Concept of a human-attended lunar outpost

Abstract

This paper documents the impact on student education of a Capstone Design project in the Aerospace Engineering Department at Texas A&M University. The goal of this project was to not only design a lunar outpost suitable for supporting a permanent human presence on the moon, but also to produce a workable launch manifest to send the elements of the base to the moon, and develop construction processes that could be employed to actually build such a lunar base. The development of any extraterrestrial outpost is a complicated endeavor involving the integration of multiple disciplines. Those are the characteristics that made this project attractive as the basis for a capstone design experience. The capstone design series provides the students with valuable experience in their final undergraduate year by allowing them to participate in a team-oriented design project much like the world they will enter as professional engineers. To provide order to the organization and maximize the efficiency of performance, the fundamental principles and tools of Systems Engineering formed the foundation upon which the work was based. The students developed and refined the requirements, organized themselves into disciplinary teams, established milestone schedules, and developed a working structure focused on communication and accountability.