How to colonize the Moon? – TeamIndus Blog – Medium

After the successful Apollo missions that put humans on the Moon starting 1969, the ongoing dream was that there would soon be a permanent human settlement on our only natural satellite. Best captured in science fiction works like the classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, colonization of the Moon was seen as somewhat inevitable. But as it turned out, the last time humans went beyond low-earth orbit (LEO) was the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. Sad times we live in.

The Soviet space program had some serious proposals for a permanent moon base, one of which was Zvezda. The plan was to use the super heavy-lift launch vehicle N1-L3 (the Soviet Unions competitor to Americas Saturn V) to deliver tons of material for use in habitable modules on the lunar surface. Each of the modules were to be launched separately. The habitable modules were to be docked on a movable train-like platform, to allow exploration or repositioning of the moon base. The concept unfortunately died with the failed Soviet human lunar programs.

NASA also had a lunar base concept in the 1980s which went nowhere due to fading interest in the idea and focus on other areas such as the Space Shuttle program.

The Moon has no atmosphere and is basically a dead land. Mars definitely is a less hostile place better suited to colonization. Elon Musks SpaceX has its sights set on it too. But the Moons big advantages arise out of its proximity:

On the other hand, it takes months to reach Mars, which also has a round-trip communications delay of 8 to 40 minutes and doesnt allow remote control of machines.

The Moons proximity makes it a stepping stone on our journey to becoming an interplanetary species. The question is, how? In such hostile conditions, how are we ever going to make a permanent home?

The daytime temperatures on the lunar surface exceed 100 Celsius and nighttime temperatures can dip as far as -180 Celsius. Solar panels can be used to power moon colonies during lunar day; however powering the colonies during a lunar night equivalent to 14 Earth days is an issue that needs to be solved.

Enter the peaks of eternal light. The Moons equator is tilted only slightly by ~1.5 degrees to the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. Its orbital motion is such that some peaks near its poles are constantly facing the Sun, thereby making them peaks of eternal light.

Well, eternal here means as long as the Sun shines or gobbles up the Moon when it becomes a red giant. The Japanese spacecraft SELENE identified four peaks near the lunar south pole which receive sunlight more than 80% of the time.

NASAs Clementine orbiter also discovered the nearby Malapert mountain was illuminated by sunlight nearly 90% of the time. Similar peaks are found at the lunar north pole. These areas will thus have near constant sunlight to power the moon colonies.

Similar to the regions of eternal light, there are regions near the poles which are permanently in the dark. This is usually due to the peaks shadowing those regions from sunlight or deep craters where the sunlight simply does not reach. These permashadow regions in the south pole have been observed by NASAs Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).

Having not received any sunlight for nearly 2 billion years, these permashadow regions are an excellent trap for volatiles (chemicals which would vaporize in space if exposed to sunlight), including water. Indias Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, using NASAs Mini-SAR radar, found more than 40 craters containing water ice on the lunar north pole. It is estimated that there could be 100 billion kg of water ice in these regions. NASAs LCROSS spacecraft detached the Centaur upper stage to deliberately impact one of the permashadow regions on the lunar south pole.

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How to colonize the Moon? - TeamIndus Blog - Medium