Anton Rakov— Associate Professor, Department of Innovative Design, Samara State Technical University
The colonization of the moon is still a pure theory
- How did the moon come into your life?
— By the way, this is an interesting question. To be honest, I don’t know what I need there. But for some reason this environment intrigues me. Perhaps he re-read the Russian cosmists - Tsiolkovsky, Chizhevsky.
- Over the past year, the Moon has become popular again.the direction of development of the space industry - both for Russia, and for the USA, and for other countries. When you started it all, the Moon was, in general, less popular. Nobody talked about building a base on the moon as the near future.
- I'll tell you more. This topic was on a par with fortune-tellers and all such other things. Now again, a new wave has arrived.
Photo: Maxim Bubnov / Hi-Tech
- It was difficult to start research, when it is not clear why they are and for whom? Now, perhaps, there are some prospects, but then it was a pure theory?
- Yes of course.Even now it is actually a theory, because neither we nor the Americans are ready for construction to begin in the near future. That is, this is just a new wave - everyone is trying to portray something like this. We all started with the study of extreme environments and how a person adapts to these environments, what is common between different environments. And it turned out that, indeed, there is a lot in common in the way a person behaves. Apparently this is an unconscious phenomenon. We recorded these phenomena and called them tactical principles that a person uses when advancing and gaining a foothold in an extreme environment.
- And what are they?
- There are three main ones. The first is a system of sequential experiments. When each next project is a continuation of the previous one. They are all interconnected. People dreamed about the orbital station for a long time. But before implementing it, there were a lot of trial and error, each of which is an independent project. The satellite rustled more than the station itself. And Belka and Strelka, the first man in space, Yuri Alekseevich (Gagarin - "HayTech"). Each project is a sign in itself.
The second principle is the use of local resourcesfor fixation in the environment. It’s just cheaper - you don’t have to carry logs and stones with you on ships when we are exploring America, but you just come there with a rope and axes and start deploying on the spot.
Model base on the moon, Anton Rakov
And the third tactical principle is inclusion.mastered environment in the economic interests of the ecumene. Given these three tactical principles, it can be said with confidence that our environment will be ours, and an active exploration will soon begin there. Of these three tactical principles in the history of the exploration of the moon, one and a half are now ready. Very soon it will be studied to such an extent that it will be possible to plan a settlement. Just in case, I will say this is not a secret - the moon has already been measured far and wide, studied geology, topography in great detail. I would even say that in the open access on Earth there is no such detail as on the Moon.
Resources are shared, and what can be done from them is private
- That is, we already know all the resources that can be mined on the moon?
- Yes, there are a lot of interesting things there - not only water orhelium-3, but also gold and silver. Therefore, questions now arise at the international level: what to do with agreements that continue to be in effect? And we, our team, are actually the first to start asking such questions.
There are international agreements that rightforbid to sell the moon as a territory. Exactly the same agreement, in which the Soviet Union then participated, and Russia, now as the legal successor, establishes the rights of the owners for what they delivered and manufactured there. Which is also logical. There are no questions to the territory, it is clear with the devices. But we took the device, made the first moon brick. We have a question: whose brick? The preliminary answer is that our brick is - it belongs to the one who made it. This means that it can be sold.
“But then why are resources still considered common?” It is as if there were free oil on Earth, but paid gasoline.
- Yes, but then what a story: in fact, this issue is settled in the very near future, you just have to sit down and agree. And there are two fundamentally different approaches to this. In the 60s of the 20th century this question was simply not written, because it was very far from the development of resources.
Not long ago, the United States and Luxembourg allowed theircompanies to extract resources. It is not very good to allow your companies to simply take and unilaterally expropriate what was considered common. And they even recruit and train specialists - geologists, only on the Moon. We actually teach too. It's not very well known, but we teach.
Photo: Maxim Bubnov / "Hightech"
And there is a second scenario - morehumane and, it seems to me, the right approach. There is a resource, and everyone has recognized that it belongs equally to all humanity. But this does not mean that it cannot be used. Moreover, these same documents allow its use when risks to life, health and for scientific purposes arise. And if we are talking about commercial use, then this is a simple solution. It is enough to introduce some kind of compensation fee for the use of resources, organize some kind of international institution, for example, an international space agency, which would act as a guarantor of the rights of all. If someone sold a brick, some percentage of this can be taken and then used to compensate for the interests of everyone else. And this approach can be used as a basis for further advancement to the Moon, which in fact is already inevitable.
Not so long ago there was a report from the Club of Rome, we are veryI liked the thesis that we live in a complete world, and not in an empty one, as, for example, 200 years ago. That is, some continue to behave as if they are still living in an empty world and continue to master something, and this is no longer the case. The world has already been mastered. No, there are still extreme environments on Earth, they still remain.
— Oceans, for example…
- Well yes. First there, - and then we will start to fight each other. And this is wrong. Above us is a monstrous black abyss, from which there comes much more threats. Now it is known that in 2051 and in 2068 there will be a danger of rapprochement with the asteroid Apophis - such as the minimum probability, but it is.
Apophis- an asteroid approaching the Earth, discovered in2004 at the Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona. After the January passage of the asteroid past the Earth in 2013, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory specialists stated that the possibility of a collision with the Earth in 2029 was excluded, and in 2036 it was extremely unlikely.
The Moon is a natural path for expansionextreme environment boundaries. She constantly retreats. Even literally in the Stone Age, the extreme environment began behind the cave. Because a person, not armed with everything that we now have, was as defenseless against a tiger or a fierce winter as we are now in space. In fact, it's just a different technological level. History likes to repeat itself. And every time we studied all known cases, we were constantly convinced of this - this is a natural process.
"Stone - the first object of ownership on the moon"
- What can be built from the material mined on the moon, and what should be brought there?
— Before talking about the base at all, we must at leastbuild something there. Because construction experience outside of Earth simply does not exist. And there are a lot of questions. Because you can’t build a base right away, you have to gradually, step by step, carefully approach the base on the Moon. First, conduct a series of experiments, each of which will also be significant. The second point is that you can’t import a lot there, because it’s expensive, difficult and no one needs it. Therefore it must be a local resource. An accessible and easily mined resource is soil. There is a technology that we can already use to process it - focused sunlight.
That's why we have several plannedrobotic devices, we have already grabbed onto them and started making them - heliographs. I call him "helio-", but in reality he is just a lithographer. We have a preliminary design of the paver, and there is a loader that collects the soil, loads it into the heliolithograph, picks up the stones and transports it to the installation site. Here are three devices that can operate completely autonomously, without human intervention. First, assemble the first artificial rock on the surface - a monument to space explorers, then the first landing pad in history on the surface of the Moon. And she is needed. Previously, when the apparatus flew in and studied, it sat in an open field and did not bother anyone. But when organizing systematic flights, we must land at approximately one point, and this is where the problems begin. Because a large amount of radioactive dust flies from the engines, which, moreover, has a high abrasive effect. If you are preparing a landing site, then it needs to be paved and covered with stones that cannot take off from jet engines.
Then the story begins with the first stoneshelters. And here, too, we have our own vision of how this should be done. Some of the equipment that has already been developed will be delivered there - for example, habitable modules in which people live. Because there is no way to produce them on the Moon right now. But there is also no need to bring heavy protection from Earth.
It is already known that lunar soil is capable ofabsorb radiation, and stop micrometeorites. Of course, we won’t be protected from large meteorites, but micrometeorites that fly at a speed faster than a bullet can. Therefore, our concept is based on the fact that protective structures should in no case be part of the design of the station itself or of the delivered objects in general. And habitable shells with air and stone structures must be separated by a considerable distance - sufficient to simply carry out inspection and visual control.
This stone we are talking about is the firstproperty object. It is clear that both gold and silver can be mined, but an industrial site still needs to be developed for it. And the stone is where everything begins. It can be an object of property, which means that if we have paved the site, then it is ours. You see, the point is that the stone can become a tool for transferring the price of the Moon into property. There are no questions, no one is laying claim to the subsoil. That is, we, of course, will not interfere with its use, but, nevertheless, this is a reason to take money or negotiate. This process is in full swing, and it is very important for us to literally jump on the train, which has already started moving.
- If we perceive houses as by analogy with the Earth, are windows possible there, how much will they be different from what they are used to seeing on Earth?
- Of course, it will be something different, not like onEarth. The moon is an extreme environment that returns a person with all his achievements, with all his coolness, back in history - straight to antiquity. We bake stone with focused sunlight, but no technology right now is capable of putting reinforcement in there. That is, it is impossible to make reinforced concrete there now. These are stones that we stack on top of each other, without mortar - they just lie there. At most we can afford to add a little soil to distribute the load more evenly. That is, this is actually an antique order.
- It doesn't sound like the most durable structure.
- Well, it’s not durable.All examples of such structures have survived to this day from ancient times. Moreover, the most destructive factor is the person himself. Those that have not been touched feel and look very good. Also the climate, it is clear that in Egypt this is preserved much better, simply because there is no moisture. On the Moon this is completely normal - there is no moisture there at all. So this stone protection is what is needed at the current stage of time.
Photo: Maxim Bubnov / "Hightech"
The windows will be, but in the form of portholes. We cannot afford such luxury as on Earth, in order to directly admire the horizon. We must understand that there, where the sun looks, there should be no windows. Anything comes from the Sun to the Moon, because there is no Earth's magnetosphere, it is lacking there. And the moon has no full-fledged magnetosphere. Any flash erases all information from any unprotected media. It is rational to organize some kind of intermediate space, where you can not worry about radiation, and already inside it there will be some portholes. Although, again, these portholes are also quite modest compared to the fact that science fiction writers were drawing - this is me about glass domes. This is generally fantastic. Domes in the foreseeable future will not be realized either on the Moon or on Mars. Although the dome design itself, of course, is relevant.
- How will gravity on the moon affect architecture?
- I will say this: it will require even more massiveness than on Earth.
- Each brick will have to do six times harder?
- Yes. And this does not contradict the initial conditions, because we also need protection. The thickness of the material is also for protection. With this complete order, the question is simply in volumes.
- Do you have any contacts with Roscosmos?
- I can’t tell you everything.We interact with enterprises, which are also part of Roscosmos. We interact with NPO Lavochkina and RSC Energia, and these are precisely the key enterprises that are seen as promising participants in this.
- When do you think the first house on the moon might appear?
— House… I’m afraid to promise about the house, but I hope that somewhere in the interval from 2030 to 2040 the first stone we are talking about will appear.