Initial astronaut missions to the lunar surface, which the US is currently planning to start in 2028, will be focused on exploration and technological experimentation. But the idea is that we will\u2014some time in the 2030s\u2014get to a point where there will be habitation quarters for long-term stays, surrounded by a network of scientific research stations, resource mining and processing plants, and landing pads for spaceships. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be an expanse,\u201d says Carlos Garc\u00eda-Gal\u00e1n, NASA\u2019s moon base program manager\u2014one that will add up to \u201chundreds of square miles.\u201d<\/p>\n
The effort is undoubtedly being fueled by nationalistic competition. China has near-identical plans to build its own base on the moon. And being first matters, because the \u201cvictor\u201d gets to define the terms. What is<\/em> the moon, exactly? Is it a militarized outpost? Is it a manufacturing hub? Is it a wilderness to be studied and preserved?<\/p>\n But there are also other reasons to go. Earth\u2019s companion contains primeval rocks<\/a> that hold clues to the formation of the entire solar system. The lunar surface, with virtually no atmosphere in the way, is an ideal place to put telescopes that could examine the most ancient epochs<\/a> of the cosmos. The far side of the moon would be \u201ca fantastic place to explore the further universe,\u201d says Josef Aschbacher, the European Space Agency\u2019s director general. And it\u2019s way more energy efficient to launch rockets from the low-gravity lunar surface than it is from Earth, meaning sending astronauts\u2014or robotic spacecraft\u2014farther into the solar system will become much less difficult. \u201cThe moon is critical. It will be a stepping stone for going further\u2014that means to Mars and beyond,\u201d says Aschbacher.<\/p>\n But if these bold visions are to become reality, there\u2019s a daunting amount of work to be done. A sprawling moon base must be safe for its astronaut inhabitants\u2014protected from falling asteroids, endless cosmic radiation, razor-sharp lunar dust, and torturous temperature swings. It also must be somewhat self-sustaining, so that it can weather changing political fortunes and not cost ruinous amounts of money to maintain. For that, we\u2019ll need to find a way to use the moon\u2019s resources to keep the base operating\u2014and ideally generating revenue. And we\u2019ll need autonomous robots that can build, maintain, and expand the base even when their human masters aren\u2019t present. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like starting civilization from scratch,\u201d says Simon Middleburgh, co-director of the Nuclear Futures Institute at Bangor University in Wales.<\/p>\n Assuming we can overcome these starting challenges, decades from now\u2014let\u2019s say, by the year 2100\u2014our initial moon bases could grow from barely visible structures into luminous cities, perhaps not too dissimilar from those dreamed up by authors and screenwriters the world over. \u201cIt\u2019s like science fiction today that we really want to turn into a reality,\u201d says Garc\u00eda-Gal\u00e1n. Will anyone succeed?<\/p>\n The moon is a tremendously hostile place to set up camp. In general, daytime temperatures can reach more than 250 \u00b0F; at night, they can plummet to less than \u2013200 \u00b0F. Exposed to the vacuum of space, the surface is constantly showered in carcinogenic radiation and frequently hit by meteoroids. And its volcanic dust is sticky and corrosive, a destroyer of equipment and choker of lungs.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sadly, the lunar south pole\u2014the area NASA is targeting\u2014is even harsher. NASA wants to build a base there because its permanently shadowed craters are thought to harbor caches of water ice, which would be more precious than gold. Purify it, and you can water crops and hydrate astronauts; split it into oxygen and hydrogen, and you have breathable air and rocket propellant. But the temperature in those craters can be lower than \u2013410 \u00b0F, making them some of the coldest places in the known universe. On the surface outside those pits, astronauts would be bathed in the scorching sun for 14 days before experiencing an equally long frigid night.<\/p>\n But there is only so much money we can spend on safety. \u201cWhat it comes down to is acceptable risk of death,\u201d Philip Metzger<\/a>, a spaceflight engineering researcher at the Florida Space Institute, said while pondering some of the dangers. \u201cWhat can we reasonably survive without breaking the bank?\u201d<\/p>\n Temperature is one of the easiest problems to handle. Materials science has come a long way, and there are myriad metals, ceramics, plastics, compounds, and alloys that can resist wild temperature swings. Radiators keep things cool; heaters keep batteries from dying prematurely. Astronauts survive just fine too, with their fancy spacesuits\u2014but that technology has proved itself only during brief excursions. It\u2019s not yet clear how long this equipment could operate under such tempestuous conditions.<\/p>\n The temperature in the moon\u2019s south pole craters can be lower than \u2013410\u2009\u00b0F, making them some of the coldest places in the known universe.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n <\/strong>Outside those pits, astronauts would be bathed in the scorching sun for 14 days before experiencing an equally long frigid night.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Space radiation, which can wreak havoc on electronics and trigger a cancerous division of cells, is far more pernicious. And as Stuart George, a physicist at NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston, explains, it comes in two unpleasant forms.\u00a0<\/p>\n The first is galactic cosmic rays<\/a>, which rain down on the moon almost constantly. \u201cThey\u2019re made by supernovas and neutron star mergers\u2014all these kinds of things,\u201d says George. And because the atomic nuclei, protons, and electrons that make them up are moving at significant fractions of the speed of light, these cosmic rays have oodles of kinetic energy, meaning they can punch through thin shielding (say, a metal wall) with ease. \u201cThey also have this habit where the heavier ions are fragmenting in that shielding and making secondary particles,\u201d says George. That means if your shield is too thin, the astronauts behind it will be blasted with a surprisingly large dose of radiation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Then you have the sun. It may sustain life on Earth, but without our planet\u2019s thick atmosphere and magnetic bubble to get in its way, moonwalkers will occasionally be blasted by one of its paroxysms: a solar flare (a burst of diverse types of radiation) or a coronal mass ejection (volleys of magnetized plasma). \u201cDuring Apollo, they knew that if a large solar flare occurred while the crew was on the moon, there would be no way to keep them alive,\u201d says Metzger. The crew could have developed acute radiation sickness and perished in a matter of days.<\/p>\n The way to survive a powerful solar flare or coronal mass ejection is straightforward: \u201cGet back inside a habitat where there\u2019s more shielding,\u201d says George\u2014preferably a dedicated, highly shielded \u201cstorm shelter,\u201d essentially a thick-walled bunker. The issue is that astronauts might be outside the base, driving a rover many miles away. Coronal mass ejections take hours to days to reach the vicinity of the Earth-moon system, but solar flares can do so in under an hour. And scientists can\u2019t yet model the sun well enough to give much advance notice. \u201cAll of the capability to forecast solar storms is kind of like where weather forecasting [was] \u2026 in the \u201950s and \u201960s,\u201d says George.<\/p>\n As for those punchy galactic cosmic rays, the only way to avoid them would be to put a lot<\/em> of stuff\u2014lunar rocks, possibly\u2014between the astronauts and the sky. \u201cBuild habitat modules underground,\u201d says Chris Dreyer<\/a>, director of engineering at the Center for Space Resources at the Colorado School of Mines. One option: Burrow living quarters into lava tubes, the naturally hollowed-\u00adout volcanic tunnels created by molten rock eons ago. At this point, NASA hasn\u2019t mentioned any plans to make its moon base subterranean, but it may need to if it wants to end up with a small lunar city.<\/p>\n Radiation limits the time astronauts can spend on the lunar surface over their entire life\u2014it can total around two years max, experts estimate, before the health risk becomes too high. Unfortunately, that\u2019s not all space will throw at them. When the Artemis\u00a0II astronauts swung around the far side of the moon earlier this year, they saw curious flashes<\/a> light up the silvery land below. These were the explosive deaths of small meteoroids punching into the lunar surface.<\/p>\n Earth is naturally protected from smaller space rocks, up to around 50 feet in diameter: They burn up inconsequentially in the atmosphere. \u201cYou don\u2019t have that option on the moon,\u201d says Philip Lubin<\/a>, a physicist and planetary defense researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Since smaller rocks plunge toward planets and moons far more frequently than larger ones do, this means the moon is often peppered by what are effectively tiny space bullets. They could easily puncture a spacesuit or the engine of a moon rover.<\/p>\n How do you protect astronauts from the onslaught? \u201cThe simplest answer is burial,\u201d says Nicholas Schmerr<\/a>, a planetary seismologist at the University of Maryland\u2014conveniently, the same way you\u2019d deal with radiation exposure. Pile up moon rocks onto your base walls or put habitable structures in lava tubes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Inconveniently, there\u2019s always a chance that a bigger asteroid will come along. Even buried habitation modules would have trouble surviving an assault from a 50-footer\u2014about the length of a semi-trailer.\u00a0<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean a moon base would be helpless against bigger asteroids. Planetary defense has come a long way in just a few decades. NASA\u2019s DART mission demonstrated that it could deflect an asteroid by ramming into the rock<\/a> with an uncrewed spacecraft, and cutting-\u00adedge experiments at clandestine labs around the US suggest that a nuclear bomb could swat away or entirely vaporize<\/a> errant space rocks. An array of both ground-based and space-based telescopes specifically designed to spy killers<\/a>\u2014such as the ATLAS quartet of largely automated telescopes, and the soon-to-be-launched NEO Surveyor infrared telescope\u2014are also aiming to find 90% of the near-Earth asteroids potentially capable of wiping out entire cities (those 460 feet across) in the coming years.<\/p>\n All these protections apply to the moon. But asteroids 50 feet across are so stealthy that even NASA\u2019s best telescopes would struggle to see them years or even months in advance. Odds are that they would first be seen not long before they were due to hit the lunar surface. Then what?<\/p>\n It\u2019s not unreasonable to imagine several turret-like launch sites on the moon that, owing to the lower gravity and airless environment, could rapidly fire projectiles toward an incoming asteroid. Hit it hard enough and it would break into fragments. Just make sure you shoot when it is as far away as possible: \u201cIf you were to break something up into a thousand pieces, then you have a thousand impacts on the moon,\u201d says Lubin. \u201cThat might be worse than letting it hit one place.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Having your base destroyed by an asteroid would be awful. But a moon base is far more likely to be imperiled by dust\u2014which, unlike asteroids, is everywhere, all the time.<\/p>\n Volcanic lunar rocks, when broken down, turn into sharp, electrostatically charged, adhesive, acrid, abrasive particles. While on the moon, Apollo astronauts who inhaled some of this dust occasionally suffered from a strange \u201clunar hay fever,\u201d which irritated their eyes and agitated their lungs. That same dust ate through all kinds of gear with disturbing ease. \u201cIt rips up seals, gears, motors, spacesuits, habitats\u2014everything else it comes into contact with,\u201d says Justin Cyrus, the CEO of Lunar Outpost, a spaceflight technology company that is providing NASA with one of the Artemis program\u2019s moon rovers.<\/p>\n NASA has already developed a defense against these dark shards: the electrodynamic dust shield<\/a>, or EDS. The lightweight electrodes that make up this shield\u2014which can be layered on machinery, walls, and perhaps even spacesuits\u2014use opposing currents to blast away the electrically charged dust. The EDS worked wonders when tested in labs on Earth, and it also demonstrated its anti-dust magic when sent to the lunar surface in 2025 as part of a NASA-sponsored robotic mission.\u00a0<\/p>\n Amy Fritz, a dust-mitigation researcher at Johnson Space Center, says that the EDS will likely be widely featured all over a lunar habitat. But other dust-fighting instruments are being developed too\u2014including a lint-roller-type object inspired by gecko skin and a sci-fi-esque blaster that uses ionized nitrogen gas. Its first spray will neutralize the charge of the dust to remove its stickiness; then a second burst will clear it off the surface.<\/p>\n Irritatingly, the busier a base gets, the dustier things will become. As it expands to the size of a small city, rocket ships will need to deliver cargo and crew to the lunar surface on a frequent cadence. Each takeoff and landing will launch a salvo of dust in every direction, inundating the base\u2019s infrastructure. \u201cYou have to worry about essentially being sandblasted every time,\u201d says Fritz.\u00a0<\/p>\n Metzger calculates that even with landing pads more than 3,000 feet away from a base, just 10 to 20 liftoffs or landings would be sufficient to severely damage things like protective coatings on exterior walls and communications equipment. After a while, he says, \u201ceverything breaks.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Even if the moon base of the future is buried partly below ground, barricaded against micrometeorites and space radiation, and well equipped with dust-repelling technologies, it\u2019s still a risky gig for any astronaut. Skipping around in a preternaturally agile way at one-sixth of Earth\u2019s gravity will be entertaining. But \u201cmicrogravity is not good for the human body,\u201d says Dreyer. Muscle wastage, cardiovascular troubles, respiratory problems, and immune deficiencies can arise.\u00a0<\/p>\n Radiation, too, may always afflict lunar residents. And there\u2019s also evidence that disease-causing microbes could stealthily sneak aboard<\/a> spacecraft, even after stringent sterilization procedures. Those microbes may behave differently than they do on Earth; microgravity experiments (both real and simulated<\/a>) have suggested that some become more aggressive and more likely to cause disease<\/a>. \u201cWe call them the invisible crew,\u201d says Lisa Carnell, the director of NASA\u2019s Biological and Physical Sciences Division.<\/p>\n Hoping to find a better way to protect astronauts, Carnell spearheaded an experiment called AVATAR<\/a> (A Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response), which launched aboard the Artemis II mission. It used thumb-drive-size chips, containing cells taken from the heart, lungs, or other parts of the body, that could be switched on to act like miniature organs. Scientists have previously used this organ-on-a-chip technology for purposes like testing out new pharmaceuticals in a highly controlled setting. For Artemis II, Carnell\u2019s crew sent up chips containing bone marrow samples taken from the mission\u2019s four astronauts. Bone marrow makes red and white blood cells, as well as platelets\u2014the sort of stuff that affects almost the entire human body. So seeing how space radiation and microgravity affect it would give Carnell and her team vital insight into how astronauts\u2019 biology might change on the moon.<\/p>\n The advantage of organ chips is that you can make them for any astronaut and then send them into space ahead of time to see how that person\u2019s organs will react to spaceflight. Researchers envision that data from such chips will be able to clue medics in to the specific preventive treatments or pharmaceuticals that will help moonbound astronauts on their journey.<\/p>\n What is NASA likely to send up sooner rather than later? \u201cBrain organoids,\u201d says Carnell. Yes, she adds\u2014that sounds super weird. But it would be good to know how a real brain might respond to being on the moon for several months before people start living there.<\/p>\n Okay. Your vast moon base and its inhabitants are protected\u2014as much as is possible\u2014from the treacherous lunar environment. But astronauts\u2019 time is extremely valuable, and humans are fragile creatures. You can\u2019t make them do all the heavy lifting, which means that whether you\u2019re trying to make a tiny lunar outpost or a small city, you\u2019re going to need a lot<\/em> of robots. \u201cThe buildup of the moon base, in the first years, will pretty much 99% be robotic,\u201d says NASA\u2019s Garc\u00eda-Gal\u00e1n.<\/p>\n Autonomy will be there right from the start. NASA\u2019s new version of the moon buggy, its Lunar Terrain Vehicle<\/a>, can be driven by the astronauts riding in it but can also be piloted remotely from Earth (or from elsewhere on the moon). There are visions, too, of adding modular robotic arms, towing vehicles, and cargo movers\u2014all still in the preliminary stages of planning.<\/p>\n Over the next few decades, though, we\u2019ll likely want an army of robots to do our bidding: excavators to dig up lunar rocks that could be turned into concrete and bricks, plus other robots to flatten surfaces, dig trenches, create building foundations, pave landing pads, and build up dust-deflecting berms to keep the base from being sandblasted by launches and landings. Even solar panels and wiring can potentially be made from moon rocks\u2014something that the spaceflight company Blue Origin demonstrated<\/a> in labs on Earth in 2023 using a geologic simulant designed to match the composition of lunar regolith.\u00a0<\/p>\n Powering this robot army will require considerable energy. Two-week-long nights make solar power an impractical solution. Aside from a cornucopia of high-\u00adcapacity, extreme-temperature-resistant batteries, nuclear power is probably the only viable option. A small, car-size nuclear reactor, filled with an almost literal handful of uranium, could power a small village for a decade without needing to be refueled. And although nobody\u2019s yet tested a nuclear reactor on the moon<\/a>, few doubt that NASA and the US Department of Energy can conjure up a working design\u2014one that perhaps wouldn\u2019t be too different from those aboard nuclear submarines. A moon base in 2100 would probably feature multiple small, autonomously or remotely operated nuclear reactors, which\u2014conveniently\u2014the base-expanding robots could simply plug themselves into to recharge.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the biggest lunar question mark might be water, which planners want to support the astronauts\u2014and to make fuel to launch things from the lunar surface. A process known as electrolysis, which uses electricity to snap apart molecular bonds, can be used to split water into oxygen and hydrogen, both of which could be used to make rocket fuel. Getting them this way could be far less expensive than sending either all the way from Earth. And as an added bonus, it would provide a source of breathable oxygen.\u00a0<\/p>\n Orbital data has revealed that there is some amount of water preserved in patches on the lunar south pole, but little is known about how much there actually is, what form it takes, or how easy it will be to extract. Will there be solid sheets of ice here and there, ready for us to excavate? Or will there be scattered ice crystals intermingled among the rocky grains, requiring some more inventive form of extraction?<\/p>\n A lot of the moon\u2019s water is thought to be hiding in deep, dark craters on the south pole, where the environment is so extreme that robots may freeze up, tumble over, or lose contact with the base. \u201cTo me, that is the biggest hurdle,\u201d says Paul van Susante, principal investigator of the Planetary Surface Technology Development Lab at Michigan Technological University.<\/p>\n Van Susante\u2019s lab has been putting various construction robots through their paces in moon-like vacuum chambers filled with moon-like rocks. His team was part of NASA\u2019s recent Break the Ice challenge<\/a>, which invited engineers to build robots to test different ways to excavate such rocks. Some teams used an electric jackhammer and a scoop, while others used scrapers to peel off layers of the ground. The teams simulated the moon\u2019s weak gravity using a crane to lift and offset the weight of the robots. Progress in this regard is speeding along. \u201cI won\u2019t say that\u2019s solved, but we\u2019ve got a lot of the puzzle pieces,\u201d says van Susante.<\/p>\n Mining the water will be just one part of an extensive operation. \u201cWhen you extract it, it\u2019s not going to be clean. It needs to be purified,\u201d says Jessica Atkin, a space botanist at Texas A&M. The technology to do this already exists and works fine on terra firma. But things in space never go the way you expect. \u201cThere\u2019s a water purification system on the International Space Station (ISS), and it is known for getting contaminated with microbes,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n But if you purify the water sufficiently\u2014something that can handily be achieved on Earth but may falter in microgravity, where fluids flow in stranger ways\u2014then your moon base can hit its stride. With an effective water recycling system, an increasingly populous base will never go thirsty\u2014and, just maybe, you\u2019ll have a lunar greenhouse. Several edible plants have been successfully grown aboard the ISS, including lettuce, mustard greens, tomatoes, and peppers. Lunar dust unfortunately makes for a terrible garden: It\u2019s filled with far too much aluminum\u2014and it forms a resistant layer when watered. But Atkin has shown that with the help of fertilizing fungi, chickpeas<\/a> can grow in soil much like the volcanic stuff found on the moon.<\/p>\n Moon base inhabitants of 2100 would be supported largely by prepacked meals sent from Earth. But in time, they would start growing some of their own produce\u2014probably with a good deal of automation for lighting, watering, and maintenance of humidity and other environmental conditions. Aside from chickpeas, there might also be plenty of lunar tomatoes. They\u2019d be desirable not least because they\u2019ve been bioengineered to produce higher levels of compounds called anthocyanins<\/a> that, according to some studies, might help humans mitigate the cellular damage caused by space radiation.<\/p>\n A garden on the moon would do more than just provide food, as recent experiences on the ISS suggest. Carnell says that NASA recently caught the astronauts aboard the space station doing something sneaky. All plants up there are supposed to be confined to their growth chambers. But \u201cwe learned that the crew were pirating our leftover soil and bringing their seeds and planting their own little gardens, if you will, and hiding them in their own cabins,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Conversations were had in the summer of 2026, after which NASA decided to let astronauts grow their own mini-gardens anywhere they wanted. \u201cSome of the astronauts said they thrived better,\u201d says Carnell. Nature, and gardening, has a hugely beneficial psychological effect on those kept in confined quarters hanging above Earth. That will be even truer for those living in lava tunnels under the lunar surface. \u201cThat human element is so important,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Nobody is deluded into thinking there isn\u2019t a mountain of technological challenges in the way. Mars may be a hellhole, as the writer Shannon Stirone put it in 2021<\/a> in The Atlantic<\/em>, but the moon isn\u2019t too far behind. It\u2019s an almost comically menacing place to be. Much about it stands in the way of building a safe, self-sustaining, robotically managed base.\u00a0<\/p>\n NASA wants to put the first nuclear reactor on the moon by 2030. China, partnering with Russia, wants to place its own nuclear power plant up there around 2035.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Beyond the first basic habitation module, it will take decades of experimentation and iteration on the lunar surface to get to a working moon base spanning hundreds of square miles. But few doubt that with enough time and tinkering, humanity can prevail. \u201cIt\u2019s not an unsolvable problem,\u201d says the University of Maryland\u2019s Schmerr.<\/p>\n The chief obstacle, especially in the initial stages of building, may be one of political will. NASA is currently bringing every resource to bear on the project\u2014something that the agency hopes could culminate in a small lunar city by the century\u2019s end. But will that commitment continue over multiple US administrations? Will the international community also throw its weight behind the NASA-led effort? NASA has \u201ca very ambitious plan,\u201d says Yuqi Qian<\/a>, a lunar geologist at the University of Hong Kong. \u201cWe need to keep an eye on it.\u201d In fact, he says, \u201cthe current plan looks over-ambitious.\u201d The agency, for example, wants to put the first nuclear reactor on the moon by 2030. (China, partnering with Russia, wants to place its own nuclear power plant up there around 2035.)\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThese sorts of projects\u2014although very exciting, and potentially transformative for humankind\u2014are the first ones to be delayed or scrapped,\u201d says Middleburgh of the Nuclear Futures Institute. NASA\u2019s direction tends to change when a new administration comes into power\u2014sometimes dramatically so.<\/p>\n But several experts outside of NASA agree that, at least for now, there is definite momentum and political will behind the moon base. \u201cNASA has very clearly expressed where they want to go, what their priorities [are], what their ambition is, and how they want to do it,\u201d says ESA\u2019s Aschbacher. \u201cIt was quite impressive to see.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if the political will behind the US-led endeavor is maintained over the coming decades, expanding anywhere beyond an initial, compact moon base will require more than government funding. \u201cThere has to be a lunar economy for this to be self-sustaining,\u201d says Dreyer, the space resources expert. Perhaps that will come from the production of rocket fuel, or from the mining of valuable materials<\/a> on the moon that can replace similar, polluting activities on Earth. But it\u2019s not at all clear how valuable, or not, a lunar economy will be.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even Isaacman, NASA\u2019s chief, doesn\u2019t think the moon will be a major moneymaker. \u201cI don\u2019t know of anything on the moon right now that\u2019s going to be easier and more affordable to mine, manufacture, and then bring back to Earth than what we could make here on Earth,\u201d he remarked<\/a> back in February. (Instead, he suspects, mining metals from asteroids<\/a> will be the path to prosperity.)\u00a0<\/p>\n What if, instead, a moon base earns the right to exist because it\u2019s a place for novel scientific research? Aschbacher imagines it will be like humanity\u2019s outposts in Antarctica. Down there, in what truly feels like another world, scientist-explorers work in a land of gleaming and endless ice to learn more about our planet\u2019s climate, its deep past, and its resilient life-forms. \u201cWe understand planet Earth by looking into those remote places,\u201d he says. The moon offers a similar opportunity. What discoveries await astronauts in those primordial lava tubes? What will lunar astronomers see in the night sky\u2014with effectively no atmosphere or light pollution in the way\u2014that those on Earth can\u2019t?<\/p>\n As in all spaceflight programs, technologies developed up there will no doubt be tweaked to be used back on Earth. And a base on the moon will make exploring the rest of the solar system easier. Technologically, physiologically, and psychologically, the moon \u201cis a proving ground for the technologies we need for Mars,\u201d says NASA\u2019s Garc\u00eda-Gal\u00e1n.<\/p>\n If we play the US-China race forward, perhaps the lunar south pole of 2100 will feature several sprawling bases operated by multiple geopolitical rivals. Perhaps it\u2019ll be an off-world powder keg of militarized territorial ambitions and jingoism. But maybe it could instead become an international cathedral to science\u2014and the ultimate adventure destination. \u201cEven if countries on planet Earth have difficulty talking to each other,\u201d says Aschbacher, they might behave differently when it comes to the moon. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure they will get together and see what we can do together, and see what problems we can solve.\u201d After all, he says, up there, far from home, \u201cyou\u2019re so dependent on each other.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Robin George Andrews is an award-winning science journalist and doctor of volcanoes based in London. He regularly writes about the Earth, space, and planetary sciences and is the author of two critically acclaimed books:<\/em>\u00a0Super Volcanoes<\/a>\u00a0(2021) and<\/em>\u00a0How to Kill an Asteroid<\/a>\u00a0(2024)<\/em>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Welcome to the second space race. You can be forgiven for experiencing d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu. Last time, it was the Soviet Union and the United States vying to be the first to plant some flags. Now it\u2019s a sprint to the lunar surface between America and China\u2014alongside a host of varyingly friendly and rival nations\u2014plus a cornucopia of private spaceflight companies. And this time it looks like they\u2019re getting ready to set up camp. There will be, the contenders say, bases on the moon, permanently inhabited castles under the stars. The notion of a moon base, fanciful as it might sound, isn\u2019t new. But this year, under the leadership of Administrator Jared Isaacman, NASA has been flooding the zone with bold announcements. If all goes according to plan\u2014a plan that will likely cost tens of billions of dollars to start\u2014there will be drones, robotic landers, communication satellites, and a nuclear power plant; there will be plant terrariums and moonquake sensors; there will be mechanized scouts exploring craters for water. Initial astronaut missions to the lunar surface, which the US is currently planning to start in 2028, will be focused on exploration and technological experimentation. But the idea is that we will\u2014some time in the 2030s\u2014get to a point where there will be habitation quarters for long-term stays, surrounded by a network of scientific research stations, resource mining and processing plants, and landing pads for spaceships. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be an expanse,\u201d says Carlos Garc\u00eda-Gal\u00e1n, NASA\u2019s moon base program manager\u2014one that will add up to \u201chundreds of square miles.\u201d The effort is undoubtedly being fueled by nationalistic competition. China has near-identical plans to build its own base on the moon. And being first matters, because the \u201cvictor\u201d gets to define the terms. What is the moon, exactly? Is it a militarized outpost? Is it a manufacturing hub? Is it a wilderness to be studied and preserved? But there are also other reasons to go. Earth\u2019s companion contains primeval rocks that hold clues to the formation of the entire solar system. The lunar surface, with virtually no atmosphere in the way, is an ideal place to put telescopes that could examine the most ancient epochs of the cosmos. The far side of the moon would be \u201ca fantastic place to explore the further universe,\u201d says Josef Aschbacher, the European Space Agency\u2019s director general. And it\u2019s way more energy efficient to launch rockets from the low-gravity lunar surface than it is from Earth, meaning sending astronauts\u2014or robotic spacecraft\u2014farther into the solar system will become much less difficult. \u201cThe moon is critical. It will be a stepping stone for going further\u2014that means to Mars and beyond,\u201d says Aschbacher. SELMAN DESIGN But if these bold visions are to become reality, there\u2019s a daunting amount of work to be done. A sprawling moon base must be safe for its astronaut inhabitants\u2014protected from falling asteroids, endless cosmic radiation, razor-sharp lunar dust, and torturous temperature swings. It also must be somewhat self-sustaining, so that it can weather changing political fortunes and not cost ruinous amounts of money to maintain. For that, we\u2019ll need to find a way to use the moon\u2019s resources to keep the base operating\u2014and ideally generating revenue. And we\u2019ll need autonomous robots that can build, maintain, and expand the base even when their human masters aren\u2019t present. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like starting civilization from scratch,\u201d says Simon Middleburgh, co-director of the Nuclear Futures Institute at Bangor University in Wales. Assuming we can overcome these starting challenges, decades from now\u2014let\u2019s say, by the year 2100\u2014our initial moon bases could grow from barely visible structures into luminous cities, perhaps not too dissimilar from those dreamed up by authors and screenwriters the world over. \u201cIt\u2019s like science fiction today that we really want to turn into a reality,\u201d says Garc\u00eda-Gal\u00e1n. Will anyone succeed? The moon is a tremendously hostile place to set up camp. In general, daytime temperatures can reach more than 250 \u00b0F; at night, they can plummet to less than \u2013200 \u00b0F. Exposed to the vacuum of space, the surface is constantly showered in carcinogenic radiation and frequently hit by meteoroids. And its volcanic dust is sticky and corrosive, a destroyer of equipment and choker of lungs.\u00a0 Sadly, the lunar south pole\u2014the area NASA is targeting\u2014is even harsher. NASA wants to build a base there because its permanently shadowed craters are thought to harbor caches of water ice, which would be more precious than gold. Purify it, and you can water crops and hydrate astronauts; split it into oxygen and hydrogen, and you have breathable air and rocket propellant. But the temperature in those craters can be lower than \u2013410 \u00b0F, making them some of the coldest places in the known universe. On the surface outside those pits, astronauts would be bathed in the scorching sun for 14 days before experiencing an equally long frigid night. But there is only so much money we can spend on safety. \u201cWhat it comes down to is acceptable risk of death,\u201d Philip Metzger, a spaceflight engineering researcher at the Florida Space Institute, said while pondering some of the dangers. \u201cWhat can we reasonably survive without breaking the bank?\u201d Temperature is one of the easiest problems to handle. Materials science has come a long way, and there are myriad metals, ceramics, plastics, compounds, and alloys that can resist wild temperature swings. Radiators keep things cool; heaters keep batteries from dying prematurely. Astronauts survive just fine too, with their fancy spacesuits\u2014but that technology has proved itself only during brief excursions. It\u2019s not yet clear how long this equipment could operate under such tempestuous conditions. The temperature in the moon\u2019s south pole craters can be lower than \u2013410\u2009\u00b0F, making them some of the coldest places in the known universe. Outside those pits, astronauts would be bathed in the scorching sun for 14 days before experiencing an equally long frigid night. Space radiation, which can wreak havoc on electronics and trigger a cancerous division of cells, is far more pernicious. And as Stuart George,<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"pmpro_default_level":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,5,7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai-club","category-committee","category-news","category-uncategorized","pmpro-has-access"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.technologyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Selman-MIT-MoonBase-LavaCaves.png?w=840\")
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