![]() A rendering of the LUNARK habitat as it would appear in Greenland. “Everything wants to kill you,” Aristotelis says. Isolation is the norm, fresh air is non-existent the very rules of physics you’re used to are out the pressurized window. “You really need to simulate all the different stressors that you’d experience,” Aristotelis says. People on the moon will face challenges incomparable to any on Earth, so the element of danger is part and parcel of the experiment. Then with the arrival of winter, they will be plunged into darkness.Īristotelis and Sørensen will live in the LUNARK themselves. That time frame will give them a couple months of constant sun, Aristotelis says, simulating the atmosphere-less sky above a South Pole moon colony. The Kickstarter-funded expedition is planned to last from this September to November. With fabrication beginning, the next step is to take the LUNARK to Greenland. More variation can come from using various textures - getting away from that sterile, Stanley Kubrick scifi look - and incorporating plants and algae, which can provide life, food, and help scrub carbon dioxide. The idea is to make living on the moon feel like living on Earth - at least until you look out the window. The plan is for LUNARK to utilize a dynamic circadian light system - a bank of LED lights to simulate the motions of the sun and even the day-to-day variations from overcast or rainy days to bright, sunny ones.Įventually, Aristotelis hopes to add other variables as well, like temperature or even the tangible feedback of “rain” on the LUNARK’s surface. “What we realized is, all you need is variation,” Aristotelis says. ![]() (And there are, as yet, no lunar grocery stores or parks to break up the monotony, either.) We’re in our houses for a few months and are already getting stir crazy in a moon colony, something similar would be the norm. “Now, when we talk about isolation, people really understand it,” Aristotelis says. (Just think about how you feel right now, mid-pandemic.) That’s great for solar power, but with a static environment outside, it becomes difficult to keep track of time or ward off depression. Living on the moon can dramatically alter the body’s circadian rhythms - NASA’s proposed landing site, the moon’s South Pole, has regions that receive over 200 days of constant sun. Line NylandstedĪs important as the foldable design is LUNARK’s system for helping people on the moon adjust psychologically, Aristotelis says. Best of all, it’s already up there! A full-size mockup of LUNARK. His favorite idea is to cover the habitat with lunar regolith - abundant, insulating, and radiation shielding. Living on the moon for an extended period of time will require further development to better protect against radiation, Aristotelis says. LUNARK is designed to be a research station, for people on the moon staying for relatively short time periods. And the folding panels will also contain a solar array to power the LUNARK’s systems. With considerably less gravity, people on the moon can take advantage of living in the extra vertical space. The moon version will be bigger than the Greenland prototype, Aristotelis says. Able to be compressed to fit into tight cargo spaces, the LUNARK then expands. ![]() With a full-scale mock-up completed, they are beginning to fabricate the prototype. ![]() It looks something like a curtseying phage virus, all angled panels and legs. LUNARK is a prototype habitat for people on the moon. Their studio, Saga Space Architects, has since gone on to design projects like a simulated Mars lab in the cinnamon-colored climes of Israel’s Negev desert.īut with new missions going to the moon again, they’ve turned their sights to something a bit closer to home. Line NylandstedĬombining their passions for space and skills in architecture, they carved out a job fit for a futuristic romcom: space architect. In his fellow architect Karl-Johan Sørensen he found a kindred spirit. Sebastian Aristotelis (l) has long dreamed of exploration. When he and fellow architecture student Karl-Johan Sørensen found themselves in a rain-soaked Copenhagen coffee shop in 2017 with a few hours to kill, they discovered that they both had dreams of space. ![]()
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