Chennai: His project proposal on connecting the Earth to the Moon through elevators for making a human settlement possible on the Moon earned city student Sai Kiran P. (18) the second prize in the grade 12 category in the Nasa Ames Space Settlement Contest, 2017.
This annual contest by NASA Ames Research Center, San Jose State University, and the National Space Society (NSS) invited entries from students up to 12th grade for designing proposed human settlements on the Moon.
His thesis describes the pathway for the creation of a successful, realistic space habitat system. According to the project, Sai Kiran proposes the idea of establishing a Lunar Base as the first step, with Lunar and Earth Space elevators following up in due course of time. His HUMIEU Space Habitat system houses over 10, 00,000 people, with advanced social and technological infrastructure.
Sai Kiran started working for this project in 2013 when he was living in Singapore. He finally started writing his thesis in March last year after he moved to Chennai. His proposal titled, ‘Connecting Moon, Earth and Space’ and ‘HUMEIU Space Habitats’ revolved around providing bases for humans to be transported to the Moon so that they can settle there. He added that the most important aspect of the theories was centripetal acceleration.
“The first segment of the project is about creating elevators that could transport humans and cargo to the Moon so that humans can form their settlements there.
The most important aspect was that of gravity as without gravity, humans won’t be able to settle there,” Sai Kiran told Deccan Chronicle.
The first part, ‘Connecting Moon – Earth and Space’ illustrates the need for the establishment of a lunar base, followed by Lunar based Space Elevator [LBSE], Moon Orbiting Pods (spacecraft) and Earth-based Space Elevator [EBSE]. Fully functioning Advanced Automated Lunar Base would be the foremost step. The LBSE would be similar to our general elevators, only with the exception that, the anchoring point would be close to the Moon’s South and North Poles, whereas, the counterweight (possibly an asteroid or Solar Based Power System) point would be 250000km in the deep space, in order to ensure a smooth run of the LBSE.
His thesis also contained proposals for setting up recreation, entertainment, governance, agriculture, on the Moon as well, and not just transporting humans to Moon. The main emphasis of his thesis was the cost inefficiency associated with sending humans to the Moon via rockets.
A student of the British International School, the teenager was happy to be evaluated as the winner of the second prize by Al Globus, a senior researcher at NSS, who co-founded the NASA Ames Space Settlement Contest.
