PEARY CRATER BASE

There are two proposed sites for a future moon base the utilises cometry ice found in permanently dark crater basins to act as a water source for continued settlement, Shakleton crater near the Luna south pole and Peary crater near the Luna north pole.

I chose Peary crater so to leave Shakleton crater free for a better developer than me, and also the Shakleton crater site never gets light enough for you to see the structures that I’ve built.

This add-on consists of two bases, one of which is the expansion of the previous one.

Phase 1 consists of four pre-deployed Landers with inflatable habitats on top, and one service Lander. Actually the phase 1 base is more phase1.5 as there are some inflatable warehouse and service buildings already connected to the base.

Phase 2 is the almost fully deployed base; you may notice some points around the base for future expansion. There are six pads, 4 landing and 2 launch pads for sounding rockets. Chad Overton’s model rockets work well here.

Install phase 1 first, as it contains all the necessary files for both phases.

Then install phase 2 after if you want the larger base.

There is also a version of my DunOrbitin base using the Peary base textures in with the phase 2 base folder as a bit of an extra.

Thanks again to Bill Mullins for his Satdish2 and Geodome meshes and José Pablo Luna Sánchez for his indispensable Surface Base Wizard, which made the whole thing possible.

A Question with DunOrbitin Base

As I was finishing off the DunOrbitin base I was struck by the thought of how would you power the base during the Luna night? Remember that the Luna night lasts two weeks the solar panels would be no good, small nuclear generators a possibility, there’s one out the back of DunOrbitin’s habitat. (The cylinder with fins on.) Then I struck on the idea of using solar panel produced electricity to electrolyse (split) water into Hydrogen and Oxygen, store the gasses on site and the use fuel cells which use Hydrogen and Oxygen to produce electricity, with water as the only waste product.

This system uses renewable solar energy to store power the form of Hydrogen and Oxygen, and release that power when no solar energy is available, and the water produced, as a by-product from the fuel cells can be used for a large number of rolls in a closed system habitat.

I’m not an engineer, nor do I have any real idea of the power the chemistry or quantities required to pull such a thing off, but I have enclosed a simple flow chart showing how such a system might work.

Peary Base Phase1

Peary Base Phase2

Peary Base Phase2 Night

Peary Base Phase2 Overview