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"I've got this beautiful panoramic three-dimensional painting of Mars based on Martian photos. It's 30 feet wide. You can pick out every pebble on the Martian landscape. And who'd have dreamed you could do that?"
- Arthur C. Clarke
 |
| Igloo Inflatable Moon Habitat | ||
| An inflatable, portable lunar shelter that can be easily moved and set up. |
If you were doing some work far from a permanent settlement on the Moon, you would need a portable shelter that could be set up quickly next to your work site.
| ...it was now no particular hardship to live in a home that would fold up into a small trunk.
This was one of the latest models - a Goodyear Mark XX - and it could sustain six men for an indefinite period, as long as they were supplied with power, water, food and oxygen. The igloo could provide everything else - even entertainment, for it had a built-in microlibrary of books, music and video... In space, boredom could be a killer... Lawrence stooped slightly to enter the air lock. In some of the old models, he remembered, you practically had to go down on hands and knees. He waited for the "pressure equalized" signal, then stepped into the hemispherical main chamber. It was like being inside a balloon; indeed, that was exactly where he was. |
| Technovelgy from A Fall of Moondust,
by Arthur C. Clarke. Published by Harcourt, Brace and World in 1961 Additional resources -
|
Over time, the igloo lunar shelters evolved into comfortable quarters:
As the air generator pumped an atmosphere into the flaccid envelope, it expanded and stiffened in sudden jerks, followed by slow periods of consolidation... When it had reached the limits of its extension, it started to go upward again and the air lock popped away from the main dome.
Apparently, there was a Goodyear proposal to build an inflatable space station in 1961; the prototypes never made it into space.
...it had been divided into several compartments by movable screens... Overhead, three meters above the floor, were the lights and the air-conditioning grille, suspended from the ceiling by elastic webbing. Against the curved wall stood collapsible metal racks, only partly erected.
Here's a description of the process of inflating an igloo lunar habitat:
The sides of the box fell flat, revealing a tightly packed, convoluted mass of silvery fabric. It stirred and struggled like some living creature. The igloo [inflated] in only three minutes.
(Inflatable Station Concept)
In his 1939 short story Misfit, Robert Heinlein wrote about roofing a valley on an asteroid with synthetic spider silk, and inflating it with a breathable atmosphere.
See also an earlier version of this idea, the airtight tent from Raymond Z. Gallun's 1951 novella Asteroid of Fear and the igloo shelter from Collision Orbit (1943) by Jack Williamson.
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and Technology from A Fall of Moondust
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and Technology by Arthur C. Clarke
Tech news articles related to A Fall of Moondust
Tech news articles related to works by Arthur C. Clarke
Igloo Inflatable Moon Habitat-related
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- Clarke's Inflatable Lunar Habitats Now NASA's
- Moon Base Two Inflatable Lunar Habitat
- Space Habitat Has Inflatable Loft
- Bigelow To Offer Inflatable Lunar Bases
- Sierra Space Inflatable LIFE Habitat Burst Pressure Test
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| The First Space Warship For Space Force |
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'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'I ... set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching for a habitable planet.'
'...haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'
'... oblongs were all over the floor and surfaces.'
