Los Angeles — September 27, 2011 — Hong Kong-based Architect Thomas Schmidt, AIA, LEED® AP of Sepia Design Consultants Limited presented his award-winning lunar research habitat concept at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Space 2011 Conference & Exposition on 27-29 September 2011 at the Long Beach Convention Center in Long Beach, CA, USA
Schmidt’s speaking engagement at the world’s premiere forum on space technology, space colonization and human spaceflight was preceded by a series of lectures to student, professional and public audiences at Boston’s Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Worcester South High Community School, Boston Society of Architects and the McAuliffe-Shepard Space Discovery Center in Concord, NH, USA.
Schmidt was the first prize co-winner of the AIAA’s “Technical Feasibility and Elegance Award” in an international competition for a lunar habitat. The competition sought submissions from around the world for the creation of a technically-viable architectural design concept for a second-generation lunar research habitat. The habitate was to be constructed in the year 2069 — commemorating the 100th anniversary of mankind’s first lunar landing. The international competition, organized by ShiftBoston and sponsored by AIAA, required participants to produce a conceptual architectural design for an 8,000 sq m self-sustaining lunar scientific research base at the moon’s South Pole to sustain 60 residents.
Schmidt’s winning modular design concept provides a pueblo-style subterranean facility open on one side along the rim of a polar crater. Its location would allow for consistent Earth views due to the synchronous rotation of the two bodies, yet shield the bulk of the facility from radiation above with a 3-meter layer of lunar regolith. The design of the modular subterranean facility revolves around an agricultural core at the heart of the facility, surrounded by accommodation, laboratories and various support facilities. In addition to supplying the residents with a source of fresh vegetables and agro-research areas, the agricultural core would be naturally lit from above through a network of vertical light tubes. These would be illuminated by a rotating array of reflectors and photovoltaic cells at the lunar surface. The array would track the sun on its 29-day horizontal course across the horizon of the proposed polar location, provide natural light to subterranean areas below, and capture solar energy to assist in the power generation requirements of the facility.
A polar site was selected for its near-continuous exposure to sunlight, and potential for harvesting nearby water from polar ice. Larger quantities of permanently-shadowed polar surface water ice was discovered in 2008 by the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. Schmidt’s design of providing exterior Earth views and interior views of the agricultural core from the surrounding accommodation and laboratories was closely aligned with the competition’s criteria of maximizing human comfort for the occupants who might be deployed there for extended periods of time. This unique design feature could help maintain human circadian rhythms through the admission of controlled amounts of natural filtered sunlight
The winning entries will be used as the basis for the upcoming collaborative design and construction of a mock-up terrestrial base slated for construction in Worcester, MA, USA for use in various local educational and research programs promoting lunar colonization and research.
Winning competition proposals were featured in Scientific American in November 2010. Schmidt’s award-winning proposal was part of a traveling exhibition at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, USA between February and April 2011.
Editor’s Note: Thomas Schmidt, AIA, LEED AP is the founder of Sepia Design Consultants Limited, an award-winning design consultancy specializing in creative and sustainable design solutions for the hospitality industry. Schmidt is also author and illustrator of the award-winning Bumbling Traveller Adventure Series which seeks to promote environmental and cultural awareness through entertaining mysteries and adventures, which was recognized by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) through a 2010 Chapter Citation.