NASA's Plan for a Permanent Lunar Colony

 If NASA’s current timeline works out, we will send astronauts to land on the Moon by 2026. One of their main tasks will be to set the foundation for a permanent lunar colony. The previous six lunar landing missions landed not far from the Moon’s equator. That isn’t the best location for the first lunar colony.

The problem is water. Water is necessary for astronauts, not only for drinking but also for oxygen and fuel. While water can be cooked out of lunar rocks, that process is slow and quite expensive. But water, or at least ice, does exist on the Moon. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) discovered it in the permanently shadowed craters at the Moon’s South Pole.

Cold Traps for Ice at Moon's South Pole. Credit NASA, KARI, Arizona State University

Deep craters there form “cold traps.” Comets and asteroids that contain water have crashed into the Moon for billions of years. Most of that water gets incorporated into the rocks or boiled away by the Moon’s 250-degree daytime temperature. But some wanders around the moon and ends up in these deep craters that never see sunlight. Over the eons, ice has accumulated in vast quantities in the cold traps there.

While NASA knew there was ice at the Moon’s South Pole, they needed detailed maps of exactly where the ice was located. That information has now been provided by South Korea Research Institute’s Danuri spacecraft. Among other instruments it carries is ShadowCam, a camera that is 200 times more sensitive than those aboard LRO. It can see even in very dark areas of the Moon in the dim light reflected by lunar mountains at the South Pole that stick up high enough to catch some sunlight in an otherwise dark region. Its images reveal the deep, dark craters where lunar ice hides from the heat of the sun.

These are prime sites for a lunar colony. Like Earth’s poles, the Moon’s South Pole receives continuous sunlight as the sun circles just above the horizon for months at a time. This allows the colony to collect solar energy for the colony located at the cold traps to provide the electricity needed to support a colony on the Moon.

The longest any Apollo astronauts stayed on the Moon in the 1970s was just under 75 hours. A permanent colony allows scientists to study the Moon for days or weeks at a time.

This will be our first step towards colonizing the Moon. Even on the hottest parts of the Moon, lava tubes, caves created by erupting volcanoes, can provide shelter. These locations will protect lunar residents from the heat of the day and -200 degree nights on the Moon. Some of these lava tubes are large enough to support whole cities.

Sooner than you might expect, the reality of people living on the Moon will catch up with science fiction.

 

Each month, I write an astronomy-related column piece for the Oklahoman newspaper. After it is published there, I post that same column to my blog page.

 

This is reprinted with permission from the Oklahoman and www.Oklahoman.com.