* J-Pods *

Many designs for Lunar habitats (and Mars habitats) are centered around a cylindrical or geodesic design. As noted in previous posts these range from fanciful to impractical but it would seem we are slowly becoming more logical in our concepts.

 A recent design promoted by the Chinese (shown below) appears to be a bit closer to reality in concept. Although the actual modules still have the issue of how do you move them about during construction due to their size and the appearance that they are shipped already assembled, there is more logic to the small colony itself.

One of the issues with any colonial or science station mission is supply / resupply. The mission can only last as long as the supplies do and the amount of onboard supplies on any Lander is limited. 

The solution may be a test vehicle built by SpaceX for testing its design concepts that was called the hopper. This was intended to power up, hover and return to the platform. It was a one engine design (recent versions have more than one) and is about 40’x 60’ in size. This test vehicle concept could easily be repurposed as a supply / resupply vehicle for a lunar station.

It’s hopper capabilities allow for better positioning during or after decent to ensure supplies are landed close to the lunar station.

The J-Pod concept I have illustrated below would work well in a hopper or other supply vessel configuration though the hopper design would permit more storage.

 

Extrapolating this resupply vehicle configuration out a little further the same vessel could be used as a "Taxi" vessel to carry mission staff. 

OK, I admit that it's logical to carry crew and supplies on the same vessel, but the difference is that this J-Pod configuration saves a lot of time and energy when delivering supplies. This configuration "automatically" lowers all supplies from the ship to the ground upon landing, saving a lot of energy (and air) as the unloading proceeds.

An additional bonus to this J-Pod design is that the re-supply containers can be the same size as the flat packable vault panels mentioned in previous posts. Consider this for a minute:

1 - Vault panel construction is flat packable, standard sized to fit a rockets interior diameter and can be configured as door or window or wall panels. 

2 - The BONUS to this type of construction is that the J-Pods are the same design. If the J-Pod supply modules are sized to be the same as the flat packable vault panels, every supply run automatically delivers more construction panels. Simply empty out the supplies, disassemble the containers and utilize them as construction panels.

3 - Another ADDED BONUS to this concept is that re-launch weight is reduced by removal of the storage containers.

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