Billabong Moonbase

Introduction

The first moonbase project to be developed by AscensionTek is called "Billabong", which is an Australian aboriginal term meaning "waterhole" or "drinking pool". This name has been chosen in order to mark the base as Australian, and also because one of the primary functions of the base will be to mine and supply water from nearby south polar regions. Other functions of the base will include holiday and permanent accommodation, mining, exploration, and scientific research.

Location

Billabong will be located at Malapert Mountain (approximately 86°S 0°E, 122km from the lunar south pole), an important location that has been identified as one of the best possible locations for a moonbase. NASA's moonbase will probably be located there, as will others, and Billabong will therefore be part of a community. Malapert Mountain is one of the so-called "Peaks of Eternal Light", mountains on the Moon which receive sunlight for almost all of the time, making them ideal locations for solar arrays. It receives full or partial sunlight for 93% of the time, and is in constant view of Earth, an essential feature for Earth-Moon communications. Furthermore, it is close to permanently-shadowed areas in the floors of nearby craters, where water-ice deposits may be found.

Mt Malapert

Purpose

Because of the large cost of a moonbase, economics play an important role. Governments, and especially the Australian government, cannot be expected to fund anything as extravagant as a moonbase for any length of time. If government agencies do establish moonbases, as the US, Europe, China and Japan are all planning to do, they are only likely to support a program of scientific research and will use the moonbase as a technology test bed and data collection tool in order to support commercial colonisation efforts.

For a thriving community to develop on the Moon, there must be economic incentive. Fortunately, Luna provides us with multiple financially motivating reasons for establishing a human presence on its surface.

Energy

Luna is thought to be the richest source in the Solar System of helium-3, an isotope of helium identified as the ideal fuel for nuclear fusion, since a fusion reactor powered purely by helium-3 produces only water, no neutrons, and almost no radiation. Helium-3 fusion could potentially be one of the cleanest, safest and most efficient ways to produce massive amounts of energy.

Luna also provides an excellent, stable platform for large-scale solar arrays that could collect unfiltered solar radiation and beam it to Earth as microwaves. These microwave beams would be harvested by unobtrusive rectenna arrays, providing another valuable source of energy.

With human energy requirements expected to increase at least 8-fold by 2050 (Harrison Schmitt - Return to the Moon), these energy sources will be extremely valuable.

Metals

Luna is a source of a wide variety of valuable metals. As environmental awareness increases on Earth there is less propensity to mine its surface, yet at the same time the world is industrialising rapidly and demand for metals is skyrocketing. The Moon and the asteroids have been identified as extremely abundant sources of valuable metals of all kinds. In the short term, the Moon will be much easier to get to, and to conduct mining operations on, than asteroids.

There are 3 main categories of metals on the Moon which would be of value:

Iron. This is our primary industrial metal on Earth, being the main component of steel. This metal is abundant throughout the universe, including on Earth, but obtaining it from the Moon would cause fewer environmental effects on Earth. A lunar iron and steel industry will be instrumental in expanding lunar civilization.
Light engineering metals. These include titanium, aluminium, and magnesium, all highly valued for their excellent mechanical properties. Aluminium is the second most important metal on Earth, and is available in abundance on the Moon. Titanium is widely used in aerospace applications due to its high strength-to-weight ratio, and its heat tolerance. Titanium is found in concentration with helium-3, since titanium minerals absorb helium better, which means a helium-3 mining operation could be configured to also produce titanium to gain maximum leverage from the project.
Platinum group metals. These are extremely valuable metals because of their material properties. Because these are heavy elements, they tend to sink towards a planet's core when in a molten state, and are therefore quite rare on the surface of Earth. However, they are also found in asteroids and meteors, which means they can be found on the lunar surface in impact debris.

Tourism and Sport

Luna is probably the best place in the Solar System from the perspective of the emerging space tourism industry. While zero gravity will be fun, it would be hard to get used to for long periods of time, and probably not healthy. Lunar gravity provides a familiar orientation of 'up' and 'down', while still allowing a feeling of mostly-weightlessness. It will be much easier to adapt Earth sports such as golf, soccer, and tennis for the Moon than for orbital space, and the Moon also provides opportunities for exploration, hiking, mountain climbing, rego-boarding (like snowboarding, but on regolith), flying (inside an air-filled volume such as dome, with wings strapped on), and many other sports. With spectacular views of Earth, the stars and the planets, lunar hotels will be enormously popular. Mars, too, will be a hugely popular tourist destination, but the Moon has the advantage of only being a day or two away at the most.

Property Development

Once people start visiting the Moon, a percentage will certainly want to live there. The opportunity therefore exists to provide permanent accommodation and everything that goes with it - shopping centres, parks and recreational areas, public transport, infrastructure, etc. It is likely that Luna will be especially popular with retirees who no longer need to work within Earth's industries, or people who have mobility issues that can be relieved by reducing their weight by five sixths.

The best thing about the Moon is that the land is essentially free. Although space property law is still being formulated, the general consensus is that common law of "ownership through use" will prevail, which means that once we start developing a piece of land, we own it. The primary costs in lunar property development are therefore transport and technology. However, with people paying millions of dollars for luxury properties on Earth, what will they pay for quality living quarters on the Moon? Imagine a building of spacious apartments with views of Earth, and access to transport, shops, restaurants, sporting facilities and recreational activities. One hundred luxury apartments at $10M each amounts to $1 billion dollars in sales.

Scientific Research

Luna has also been identified as the best place in the Solar System to learn about how the Solar System was formed. It's an ideal location for optical and radio astronomy, especially on the far side, where radio noise from Earth is blocked, and also for studying solar and cosmic radiation, since on Earth this radiation is largely blocked by the magnetosphere and atmosphere.

Most importantly from the perspective of AscensionTek, Luna is an ideal place to prepare for colonisation of Mars. Although Luna and Mars are very different, similar challenges exist such as environment control, life-support, radiation protection, production of air, water, food, energy and materials, communications with Earth, transport and so on. Yet Luna has the advantage of being significantly closer. Building a human colony on the Moon will enable us to establish a set of safety guidelines and technological development parameters that will be applicable to Mars, and provide considerable highly valuable experience.

While scientific research is not as quantifiable in terms of profit as the other items in this list, it undoubtedly has significant business value. Scientific research is the foundation of engineering and technology development, which leads to new products and services, higher efficiencies and improved productivity. There are already countless examples of technology spin-offs from our fledgling space efforts, and countless more will certainly be generated by lunar colonisation. Technologies developed for colonising the Moon will be applicable on Earth, enabling people to live in comfort even in the middle of hot or cold deserts.

Design

Billabong must therefore incorporate a number of integrated components:

Helium-3/titanium mine, including refining and processing plants, plus mine worker accommodation.
Iron and steel factory.
Hotel, and accommodation for staff.
Luxury apartments.
A park, gardens, shops, and recreational and sporting facilities.
Scientific research facilities.
Water mine, plus storage tanks and purification and recycling equipment.
Greenhouses for food production.
Air production facility.
Large solar panel array.
Communications tower.
Spaceport.

It is not unusual to find permanent and holiday accommodation within the same block of units, and the hotel and luxury apartments could potentially be combined, at least in stage 1 of the base. The accommodation for miners, hotel staff, scientists, engineers, other staff employed by the base, and even backpackers and students, could also be combined into one accommodation area.

Helium-3 and titanium are best mined from the same location, since these are usually found together in concentration on the Moon. Iron could be mined from concentrated deposits elsewhere, or extracted from tailings of the ³He-Ti mine. The ³He refining process may also produce enough carbon to satisfy the requirements of steel production. If it can be done efficiently, a single system may be able to process regolith into helium-3, titanium, steel and oxygen.

The water mine will be located in the permanently-shaded floor of a nearby crater, melted, and transported in heated pipes (as mud) to a purification plant on the crater rim. From here, the pure water would be piped to the base, again in special temperature-controlled pipes. Water at the base will be recycled using the best technology available.

The greenhouse will probably be located underground, along with some parts of the base. This is to provide radiation protection, and to reduce the energy cost of environment control.

An air production plant would take oxygen produced by the refineries, possibly mix it with imported nitrogen, and pipe it to the base. Air would be recycled within the base mostly by plants, such as those in the greenhouse, gardens and parks.

The solar panels would be placed around the peak of Mount Malapert in order to capture continuous sunlight. This solar energy farm, as well as the communications tower, spaceport and water mine, would probably be shared between Billabong and other bases at Mount Malapert.

Schedule

NASA's moonbase is scheduled for 2024, Japan's is currently scheduled for 2030, and China's for 2032. While I believe that the effects of climate change will scupper most governmental space development plans, this is probably about the right timeframe to aim for. I would like to begin building Billabong by about 2035.

This allows for 28 years of preparation. We'd better start now!

From about 2007-08	Construction of ecovillages and eco-mining-towns as moonbase analogues.
From about 2015	Investment in technology development, especially mining robotics, nuclear fusion, CELSS, and levitational propulsion.
From about 2020	Investment and participation in metalliferous mining operations, especially iron, steel and titanium.
From about 2030	Preliminary missions to test and validate fundamental technologies and verify selenological resources. Establishment of temporary habitats.
From about 2035	Construction of Billabong.
From about 2040-45	Open for business.