CONCEPTUAL IDEA

With Earth running out of resources as we speak, this development is crucial. The primary goal of this mission is a gradual, multi-directional expansion of the lunar habitat in time. Secondary goals are stability, flexibility, sustainability and durability. Building on the Moon is a challenge. Moon lacks most of the necessary resources that humankind needs in order to survive. This means that the design should incorporate new techniques and concepts compared to those used for building on Earth. Since the transportation is challenging on its own, using in-situ materials is one example of the new techniques necessary. Adding a layer of regolith over the habitat would provide sufficient radiation protection, which due to the lack of atmosphere on the Moon, is crucial to our survival. Additionally, a new collapsible greenhouse could be the key to growing fresh and healthy food to sustain future lunar habitations. Indoor farms would reduce the need for costly resupply missions while removing carbon dioxide from the air, thus replenishing the astronauts‘ breathing supply, and could produce about 500 pounds of oxygen a year. Lunar greenhouses must hold up in places where the atmospheric pressures are, at best, less than one percent of Earth-normal. A farm at the moon‘s poles could tap water ice trapped in craters. Burying the farm buildings will protect them from cosmic rays, micrometeorites and extreme temperatures. The greenhouses will be easier to construct and operate with interior low pressure. In such extreme low pressures, plants have to work hard to survive. Low pressure makes plants act as if they‘re drying out. Plants can grow on the moon, but not on moon soil, as earth plants need nutrients, minerals, moisture, and oxygen, which are not found in moon soil (regolith). Regolith is mostly very dry dust that comes from rock, meteors, and meteorites that become powder due to solar heat, solar wind, cosmic rays, meteoric collisions, and extreme heat and cold. To grow plants on the Moon is to recreate, the earth conditions necessary for plants to develop and grow. This is possible by building superficial or underground infrastructure where temperature, light, moisture, nutrients and microbes are artificially controlled.

Timeline

First year = deployment of infrastructure - Initial habitat module is launched to the moon and robotically assembled prior to the crew arrival. Additionally, radiation protection using in-situ regolith is layered over the inflated habitat. After two years, four crew members arrive on site, connecting the habitat with life support systems and power supply, and constructing the interior of the habitat. In the upcoming years, the primary goal of the mission is achieved by continuous expansion of the habitat. The site location chosen for the mission is South Pole, at the rim of Shackleton crater. The location has multiple advantages such as: heavily cratered terrain, average temperature of -13°C (unlike the rest of the moon’s temperatures that vary between -173°C and +127°C), due to the constant shading, the ice in the craters are potentially a solid water source, the soil shows traces of essential resources like: hydrogen, sulfur, methane.