Plans are afoot to build a manned base on the Moon.
NASA’s Exploration Technology Development Program is working on everything that will be needed to make the Moon a place where a crew of astronauts can live for months.
Explorers from Earth will have to build their own habitat, or home. Their home must protect them like no home on Earth would ever need to do.
There is no air on the Moon. And the temperature varies from 387 degrees Fahrenheit BELOW zero (-233 Celsius) at night to 253 degrees Fahrenheit ABOVE zero (123 Celsius) in the day. Tiny micro-meteoroids (space rocks) rain down on the Moon’s surface. And no atmosphere means no protection from the Sun’s harsh radiation.
Many types of structure have been proposed for lunar colonies. However, the main focus for mission planners center on cost and efficiency. Structures fabricated on Earth, while viable, would have to be very lightweight to allow for easy launch out of the Earth’s deep gravitational well. It is generally envisaged that the first bases to be established on the lunar surface will be built on Earth, but once a base of operations is set up, with a contingent of human (and perhaps robot) workers/settlers, local materials should be mined and habitats fabricated in-situ (i.e. built on the Moon). Some of the structures currently being considered are detailed below.
Inflatable designs
The 1989 Inflatable Moon Base concept
Inflatable habitats have always been a favorite, optimizing living space whilst using lightweight materials. As the Moon has no atmosphere (apart from some very tenuous gases being “outgassed” from its surface), any habitat would need to be highly pressurized to simulate the terrestrial atmosphere (to approximately 1 atmosphere or 101,325 Pa) and atmospheric gas quantities. Due to the high forces acting outwards (by the maintained gas pressure), structural integrity of an inflatable can be assured. Assuming the membrane of the inflatable is strong enough, risk of depressurization should be low.
There is however a massive problem with inflatables. In an environment as vacuum-like as the Moon’s, there is little protection from micrometeorites (small, natural space rocks or manmade space debris). Catastrophic depressurization could occur if a high velocity projectile causes a weakness in the membrane
So a Moon habitat for humans will have to be very tough and very sturdy. It will have to be air tight, so the inside can be pumped up with breathable air without exploding or leaking. The habitat will have to be cooled during the Moon day and heated during the Moon night. It will need a water recycling system, a power generating system, and food storage and preparation facilities.
The materials to build the Moon habitat should be lightweight, since they will have to be boosted out of Earth’s gravitational field using rockets.The habitat will have to be sent to the Moon in pieces and assembled by the explorers once they arrive. So it should be easy to put together, since the Moon explorers will be working in space suits.
Across the pond, European Space Agency (ESA) next big mission for the history books is building the first Moon habitat located in the Shackleton crater — a 2.6-miles hole at the lunar south pole.
Last year, ESA released a video describing how it plans to use cutting-edge technology such as 3D printers and inflatable habitats to accomplish this, with the goal of supporting up to four astronauts at a time inside the shelter.
What’s more, the future head of ESA, Johann-Dietrich Wörner, recently announced that the agency wants to start construction on the habitat, which it’s calling “Lunarville,” by as early as 2024.
ESA hopes in 2018 it will send a Lunar Lander to the Moon’s south pole. The mission will be a precursor to ESA’s bigger construction plans.
As early as 2024 ESA will send another spacecraft to the lunar south pole to begin construction of the first lunar base in human history. The lander will contain everything ESA needs to being including an inflatable dome and robots.
For more details visit : NASA.gov and ESA.gov