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back to article NASA announces 'name the inflatable Moon tent' compo result

NASA has announced the results of a competition among American schoolchildren to name an inflatable habitat module intended for use as a lunar astronaut tent. The winning name is "Resolution", chosen by New Jersey nippers with Captain Cook's pre-USA exploration ship in mind. The prototype inflatable habitat module in the …

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  1. The BigYin
    Joke

    "Welcome to Moon Unit Resolition

    Please leave all pins, staples, knives, sharp pencils and fountain pens in the bin provided. Thank you.

    Should you discover a leak, emergency gaffa tape is provided in the red containers mounted throughout the facility. Thank you.

    Do not run at the walls and then bounce off exclaiming 'Whee!'. Thank you.

    We would like to remind all guests that the only thing protecting you from the hard vacuum of space is a few millimetres of plastic made by the lowest bidder. Y'all have a nice day now."

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  2. Lionel Baden

    its gonna end in tears

    Something is going to go bad and they will sit there saying it was a tragic accident and nobody could of ever foreseen it happening..

    Also is kids naming a pricey bouncy castle really newsworthy ???

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    Boldly going forward

    Selenean = Star Trek

    Selenian = Moon

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  4. Martin Lyne

    Eirah

    I think you should see if an admin will remove your email address from the post tile, lest you be inundated with Viagroids and Erectile Dysfunctionists.

    As for the podule.. I shoudl hope it has some sort of emergency foam-auto-shooting filler thing to prevent tiny holes becoming a major snafu.

    They could install a MTHEL too, to shoot the debris.

    Couldn't they deploy several think layers of metallic film over it to pretect against the rads? (The tinfoil hat methodology)

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  5. Robert Ramsay

    they should have called it "Zappa"

    that is all. Thank you.

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  6. Andy

    IPutMyEmailAsTheTitle@Whoops.com

    @Eirah Lewis

    Whoops! Lots of cheap viagra pills and organ enhancment products coming to an Inbox near you!

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  7. Andy

    IPutMyEmailAsTheTitle@Whoops.com

    @Eirah Lewis

    Whoops! Lots of cheap viagra pills and organ enhancement products coming to an Inbox near you!

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    feh

    Should have named it Challenger - as a reminder to all about NASA's love of ignoring the most obvious safety issues in order to meet some hard to understand deadline.

    To complete the picture - launch that inflatable playpen with the new shake-n-bake Ares rocket and then build a couple of nuclear waste dumps on the dark side of the moon. Wave bye-bye when dumps go critical.

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  9. Remy Redert

    @Martin Lyne

    Metal, of pretty much all types, is worse then worthless as a defense against charged particle radiation (Like most of the radiation from the sun, for example). Any charged particle striking a metal surface at speed will release a nice little radiation photon on the other side of your film.

    Instead, anything containing hydrogen will serve as an effective barrier against particle radiation, along with some other fairly massive non-metallic materials (like, say, carbon).

    A tent on the surface of the moon might be a nice way to start up if you can't have a robot dig out your habitat before hand but it should in no way be anything more then a very temporary habitat. The first solar flare will provide the astronauts with several lifetimes worth of radiation, if it doesn't kill them.

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  10. R Callan
    Boffin

    Well if (pedantic rant)

    NASA cannot even get get Cook's rank correct then I would not trust them to get a moon tent right.

    "Resolution" was captained by Commander James Cook. (Even getting to the rank of Commander was a great feat for a farm labourers son in the late 1700').

    Regarding the tent, why don't they inflate it with the odd foot or two of expanded polystyrene. Just blow the tent up with a few cans of gap-filler. A reasonable thermal insulator and it surely has at least some self sealing properties to minimise being punctured by micrometeorites. As this also has a lot of hydrogen in it, it may also help protect against some charged particle radiation.

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  11. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    Resolution?

    These kids in New Jersey don't know anything about product messaging do they? Would you really want to live in a shelter that conjures up a need for "resolution"? How about "comfort" or at least something homey like "hearthstone"?

    Posted from my home at 1111 Underwater Lane in the prestigious Foreclosure Estates development.....

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  12. Frank

    @DZ_Jay re. trial, try, tried

    The use of try/tried for the old formal court case system (where the meaning is to test it to see if it is true) and for the common modern use (where the meaning is to give it a go and see if it works) are well established.

    Formal testing of large (or small) systems and equipments (or new drugs, etc) is a relatively modern practice and it is common to use the verb 'trialled' to refer to this process; has been for many years.

    If I was going to trust my life to an inflatable tent, I would not be happy if it had just been tried or even tested. I would want it to have been thoroughly trialled.

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  13. Luther Blissett

    Aptitude = fitness for purpose?

    > The students also pointed out that the word "resolution" aptly describes America's intent to explore space.

    Even more apt would be to call it "Hegemony".

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  14. SkippyBing

    Who says you can't get a proper education?

    I'm impressed that a group of 14-15 year olds knew about Captain Cook. Does anyone think the same demographic in this country have even heard of him?

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  15. NukEvil
    Thumb Down

    Inflatable tent with no atmosphere?

    Sorry, but no. I'd require an atmosphere, ANY atmosphere, or at least anything that'll be able to stop a reasonable amount of space junk over a reliable period of time before going on a lunar camping trip. Especially since the smallest mishap would almost certainly result in you getting blown away from your tent from the pressure difference (if not already dead from whatever hit the tent), and then having parts of your body explode from the other pressure difference (full bladder, whoops), followed shortly by your death as your eyeballs explode, your lungs rupture, your skin flakes off from radiation, your stomach acid eats you, your brain gets squeezed to extinction, and your blood seeps out in a massive cloud of...red stuff.

    At least, with an atmosphere, you'd have less chance of your body forcibly going everywhere...

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  16. Bounty
    Pirate

    fill it with water

    Fill it with H20. Then you know when you're supply is getting low when the house starts sagging. Plus, now you don't need a separate H20 container. "Water's low, guess we'll have to collapse the bedroom until Bob takes a leak" Or maybe grain or something. Then as sections are eaten, you can re-fill it with...... uhhhh "processed" grain.

    -Bounty

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  17. Ben

    @DZ-Jay

    There is no English noun that cannot be verbed.

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  18. Nicholas Ettel

    Arduous conditions?

    "The inflata-hab air tent is currently being trialled by NASA for durability in arduous conditions..." Because, supposedly, the moon has weather/natural conditions vastly similar to those on Earth, let alone Antarctica.

    @DZ-Jay

    >"So you are absolutely ruling out the possibility of an alien inhabited craf,t of any description, crashing against the surface, close to or on top of the inflatable habitat?"<

    I agree with you assertation. Wouldn't an Earth-based space craft, in fact, be alien to Mars AND the moon?

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  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ R Callan

    In the Royal Navy the officer commanding a ship has the title 'Captain' whether they hold the rank of Lieutenant, Lieutenant-Commander, Commander, Captain or Commodore. Most officers with the rank of Captain actually Captain a desk not a ship.

    This is true of the Royal Navy and every other navy in the World is an imitation so will probably follow the same principle.

    Fly Navy.

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  21. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    "The Shackleton"

    or The Nimrod.

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  22. R Callan
    Boffin

    AC referencing me

    Anyone in charge of anything in the navy is the captain of it. Thus:

    Captain of the ship

    Captain of the turret

    Captain of the gun

    Captain of the galley

    Captain of the heads

    The actual rank of any of these would range from Captain down to lowliest of ordinary seaman, depending upon the importance or size of the item.

    The highest rank in charge of a vessel was always (it may have changed) Captain. The largest and most important vessels (battleships, cruisers, aircraft carriers) was Captain. Officers of flag rank, Commodore and up, even when stationed on a ship, always had to defer to the captain regarding the running of the ship.

    As an aside, might I refer you to the book "Parkinson's Law" for some interesting items about the Royal Navy.

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  23. Dr Patrick J R Harkin

    I seem to recall a posting about an inflatable pub a few years ago.

    If this is a development of that technology, then it looks like they got around the tricky dartboard problem...

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  25. Sam

    Not new

    Rounded over top, earth, sorry, moon banked up around it..it's an Anderson shelter!

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  26. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: whoops@ohballs.com

    I've rejected that comment now Eirah. Don't do it again, you big silly.

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  27. This post has been deleted by its author

  28. Dave

    @NukEvil

    I think someone has seen too many space/horror movies - I'm not saying that anyone could survive unprotected on the moon, but your description of the effects is not _entirely_ correct.

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  29. Secretgeek
    Alien

    @ Luther & @ the students

    'The students also pointed out that the word "resolution" aptly describes America's intent to explore space.'

    IMO a better name on those lines would be 'The massively costly distraction from stuff we're fucking up all around you.'

    Not really that catchy though.

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  30. Alan Brown Silver badge

    Filling it with water.... Not a silly idea

    Apart from the weight/sag issue....

    Water is one of the ideal substances for absorbing charged particles, which is one of the reasons it's used in nuclear reactors.

    BTW, most of that "high level nucelar waste" is perfectly usable as fuel if the politics of reprocessing plutonium are bypassed. We're currently throwing out about 90% of the energy potential that went into the reactor in the first place. Who'd be stupid enough to put that on the far side of the moon when we're going to need it as raw material within 50 years?

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  31. NukEvil
    Heart

    @Dave

    You think so? I know about people who have been exposed to space for very short periods of time, but I seriously doubt they were exposed to explosive decompression, with NO time for them to equalize the pressures in their bodies to that of space. Even in so-called "controlled" exposure to space, blood tends to seep from capillaries in the wrists, etc...so I can imagine how it must do when all the outside pressure is taken away very suddenly.

    The heart icon because, in these circumstances, it probably explodes as well...

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