Living on the Moon Could Happen Sooner than We Think
In August 2017, Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX announced plans for a lunar colony dubbed Moonbase Alpha, a name that comes from the British show Space: 1999. However, SpaceX is not the only company to focus on getting humans to return to the Moon. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has revealed the next phase of their Chang’e mission — now that Chang’e 4 is the first spacecraft to successfully soft land on the dark side of the Moon.
In January, the deputy head of the CNSA Wu Yanhua explained that Chang’e 5 and 6 would serve as missions to return samples from the moon while Chang’e 7 will survey the South Pole, this lunar area is of great interest for human colonies since holds water ice. Yanhua added that they hope Chang’e 8 will be able to test out some technologies and explore the moon to determine how to build a joint lunar base that multiple countries can share.
Once again, China is not the only one who wants to send humans back to the Moon. Both NASA and the ESA have plans in the works. The ESA’s new director-general, Jan Woerner introduced plans for a permanent Moon base in 2016. His ideal ‘Moon village’ would be home to a diverse set of people such as scientists and artists, as well as public and private organizations. The lunar base would serve many purposes such as astronomical research, tourism, or mining minerals.
Ariel Ekblaw, the founder of the MIT Media Lab’s Space Exploration Initiative, is also looking to “democratize space.” Thus, he has formed multi-disciplinary research groups studying everything from robotics and synthetic neurobiology to architecture, art, space, and even design.
Other private companies include Blue Origin, who is joining forces with OHB and MT Aerospace to work on their Blue Moon cargo ship that will be made for a lunar landing.
Meanwhile, NASA revealed their plans for a permanent moon base in August 2018 because the US space agency’s main goal until then was Mars. Now, NASA is looking to send astronauts back to the lunar surface by 2030, and the agency has plans for a lunar orbiting platform named the Gateway.
No matter who wins the race and arrives on the moon first, the most important priority will be surviving. People have only visited the moon for three days so far, and for a long-duration mission, it could be a hard place to survive.
The Moon’s temperatures vary from -127 to -173 C (-196 to -343F). There is also radiation to deal with and the lack of gravity, which is one-sixth that of our own planet. Moreover, one lunar day is about 29 Earth days, so there are two weeks of daylight and then two weeks of darkness, something that would hinder the use of solar power. Therefore, new technologies aimed at making a lunar outpost viable needs to function under these conditions.
Since everyone is trying to get humans back to the moon, many organizations such as Blue Origin, Airbus Defence and Space, and Esa have helped establish a non-profit known as The Moon Race. This worldwide competition is there to help companies work on new technologies in manufacturing, energy production, resources and biology. The Moon Race will officially kick off in October 2019 at the International Astronautical Congress.
Pierre-Alexis Joumel, a space engineer and Moon Race co-founder from Airbus, the German-based company stated that the competition would last five years and they will announce the guidelines and rules within the next month.
Whichever technology prototype is chosen for testing on the Moon will get to catch a ride aboard a lunar mission. Joumel added that the missions they are aiming for are mostly from space agencies. One is scheduled for 2024–25.
Since it is costly to bring materials from Earth building a habitat out of the Moon’s available resources makes more sense. Once could use lava tubes and tunnels that were made during the Moon’s volcanic past, as shelters that have access to frozen water ice underneath the surface. However, a more immediate plan is to construct a habitat out of lunar regolith.
Professor Matthias Sperl from the University of Cologne is partnering with the German Space Agency, DLR, to make bricks using volcanic powder. This powder is similar to lunar regolith, and it is held together via a process known as sintering. In this process concentrated sunlight or lasers hold the material together. They have used 3D printers to make different shaped bricks in order to find out which worked best.
These bricks would then form something resembling an igloo, that is strong enough to withstand additional pressure from above. The pressure would stem from approximately a one-metre layer of loose regolith that would provide natural protection from radiation since there is no wind on the Moon to blow it away.
Furthermore, oxygen found in the lunar regolith itself could be extracted to help humans breathe. However, even building one structure would be slow since it takes about five hours to make one brick,” according to Sperl, and you need 10,000 bricks to form one igloo.
Nevertheless, it is a feasible plan because the time could be lessened if more lenses are working and robots perform the construction. Construction will begin later in 2019 on a large Esa lunar facility to help prepare for living on the Moon.
NASA confirmed evidence of water ice at the Moon’s poles, in August 2018. Thus any moonbase will most likely be built at these locations. That is why Chang’e 4’s Yutu 2 rover is presently gathering data in the South Pole’s Aitken Basin. The water ice is found on the surface in craters that are permanently shadowed or underground.
Lastly, new technologies for producing will be another vital step in living on the Moon. Fuel cells found on Earth need a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen (often from the air) to generate electricity, where water is a byproduct. Although there is no atmosphere on the Moon, the ingredients can still be found there.
ESA science advisor, Aidan Cowley, explained that you could split the water found on the Moon and then recombine it to generate electricity. Cowley is already working on these new technologies. He added that during the lunar day there is enough solar power to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen, so it’s a helpful tool that could be used on the Moon to sustain life for a long-duration mission.
Once these technologies are perfected and tested to guarantee that they work under lunar conditions, astronauts will be capable of constructing a moonbase, and this could be sooner than we think.
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