Community

We have to think about the human factor very carefully. Even considering that initially, the inhabitants of a lunar colony would be healthy, able-bodied, and well-educated, we need to be very careful about their emotional health. Healthy, able and well-educated people can suffer from emotional distress and depression which exacerbate social conflict.

In societal studies in disparate places, such as the traditional societies in Africa as well as American suburbia, there seems to be a limit to how many individuals a person can have in her sphere of societal influence. This is the range of people with whom one is very close, such as immediate family and close friends, to facial recognition, or "nodding" acquaintances. This number is about 300. Basically, we can only care about around 300 people before dehumanization of and by others sets in.

We think it would be a good idea to break up the organization of the colony into pods of about 300-350 people, then cluster these pods into "neighborhoods" of 1000 to 2000 individuals in order to make common services, such as medical services and transport, more efficiently deliverable. We also think that it would be a good idea to treat each of these neighborhoods very differently, architecturally. This would allow a) societal studies of how the residents react to different factors, b) experimentation of various forms, systems and materials, architecturally, while c) providing unique and close living situations, encouraging the residents to bond and take care of one another. This neighborhood differentiation would also help residents form identity bonds with the location, and encourage residents of verious pods and neighborhoods to mix. Different spaces will stimulate interest in a limited environment, and perhaps encourage "tourism". It also presents residents with environmental choices, which is a major factor of satisfaction with the built environment.

Questions we might want to address with different answers might involve organization of social spaces, compactness of living spaces vs public spaces, regular grid layout vs irregular grid, etc.

Another heavy psychological factor is that of daylighting. The lunar day is 27-29 days long: 14 days of light, 14 days of darkness, with some polar craters being in constant shadow. People can be adversely affected by this diurnal disruption.

Any green spaces or plantings would need careful selection, and would be an additional opportunity for study. Do arctic plants fare better? Will some strains adapt to the strange light cycle? (I believe, though, that the food-producing hydroponics would need to be kept inside controlled environments otherwise they wouldn't flower or produce fruit.)

We'd like to introduce factors that help the residents with this. Can we have shadow shelves which illuminate to simulate a more earth-like 24-hour cycle? We don't like the idea of enclosing everything. Would this kind of mitigation be effective?

Another consideration is: how do we get around? Scaling down the experiment to more of a human scale, the overall area of the colony would be very walkable. If there is an underground tram, as proposed in the initial PowerPoint, a secondary above-ground method might be more efficient. Maybe a cable pull system, combined with a rebounding membrane (trampoline) would accomplish rapid short-jaunt transport while encouraging aerobic and strength-maintaining upper and lower-body exercise. And come on. Tell me that wouldn't be a lot of fun.

Images: Part Three

Dafne found these images to consider:

Images Part Two

Unknown Artist

CA early 1960s

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/05/01/martian2bcity2.jpg

There's a lot to love about the heroic naivete of SciFi Pulp. WWII was over, humans had harnessed the power of the atom, Americans were full of smug assurance that we were the "Good Guys" and the universe would open to us, complete with all the comforts of home plus new delights to be discovered. Sure, there might be rough patches here and there, but only enough to make things interesting, opportunities to prove virility.

Here we have ideal suburban living, complete with a garage, covered entry, satellite TV and hot servile female.

Moon Base

1970's BBC series, UFO

A classic from the era of Space 1999 and Buck Rogers. The Apollo mission was still fresh in peoples' minds, and they had images with eerie lighting and space-grit-covered once-white ships, battered from the intense heat of re-entry to take the gloss off of the technocolor dreams of 1950s pulp. This modular set design feels more real to me than the CGI perfection of popular images such as the Halo game series.

Cover Art, Season 3 Lost in Space DVD

Space Travel in the throes of the Sexual Revolution, or Women Can Wear Short Skirts While They Make The Goddamn Coffee. See also: Star Trek, the original series.

Suburbs 2100

Dawid Michalczyk

http://www.art.eonworks.com/gallery/sci-fi/sci-fi_city-199805.html

This is interesting, and kind of quaint in the same way that Lost In Space is quaint. Sure, it's futuristic and all, but if we can make flying cars, why would we clutter our skylines with wires and flying petrol stations? I think it conveys the dystopian bleakness of what we expect to come from commercial enterprise. As in, extraterrestrial colonization is most likely to happen when there's financial incentive to make it happen. Like European expansion into the Americas, resources and commerce was the driving force. People pioneered in order to grab land and opportunities before others did.

The downside of this type of pioneering is, the work and railroad towns that sprung up as a result of enterprise weren't artful or lovely. They were functional and dangerous. Everyone was there to make a buck. I think this image conveys that fear pretty well.

Images Part One

Assignment 1A was to find some images of space colonization. Let's begin.

Moon Colony
I found this image here: http://powerforce.moo.jp/page184.html

Unfortunately, my Japanese isn't good enough to make out more than some of the titles in Katakana (my kanji is lacking). I wish I could tell you the artist's name. I like the distortion created by the dome. A very recent, cold rendition.





As David Bowie sang about sailors fighting on the dance floor, he asked, is there life on Mars?

Mars Colony

Source: http://www.marssociety.org/

Ah. Space colonization as the equivalent to trailers scattered across the Mojave Desert! I CAN FEEL THE SIREN SONG! BOOK NOW FOR YOUR RED DIRT FARM VACATION! YOU, TOO, CAN LIVE IN AN INFLATED CLEAR PLASTIC NURSING SOW!

I would attribute this image to the late 1980s by the cut of the space suit. It's a very practical view: survival reliant upon self-sufficient pods. My question is, why would people travel all that way just to survive?

Cover, NSS 2008 Space Settlement Calendar (sold out)

http://www.nss.org/settlement/calendar/buy.htm

Although the focus of this work is on a "halo"-style environment, I really liked the human touches which I feel a colony will need to survive. People like changes of scenery, we like things to be scaled appropriately for our viewing pace. A colony of 10,000 people won't have Chicago or LA-scaled buildings and avenues. Transportation will be a defining aspect. Will a small colony rely upon solar scooters of some sort? Can a small colony afford the expenditure of materials and resources for individual transportation, or rely on efficient mass transit?

These questions will, ultimately, define livable spaces. If everything is too overscaled and institutional, people won't feel comfortable there.

And So It Begins

Greetings. This blog was created to track progress on a topic studio with Michael Fox of FoxLin Studios (http://www.foxlin.com/press.html). We are going to the moon!

It will be a fantastic adventure, I assure you.