Building and establishing the Accommodation.com Moon Hotel presents numerous challenges.
The structure will be surrounded by a vacuum: subjected to solar winds, micrometeorites, high-energy cosmic rays, solar flares, extreme temperatures variations, and arguably even full-blown meteorites.
For full details on these less than pleasant lunar attributes check out our Moon Science [LINK] and Moon Technology Requirements [LINK] pages.
The main challenges to the construction of Accommodation.com’s Hotel Moon, however, are as follows:
The Vacuum Of Space
Staying Alive
We cannot survive in a vacuum.
Our bodies require atmospheric pressure and oxygen.
The Accommodation.com Moon Hotel will therefore need to be consistently supplied with sufficient oxygen and be pressurised to simulate the Earth’s atmosphere.
Structural Impact
Pressurised environments generate an outward force that impacts on the kind of materials that can be used and the ultimate shape of the environment constructed. Failure to account for this pressure could ultimately cause the structure to collapse.
Construction
In a vacuum, air no longer buffers drilling tools. The tools are therefore likely to heat up considerably – possibly even causing them to fuse to rocks and other materials.
Demolition
Without an atmosphere, demolition work will also be dangerous, explosions generating high-velocity missiles with no atmosphere to slow them.
Low Gravitation
Construction
Navigating low gravitation may be fun for kicks, but is likely to lose its appeal when carrying out complicated physical construction.
Note: Given the above mentioned adverse conditions for construction, initial settlement, it is proposed, would be preferably automated, using robots and drones to mould the environment, and establishing pressurised structures from which, arriving later, humans can make our Moon Hotel bigger, more comfortable and more sophisticated.
Design
Guests in the Accommodation.com Moon Hotel will be navigating in a low-G environment. Interior design features will need to account for the effect this will have on movement and various activities and through doing so maximise comfort.
Moon Dust
Moon dust is made up of extremely small sharp-edged particles and is everywhere on the surface of the Moon. It presents a potential health risks if getting into eyes and lungs and is highly abrasive, capable of ruining electronics and machinery.
All efforts must be taken to keep Accommodation.com’s Moon Hotel completely Moon dust free.
Radiation
The radiation from solar winds, solar flares and cosmic rays has the potential to cause cancer.
To sufficiently protect guests, the Accommodation.com Moon Hotel will be required to have incredibly thick protective walls and ceilings that could serve as both insulation and protection.
The moons regolith (surface bedrock) would probably be used for this purpose.
Resources
The Accommodation.com will be required to operate, at least initially with limited resources. Research into sustainable technologies and how to best utilise and assimilate these technologies into the structure and design of the hotel would therefore be extremely beneficial.
Power
Energy will have to be acquired from solar panels. As a lunar night last 13 days, the hotel would either have to be extremely energy efficient, or situated at the poles, where there is continuous sunlight.
Food
It is possibly that the food for each Moon Hotel holiday voyage will be shipped in with the passengers – enough to last the whole 14-days. But if the Hotel is to be continuous occupied by staff, possible consideration should be given to the establishment of hydroponics agriculture. And the specialised lunar technology that would be developed for this would no doubt be of interest to guests.
Water
To be healthy, humans are required to consume litres upon litres of water a day. The weight of water shipped for a 14-day lunar holiday expedition with numerous hotel guests and staff would be a problem.
The hotel would therefore have to be extremely water efficient, facilitated by the use of sophisticated water recycling technologies.
It would also therefore be highly beneficial to situate the hotel in proximity the Moon’s water supplies. Accommodation.com will also need to establish partnerships with industries capable of extracting the water efficiently.
Waste
Humans have polluted the Earth for millennia and Accommodation.com has no desire to do the same on the Moon. The hotel, we therefore propose, will need to possess sophisticated waste processing, dumping and recycling technologies.
Designs & Locations
Accommodation.com plans to confront these challenges head on. Our final Moon Hotel design and choice of location will ultimately provide the perfect resolution to all of them.
Moon Hotel Designs Moon Hotel Locations
(IMAGE – LINK) (IMAGE – LINK)
Interested in discussing Moon Hotel possibilities? Wanting to share what you know? Visit the Moon Hotel Forum [LINK].
Ben Connor 