moony I swiss space center – Space4inspiraction

17 JUNE – 3 JULY 2019 | SWISS SPACE CENTER I MATTERHORM GLACIER PARADISE, ZERMATT

MOONY: A LUNAR BASE FOR INGLUNA ESA_LAB@ PROJECT

PRESENTATION OF A HUMAN HABITAT IN ICE OF THE MATTERHORM GLACIER

Annalisa Dominoni + Benedetto Quaquaro have been invited by the Swiss Space Center to be part of IGLUNA, an international and collaborative project on the visionary space topic A HUMAN HABITAT IN ICE with the task to develop the architecture and design concept of the habitat demonstrating key enabling technologies for life support in frozen worlds.

MOONY is a modular lunar base designed to be located below the lunar surface in natural tunnels of volcanic origin, called lava tubes, assuring protection from radiation, meteorites and highly variable temperatures. Several issues are addressed, for example how to build and place a habitation module safely in an extreme context responding to requirements that may further the adaptation and comfortable stay of human beings.

The lunar base is designed to connect to other modules similar to the purpose of creating a lunar village and consists of a semi-spherical inflatable volume covered by a light structure that protects it from possible collapses that could occur, being the base in an underground tunnel. MOONY will be built in situ using native material as lunar powder and a 3D printing developed by the Italian company D-Shape, the same one used by Norman Foster for his moon base proposal, to minimize the material weight launched from the Earth.

From 17 June until 3 July MOONY team were gathered in a field campaign in a glacier in Zermatt, Switzerland, to demonstrate how to design a potential and sustainable Moon habitat suitable for extreme environment. Results and 3D modules are presented and split up into two location: in the Glacier Palace of the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise and at the Vernissage Art Gallery of the Backstage Hot.