The morning of anyday in March 2032 – 50ºC.
I arrived at the first group of tourists that are hanging around here.
It is an historic moment. A journalist and a camera-man from CNN are also a part of it. CNN must have paid a fortune to cover this expedition. They will stay at the Nomad Lunar Hotel, NLH V1.
The hotel is composed of eight Kevlar capsules inflatable for 10 guests. It is moved by two hybrid propellant motors, and all the energy is generated by regenerative cells (RLC) connected to the photovoltaic cells and a nuclear mini-generator at the helio-3 base. The idea of a hotel that moves over the lunar surface is a great attraction for the visitors.
The entrepreneur Mark Branson, 62 years old and the beautiful model Rebecca Johnson, 30 years old, are the only visiting couple. Lieutenant Chalabi, an architect from BSA (Brazilian Space Agency), explains all the details of the mission to them. Rebecca is already very bored and it appears that she would rather be shopping for something at the Mall on Planet Earth. All of the others are excited.
George Roth, the famous American writer, is the only invited guest. In total, there are nine people, two of them from Japan (who don’t for a minute stop taking pictures, but with the new Sony Moon 7), a Canadian entrepreneur, a Chinese man, and I haven’t the faintest idea who he is, and the other five Americans, two from CNN, Mark, Rebecca and George.
We are on board the Shackleton crater, lunar Southern pole, at the base of the European Space Agency, ESA, designed by architects of Foster+Partners.
Inflatable summits were covered with a shield of blocks made of lunar concrete by a 3D printer, protecting it against radiations and meteorites. This is one of the most lit regions with a reasonably stable temperature. The tourists will rest for some hours and then lunch at the Base. In the afternoon, they will take a little “walk” around the area to have some fun with the effects of gravity; the body weight equals 1/6 its normal weight.
Tomorrow morning the NLH V1, together with the Mobile Lunar Lab, MLB V2.0, a vehicle similar to the NLH and aggregates a laboratory and lodging capsules for the technicians and scientists, who will do their first expedition around the crater and learn about the water collection system. They will test all the procedures and functioning, this time with their vehicles at maximum capacity.
They return at night and, two days later, the two vehicles will head in the direction of Malapert, 110km away, a trajectory that should be done by more than 10 hours. Malapert is one of the known “peaks of eternal light”, where some technicians and scientists are setting up a Lunar Power Company, a power plant to capture solar energy, communication antenna and a radio-telescope.
On the way they will visit a titanium mine, a set of “Tubes-Wash”, the place for the next colony, completely underground and a Helio-3 processing complex, where the most precious nuclear fusion fuel, rare on Earth but abundant on the Moon and maybe its greatest wealth.
The price of this element is one hundred and twenty times the price of gold and it could supply energy to all of Earth for many years to come.
10:00pm in capsule 7, George Roth observes Earth through the hatch to the sound of “Ne me quitte pas”. He is gazing at this image for more than an hour. In capsule 2, the couple tries to have sex. Strange. The others sleep. It was an exciting and exhausting day.
There always exists a bit of tension about the possibility of a meteorite or even a micro-meteorite hitting something. It seems like a stray bullet in a favela of Rio de Janeiro. The lack of atmosphere makes everything overexposed. Certainly, one day we will have a tragedy.
After five incredible and historic days, these pioneers of lunar tourism will go back to their routines on Earth. All look through the window and see the Moon becoming distanced. Rebecca only thinks of the new bag that she saw at Marni. George wants to go back in two years, maybe with a younger woman.
The Japanese are very anxious about showing the millions of pictures they took to their friends in Tokyo. Silence…
A strong silence.
Marcio Kogan
PROJECT FOR CONTEST
-
location > moon . universe
project > july . 2015
-
architecture > studio mk27
architect > marcio kogan
co-architect > eduardo chalabi
communication team > carlos costa . mariana simas
The morning of anyday in March 2032 – 50ºC.
I arrived at the first group of tourists that are hanging around here.
It is an historic moment. A journalist and a camera-man from CNN are also a part of it. CNN must have paid a fortune to cover this expedition. They will stay at the Nomad Lunar Hotel, NLH V1.
The hotel is composed of eight Kevlar capsules inflatable for 10 guests. It is moved by two hybrid propellant motors, and all the energy is generated by regenerative cells (RLC) connected to the photovoltaic cells and a nuclear mini-generator at the helio-3 base. The idea of a hotel that moves over the lunar surface is a great attraction for the visitors.
The entrepreneur Mark Branson, 62 years old and the beautiful model Rebecca Johnson, 30 years old, are the only visiting couple. Lieutenant Chalabi, an architect from BSA (Brazilian Space Agency), explains all the details of the mission to them. Rebecca is already very bored and it appears that she would rather be shopping for something at the Mall on Planet Earth. All of the others are excited.
George Roth, the famous American writer, is the only invited guest. In total, there are nine people, two of them from Japan (who don’t for a minute stop taking pictures, but with the new Sony Moon 7), a Canadian entrepreneur, a Chinese man, and I haven’t the faintest idea who he is, and the other five Americans, two from CNN, Mark, Rebecca and George.
We are on board the Shackleton crater, lunar Southern pole, at the base of the European Space Agency, ESA, designed by architects of Foster+Partners.
Inflatable summits were covered with a shield of blocks made of lunar concrete by a 3D printer, protecting it against radiations and meteorites. This is one of the most lit regions with a reasonably stable temperature. The tourists will rest for some hours and then lunch at the Base. In the afternoon, they will take a little “walk” around the area to have some fun with the effects of gravity; the body weight equals 1/6 its normal weight.
Tomorrow morning the NLH V1, together with the Mobile Lunar Lab, MLB V2.0, a vehicle similar to the NLH and aggregates a laboratory and lodging capsules for the technicians and scientists, who will do their first expedition around the crater and learn about the water collection system. They will test all the procedures and functioning, this time with their vehicles at maximum capacity.
They return at night and, two days later, the two vehicles will head in the direction of Malapert, 110km away, a trajectory that should be done by more than 10 hours. Malapert is one of the known “peaks of eternal light”, where some technicians and scientists are setting up a Lunar Power Company, a power plant to capture solar energy, communication antenna and a radio-telescope.
On the way they will visit a titanium mine, a set of “Tubes-Wash”, the place for the next colony, completely underground and a Helio-3 processing complex, where the most precious nuclear fusion fuel, rare on Earth but abundant on the Moon and maybe its greatest wealth.
The price of this element is one hundred and twenty times the price of gold and it could supply energy to all of Earth for many years to come.
10:00pm in capsule 7, George Roth observes Earth through the hatch to the sound of “Ne me quitte pas”. He is gazing at this image for more than an hour. In capsule 2, the couple tries to have sex. Strange. The others sleep. It was an exciting and exhausting day.
There always exists a bit of tension about the possibility of a meteorite or even a micro-meteorite hitting something. It seems like a stray bullet in a favela of Rio de Janeiro. The lack of atmosphere makes everything overexposed. Certainly, one day we will have a tragedy.
After five incredible and historic days, these pioneers of lunar tourism will go back to their routines on Earth. All look through the window and see the Moon becoming distanced. Rebecca only thinks of the new bag that she saw at Marni. George wants to go back in two years, maybe with a younger woman.
The Japanese are very anxious about showing the millions of pictures they took to their friends in Tokyo. Silence…
A strong silence.
Marcio Kogan