The Moon’s environmental conditions present limited opportunities for waste heat dissipation, so internal heat gains (IHG) are a key component of thermal balance in a lunar building. Despite the significant development in energy saving and energy storage technologies of the last thirty years, the issue of IHG in lunar buildings has not been readdressed since the early 1990s. This study is based on an inspection of internal heat sources conducted aboard LUNARES, the first European extraterrestrial analogue habitat. The equipment absent on LUNARES, but indispensable for an actual lunar base, was identified and accounted for, along with additional laboratory and maintenance equipment. Three main groups of internal heat sources were identified and studied in detail. Waste heat generated by electric devices was accounted for, along with occupational heat loads adjusted for lunar partial gravity conditions. Assuming a photovoltaic power source for the studied building, two alternative energy storage systems (ESS) were analysed as another source of waste heat. Depending on the time of lunar day and applied ESS, the nominal IHG were between 73 and 133 W/m2. The most significant internal heat sources in a lunar base are life support systems and potentially, regenerative fuel cells; thus, lithium–ion batteries were recommended for ESS. Within assumed parameter range, parametric study exhibited differences in IHG between 41.5 and 163 W/m2.
ESA has announced their new "Parastronaut Feasibility Project", promising to make every reasonable effoort to send astronauts with disability to space. However, the finne-print of their announcement precludes the possibility of a visionary, inspirational outcome a priori.On February 16 th this year, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced for their ficrst time in over a decade that it would be seeking new astronaut candidates. With this call, ESA will do something that is unprecedented in the entire history of human spacefliight: accept applications from individuals who have a physical disability 1 . ESA does not promise that these individuals will indeed fliy to space, but assures that the whole point of the so-called Parastronaut Feasibility Project is to "atteempt to clear the path" to achieve exactly that.We very much welcome ESA's idea as a step in the right direction. An estimated 15% of the world population lives with "some form of disability" [1]. Even though only 75 million people of these live in one of ESA's 22 member states, we are thankful that ESA now provides the opportunity to these 75 million to decide for themselves if they want to apply or not. We also acknowledge that in an industry, where early astronaut candidates had to keep their feet in ice-cold water for 7 minutes [2], spend 2 hours in a room at 55°C,, and only those who performed best on a two-axes rotating chair 2 would be selected -even considering candidates with physical imperfections is a giant leap forward.Nevertheless, we argue that the current plans for the parastronaut selection are (1) far from revolutionary and hardly capable of contributing significcantly to ESA's long-term visions, and (2) too focused on inclusion for the sake of inclusion, as ESA is concerned with how to include people with disabilities into the existing group of able-bodied people, instead of focusing on where people with disabilities have advantages and trying to learn from them.Why the current definnition of the ESA Parastronaut is problematic ESA's primary reason to include people with disabilities into their program is to comply with modern societal standards and expectations. "ESA needs and wants to embrace change in order to remain
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