Thanks to the Artemis program, the United States and international and commercial partners will return astronauts to the moon in a few years. But, going beyond brief sorties to the lunar surface, what are the plans for a permanent base or settlement?
A NASA document refers to a concept called the lunar base camp, which includes “a modern lunar cabin, a rover and even a mobile home.”
“Early missions will include short surface stays, but as the base camp evolves, the goal is to allow crew to stay at the lunar surface for up to two months at a time,” the document continues.
The lunar base camp concept seems to be pretty thin gruel compared to visions of lunar bases in science fiction, such as Jamestown in the Apple TV alternate history series “For All Mankind” or Clavius Base in the classic movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Even though the next footsteps on the lunar surface are years away, it is not too soon to start thinking bigger.
Recently, the Chinese released a video of their proposed International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). The Chinese government has solicited its own group of international partners in the undertaking, the latest being Serbia. Plans for the ILRS are established in two stages, one completed in 2035 and a more extensive facility by 2045.
How real is the Chinese video is open to question. For one thing, it depicts an American space shuttle launching in the background. However, it is clear that China has more extensive, long-term ambitions for the moon than NASA has articulated yet.
Even the Chinese ILRS concept falls short of the futurist’s dreams of a full-blown town on the moon. It doesn’t fit any of the criteria for a lunar settlement that was set forth by the National Space Society:
- People moving to the Moon with no intention of ever returning to Earth
- Residents other than employees
- Children being brought to the Moon and, gravity and other conditions permitting, being born and raised there
- Commercial businesses including manufacturing and markets
- Schools, chapels and religious/gathering spaces
- No requirement that enough vehicles be standing by to evacuate the entire population at once (though there would be provisions for evacuating people from individual modules in the event of and emergency)
- Surgical and medical facilities
- Closed or Controlled Ecological Life Support Systems (CELSS) that recycle sufficiently to minimize the amount of imports needed for daily living (including food)
- Some form of local governance
- Ability to make most repairs using local materials
- Facilities for visitors, whether scientists, tourists or others
- Use as a staging point and support facility to develop other lunar settlements.
A group called the Space Development Network has developed an idea for a lunar settlement where people from Earth would permanently live on the moon with a degree of self-sufficiency. The concept is very sophisticated and is worth a look. Basically, the group believes that the SpaceX Starship will enable the movement of a large amount of material and a large number of people to the moon, enabling the building of a self-sufficient settlement.
A yearly space settlement competition for school students has been conducted since 1983 to inspire interest in STEM education. NASA needs to elevate the idea of settling on the moon by soliciting ideas from industry and academia for building a lunar settlement along the lines suggested by the National Space Society.
Even when the SpaceX Starship, which CEO Elon Musk envisions to enable a Mars settlement, is operational, establishing a lunar colony will be an immense undertaking. It will take the resources of a coalition of nations and private companies to execute.
The legal and diplomatic hurdles for a lunar settlement will be just as daunting as the technical and economic ones. The new town must adhere to the Outer Space Treaty and the Artemis Accords even as it becomes a self-governing community. Would it be considered its own nation, albeit a small one (think Singapore), or a colony of Earth?
A lunar settlement would be a center of science, commerce and diplomacy, the first such community established on another world. Explorers, miners, scientists, businessmen and others would live side by side with a common purpose of making the moon their home.
It would be a massive undertaking, but the rewards for human civilization would be beyond evaluation.
Mark R. Whittington, who writes frequently about space policy, has published a political study of space exploration entitled “Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?” as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond,” and, most recently, “Why is America Going Back to the Moon?” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.