remote control by a person on the moon, or it can be handled by a person in a surface vehicle using attached manipulators. A space suit will not be necessary for any tasks on the moon.

For some tasks on Earth screws are made with hex heads to be turned by a wrench and also a slot for a screw driver. This is typical of customer assembled furniture in which the manufacturer wants the customer to be able to assemble the product even with a deficient set of tools. There should be no similar situation for colonists on the moon using either a space suit or a remote controlled tool. There should never again be any space suits on the moon. Designing a task for two means of operation is an expense to be avoided.

Besides colony air lock doors to mate with vehicle air locks, there should be air lock doors big enough to admit the entire vehicle for repair and other special circumstances. A minimum sized vehicle for a man moving on the lunar surface would be a two meter (79 inch) high 66 cm diameter vertical axis cylinder with hemispherical end caps top and bottom, arms and legs attached fore and legs aft. Another possibility is an 84 cm diameter 135 cm long horizontal axis cylinder with legs beneath and arms in front. These vehicles would be much superior to space suits. Certainly there could be much larger vehicles also. An example of a legged vehicle is the BigDog rough-Terrain robot. To operate outdoors on the moon this robot would need an atmosphere containing, dust shedding covering and alterations to operate on electricity and withstand the thermal threats. No new science is required to develop walking robotic vehicles for the moon.

See Also

• Space suit