• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• 제32권2호
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• pp.113-120
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• 2015

When humans explore the Moon, lunar caves will be an ideal base to provide a shelter from the hazards of radiation, meteorite impact, and extreme diurnal temperature differences. In order to ascertain the existence of caves on the Moon, it is best to visit the Moon in person. The Google Lunar X Prize(GLXP) competition started recently to attempt lunar exploration missions. Ones of those groups competing, plan to land on a pit of Lacus Mortis and determine the existence of a cave inside this pit. In this pit, there is a ramp from the entrance down to the inside of the pit, which enables a rover to approach the inner region of the pit. In this study, under the assumption of the existence of a cave in this pit, a 3D model was developed based on the optical image data. Since this model simulates the actual terrain, the rendering of the model agrees well with the image data. Furthermore, the 3D printing of this model will enable more rigorous investigations and also could be used to publicize lunar exploration missions with ease.

• 천문학회보
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• 제37권2호
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• pp.138.2-138.2
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• 2012

Cave on the Moon is considered as the most appropriate place for human to live during the frontier lunar exploration. While the lava flows, the outer crust gets cooled and solidified. Then, the empty space is remained inside after lava flow stops. Such empty space is called the lava caves. Those lava tubes on the Earth are formed mostly by volcanic activity. However, the lava tubes on satellite like Moon and planet like Mars without volcanic activity are mostly formed by the lava flow inside of the crater made by large meteorite impact. Some part of lava tube with collapsed ceiling appears as the entrance of the cave. Such area looks like a deep crater so called a pit crater. Four large pit craters with diameter of > 60 m and depth of > 40 m are found without difficulty from Kaguya and LRO mission image archives. However, those are too deep to use as easily accessible human frontier base. Therefore, now we are going to identify some smaller lunar caves with accessible entrances using LRO camera images of 0.5 m/pixel resolution. Earth's lava caves and their entrances are well photographed by surface and aerial camera in immense volume. Thus, if the image data are sorted and archived well, those images can be used in comparison with the less distinct lunar cave and entrance images due to its smaller size. Then, we can identify the regions on the Moon where there exist caves with accessible entrances. The database will be also useful in modeling geomorphology for lunar and Martian caves for future artificial intelligence investigation of the caves in any size.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• 제31권2호
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• pp.131-140
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• 2014

Lava caves could be useful as outposts for the human exploration of the Moon. Lava caves or lava tubes are formed when the external surface of the lava flows cools more quickly to make a hardened crust over subsurface lava flows. The lava flow eventually ceases and drains out of the tube, leaving an empty space. The frail part of the ceiling of lava tube could collapse to expose the entrance to the lava tubes which is called a pit crater. Several pit craters with the diameter of around 100 meters have been found by analyzing the data of SELENE and LRO lunar missions. It is hard to use these pit craters for outposts since these are too large in scale. In this study, small scale pit craters which are fit for outposts have been investigated using the NAC image data of LROC. Several topographic patterns which are believed to be lunar caves have been found and the similar pit craters of the Earth were compared and analyzed to identify caves. For this analysis, the image data of satellites and aerial photographs are collected and classified to construct a database. Several pit craters analogous to lunar pit craters were derived and a morphological pit crater model was generated using the 3D printer based on this database.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• 제33권1호
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• pp.21-28
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• 2016

Caves can serve as major outposts for future human exploration of the Moon and Mars. In addition, caves can protect people and electronic equipment from external hazards such as cosmic ray radiation and meteorites impacts and serve as a shelter. Numerous pit craters have been discovered on the Moon and Mars and are potential entrances to caves; the principal topographic features of pit craters are their visible internal floors and pits with vertical walls. We have devised two topographical models for investigating the relationship between the topographical characteristics and the inner void of pit craters. One of our models is a concave floor void model and the other is a convex floor tube model. For each model, optical photographs have been obtained under conditions similar to those in which optical photographs have been acquired for craters on the Moon and Mars. Brightness profiles were analyzed for determining the profile patterns of the void pit craters. The profile patterns were compared to the brightness profiles of Martian pit craters, because no good-quality images of lunar pit craters were available. In future studies, the model profile patterns will be compared to those of lunar pit craters, and the proposed method will likely become useful for finding lunar caves and consequently for planning lunar bases for manned lunar expeditions.

• 한국위성정보통신학회논문지
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• 제12권3호
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• pp.41-49
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• 2017

본 연구에서는 달의 동굴에 대한 거주환경에 잠재적 요건이 될 수 있는 지질과 지형, 내부탐사, 안정성, 통신, 거주요건 등의 5분야에 대한 분석을 시도 하였다. 달 동굴관련 정성적 정량적인 자료 분석에서 다음과 같은 결과를 도출하였다. 달 동굴의 지질과 지형환경에서는 지구의 용암동굴의 규모와 형상에서 큰 차이를 확인하였다. 달의 지질은 내인적인 분화나 지진 보다 외인적인 환경인 운석의 낙하와 방사선의 공격 및 급격한 온도차에 의한 영향이 크다. 달 동굴의 지형과 내부형상은 중력의 차로 인한 대규모의 위험한 동굴지형으로 함몰구(skylight)와 사행 열구(sinuous rilles)에 대한 접근과 내부 지형형상 취득에 기술적인 한계가 있었다. 달 동굴의 안정성 분석에서는 대형의 동굴에 대한 지질과 지형적인 위험성에 두었다. 함몰에 대한 저 위험도 빈도, 저 중력, 동굴의 대규모와 두께 등의 안정성 인자 등으로 지구보다 상대적인 안정성이 확인되었다. 달 동굴내외의 통신환경은 동굴내부에서의 무선통신 운영의 경우 태양열 충전식에만 한계가 있을 것이나 전력의 무선전송기술로 이를 극복할 수 있을 것이다. 따라서 본 연구를 통하여 달 동굴에 대한 거주 가능성에 대한 학설과 기술의 대비 중에서 학술적이고 기술적인 차별성이 다양하게 확인되었다. 특히 무중력, 우주방사선의 피폭과 먼지 등의 외인적인 한계와 거칠고 급경사인 함몰구 등의 접근기술에 대한 통신과 토목 및 GIS기술 등에 대한 내인적인 한계의 극복의 필요성으로 이에 대한 향후의 연구개발에 기대감이 증폭되었다.