Could you live on the moon? - Alex Gendler
You roll out of bed and leap eight meters
across your underground habitat.
The greywater from your sink
drains into a small greenhouse
where your vegetables grow.
After suiting up,
you head through a transport
chute to inspect the generator.
Outside, it’s pitch black - just as
it’s been for the last 12 days.
This isn’t some post-apocalyptic scenario;
it’s just another day of life on the moon.
And with the European Space Agency’s idea
to establish a functioning
"moon camp" by the 2020s,
that day may be
closer than we think.
Of course, living on
the moon won’t be easy.
The camp envisioned is not so much
a village as an inhabited research base
similar to those
in places like Antarctica.
But there are far greater obstacles to
living on the moon than just cold weather.
The biggest is cosmic radiation.
Unlike the Earth, the moon has
no atmosphere and no magnetic field.
A person on its surface can receive
over 400 times the maximum safe dosage
of heavy ion radiation,
enough to be fatal within ten hours,
even in a spacesuit.
The first step would likely involve robots
and 3D printers constructing
covered habitats from lunar soil,
or building shelters inside caves
formed by lava tubes
from the moon’s volcanic past.
But what would the inhabitants live on?
Supplies would need to be transported
from Earth at first.
Growing plants requires greenhouse soil
and air rich in carbon dioxide,
a gas that’s rare on the moon,
but could be synthesized
from recycled materials.
A water treatment plant could be supplied
by ice mined from the polar regions
using a specialized drill that can bore
two meters beneath the lunar surface.
Friendly bacteria and viruses necessary
to the human microbiome and immune system
would also have to be imported
or synthesized on site.
And lunar inhabitants would have
to exercise for hours a day
to maintain bone and muscle mass.
That’s because the moon’s gravity
is just one-sixth that of the Earth,
and the everyday strain of working
against gravity
is part of what keeps our bodies healthy.
It might seem strange to go
to all this trouble
to build a base on a dead rock
we’ve already visited.
But NASA’s Apollo missions only explored
small portions of the moon.
We’ve made many discoveries since then,
such as ice near the poles and particles
of solar wind gases
that date back billions of years.
They collectively show that the moon
has much more to teach us
about the history of our solar system.
A radio telescope on its far side could
observe the cosmos,
shielded from the Earth’s electromagnetic
interference.
And the lunar surface is rich in minerals,
like silicon, aluminum, and magnesium,
creating great economic
potential for mining.
But the biggest benefit of the moon camp
may not lie on the moon but beyond it.
With the nearest possibly habitable
world light-years away,
and the International Space Station
to be retired in about a decade,
a moon base would be our first foothold
towards becoming
an interplanetary species.
And proposals such as
the Deep Space Gateway
envision launching future
missions from lunar orbit.
The smaller gravitational pull
would require less fuel to overcome,
allowing for larger ships and more cargo.
Meanwhile, the base on the surface
could serve as a testing ground
for future space operations,
a refueling station,
and a supply depot all in one.
With Europe, Russia, China, and the US
expressing interest in the project,
the moon camp may come to involve
the space agencies of all major nations,
as well as private companies.
Within a few decades,
the moon may be bustling
with mining operations,
research stations,
and tourist routes
alongside a construction yard
under an orbiting space port.
We may have already visited the moon,
but now we’re closer than ever
to making it part of humanity’s home.
