Road To A Lunar Base

The Lunar Base requires several critical problems to be solved and a clear sustainable pathway.

1. Spaceships to transport construction materials and machinery. 

2. The construction technology to utilize materials available.

3. The swarm working construction robotics.

4. The Sustainability (Less burden on tax payers)

1. The Spaceship

As a Spaceship I propose a flying wing design but with no extending stabilizers. It will be a giant thick wing. The advantage of this design is high lifting efficiency so less fuel consumed to lift off and lower take off speed. Complicated stability control will be solved by thrust vectoring of the thrusters. I propose no flaps, ailerons, elevators, slats, rudders or stabilizers. Reaction control system (RCS) thrusters will accomplish the stabilization on earth’s atmosphere as well as on space. Spoilers can be used the reduce the ground speed of the Spaceship during landing. The main thruster engine and RCS will be LNG (LCH₄) powered rockets. The main difference from a conventional rocket engine is the thrust will be lower; the fuel and oxygen will be pumped slowly. It is actually a flying super LNG tanker. The goal is to use Natural Gas (LNG, LCH₄) as fuel and Liquid Oxygen as oxidizer. LNG is the ideal fuel due to its abundance and mature liquification technology. It has the best Energy Density based on volume, and cost. The outer shape of the Spaceship will be a giant plane but inside would be like a ship and shell like an armored vehicle. The Spaceship needs protective shell as well as sections like a ship. The multi hull design will minimize the impact of space dust or similar small particles hitting the spaceship. The hulls can be made of Stainless Steel while it is tougher and have much lower thermal conductivity than Aerospace-grade aluminum. The hulls can be packed with small SiC plates for light armament. Stainless steel hulls will allow flexibility for structural stresses, SiC plates the armament. The spaceship will be divided by bulkheads to form hatches. Hatch design will also minimize the impact of a space debris.   The Spaceship will not travel at the Escape Velocity. The goal is to propel the Spaceship slowly for a much longer time like a conventional plane. Therefore, the Spaceship does not need to withstand high G stress and high temperatures. It will be as close to a traditional plane construction technology as possible. This will reduce the cost of building and required engineering know how as well hard to source high engineering material. The nozzle of the engine does not need to reach extreme temperatures due to reasons above. The Spaceship will be like a cargo ship that will work for many years therefore it needs to be simple and reliable. It does need to stay in one piece like a sea ship which differentiates it from conventional multi stage space rockets. Low maintenance cost and low R&D cost will pay off for the large fuel consumption.

Why design a Spaceship like a big plane and ship combo not like a space rocket? The reasons are as follows:

- Simplify the engineer complexity. The famous saying “It’s not rocket science” referring the rocket design as very complex. Finding experts to develop traditional space rockets is difficult and expensive. When you simplify the problem, sourcing the experts will be much easier and it will be cheaper. In my belief sourcing qualified people will get harder and harder every year because of every new generations lack of concentration on a topic and increasing number of alternatives for the genius minds.  Therefore, decreasing the complexity makes the roadmap more feasible and sustainable.