The Colony Worlds blog notes advances in treating the physiological effects of low-gravity environments (New Drug May Help Counter Muscle Loss From Micro Gravity). This is important, since prolonged exposure to low-gravity environments has a detrimental effect on bones and muscles and will therefore be a medical issue for the lunar colonists, as they will have to acclimate to 1/6 of Earth's gravity.
Some necessary prep work will soon be done for the lunar program (Space.com - NASA Takes Aim at Moon with Double Sledgehammer):
NASA's previous Lunar Prospector mission detected large amounts of hydrogen at the moon's poles before crashing itself into a crater at the lunar South Pole. Now the much larger Lunar Crater and Observation Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission, set for a February 2009 moon crash, will take aim and discover whether some of that hydrogen is locked away in the form of frozen water.
Why is this important? Well, we can use the hydrogen and oxygen in the frozen water for fuel, it's a sort of "live off the land" approach that will be vital to really getting the next stage of lunar exploration and settlement going.
Here is some very cool space art accepted by the NSS Space Settlement Calendar Committee as entries in the NSS Space Settlement 2009 Calendar Art Contest. My favorite: Moonbase One
The results of a new study indicate that solar and cosmic radiation will be a threat to the health and wellbeing of lunar colonists (Daily Galaxy - Will Radiation Zap Astronaut’s Brains in Deep Space?):
Using a mouse model designed to reveal even slight changes in brain cell populations, scientists found radiation appeared to target a particular type of stem cell in an area of the brain believed to be important for learning and mood control. These findings from a team of researchers from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and the McKnight Brain Institute of the University of Florida, suggest that identifying medications or physical shielding to protect astronauts from cosmic and solar radiation is necessary for the success of all human space missions beyond low Earth orbit.
Perhaps it's time to think of building lunar habitats below ground?
SF writer Charlie Stross trashes the whole exploration/colonization project (Charlie's Diary - The High Frontier, Redux). How would you reply to him? HT: Sentient Developments
Imagine a future lunar explorer falls into a crater and breaks a leg (but not the spacesuit), colleagues quickly transport her back to the habitat where a prefab modular medical bay complete with a robot surgeon is standing by (Longview Daily News - NASA to test robot surgeon):
All the portable parts of this device weigh about 50 pounds and can be transported and reconstructed by non-engineers at remote sites. Robot surgeons currently being used in hospitals weigh several thousand pounds, are not portable and can't be easily broken down and reconstructed.
When our intrepid explorers finally reach the Moon again and set up an encampment, where will they live? NASA has plans to build inflatable structures to house our first lunar colonists (Space.com - NASA Tests Inflatable Lunar Shelters):
The inflatable structure is made of multilayer fabric and looks like an ungainly white robot with legs. The main unit is 12 feet in diameter and 18 feet tall. It has a volume of about 1,600 cubic feet and is connected to an airlock, also inflatable. The two spaces are essentially pressurized cylinders, connected by an airtight door.
I wonder how well that kind of structure will do in shielding them from solar radiation? That is one of the great dangers the colonists will face.
Space.com takes a look at some of the logistical problems inherent in lunar exploration and settlement (Packing for the Moon: New Software Aims to Track Supplies):
If an outhouse on the Moon ran out of toilet paper, an intrepid settler might have to waddle about 240,000 miles to get a fresh roll back on Earth. To make sure that doesn't happen, scientists have developed a software tool that tracks and ensures a reliable stream of necessities from the Earth to the Moon.
Hosting an observatory is but one of the many possible missions for a lunar base. Space.com reports (Lunar Observatories: Grand Plans vs. Clear Problems) that, "Astronomers are split over the merits of lunar-based observatories compared with those in free space like the Hubble Space Telescope."
NASA is reintroducing the public to the lunar phase of the Vision for Space Exploration (Seattle Post Intelligencer - NASA Says It Will Set Up Polar Moon Camp):
NASA may be going to the same old moon with a ship that looks a lot like a 1960s Apollo capsule, but the space agency said Monday that it's going to do something dramatically different this time: Stay there. Unveiling the agency's bold plan for a return to the moon, NASA said it will establish an international base camp on one of the moon's poles, permanently staffing it by 2024, four years after astronauts land there.
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