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The house is filled with micrometeorites as fast as bullets and pushed by earthquakes that last for hours. Temperatures can exceed 250 degrees during the day and drop below -200 degrees at night. Looking out the window runs the risk of radiation exposure. A leak in the pipes could spell fatality.
But if the Resilient Extra-Terrestrial Habitats Institute achieves its goals, the inhabitants will remain safe amid hostile conditions. Funded with a $ 15 million grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the five-year research project combines advanced computer simulations and physical testing to gain insight into creating a lunar habitat that will keep astronauts alive. The work will help inform how humans build an enduring presence on the moon.
This is no longer an academic question. NASA, with the help of international and commercial partners, plans to return people to the Moon in 2024. In the next decade, the agency wants to establish “a sustained long-term presence on the lunar surface” and build infrastructure such as communications, power generation and waste disposal. Eventually, the so-called Artemis Base Camp could accommodate a crew of four astronauts with the goal of spending a month or two at a time on the surface.
It’s much closer than many people think, says Ariel Ekblaw, founder and director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Space Exploration Initiative. She expects a structure to be built on the moon by the end of this decade or the beginning of the 2030s.
China has plans to start establishing an inhabited lunar station this decade. Jan Woerner, Director General of the European Space Agency, launched Moon Village, an international collaborative initiative for lunar exploration, in 2016. About a dozen private lunar transport companies are preparing robotic missions to the surface, according to Jessy Kate Schingler, co-founder and director of policy and governance at the Open Lunar Foundation, a San Francisco nonprofit that advocates for peaceful approaches and cooperatives for the lunar settlement. . There could be up to 1 billion metric tons of water in the form of ice on the moon, which could support hundreds of thousands of people working there, he says.
