Abstract
NASA is planning to send astronauts to the moon and then establish sustainable lunar exploration during the 21st Century under the Artemis program. The lunar south pole target site will need ground transportation to transport materials such as lunar ice from one location to another. This paper explores an alternative transportation system that is based on earth aerial tramways, which involves a chassis, wheels, drivetrain, and elevated cables with supporting structure. The wear of regolith lunar dust and the difficulties in traversing the uneven lunar terrain are reduced. Also, the speed and size of the cargo being transported should be superior to the lunar roving vehicle. By implementing a drivetrain system powered by solar energy, long term power generation and vehicle operation is achieved in the south polar region, which remains in sunlight at near horizontal incidence during the lunar cycle. Because of the extreme high and low temperatures of the moon, strength of materials that vary with temperature must be considered. The internal components of the vehicle and the chassis are protected by a lightweight shell. On earth, heat generated by electric charging and use of batteries can be removed by convection with the surrounding air. The lunar atmosphere presents a unique problem of possessing virtually no heat transfer through convection, while solar radiation will add or remove heat more extremely than earth-based conditions. A thermal control system is designed to manage the battery waste heat, utilizing optical solar reflectors and an internal conductive cooling system.
