NASA Wants Us to Live on the Moon — But Can We Actually Do It? [Thoughts After Dark]

Brooklyn Kiosow Mar 24, 2023

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I wasn’t one of the kids in elementary school with the goal of growing up to be an astronaut, but I was friends with a few. They were either big fans of Star Wars (something I didn’t watch until high school), thought the poofy white outfit with a fishbowl helmet looked cool, or were fascinated by the moon and stars. Children are curious creatures, after all.

It’s not that I wasn’t interested in space or the solar system, but going there sounded scary. A giant rocket was going to blast off and take me thousands of miles away to an atmosphere without oxygen, my bed, or McDonald’s? I was a little skeptical of what the fun in that was. But then again, I wanted to be a teacher, so my idea of fun was slightly different.

It’s not just my now-grown-up elementary friends with their eyes toward the sky: NASA has big plans for visiting outer space and establishing a human presence there. To prepare, the European Space Research and Technology Centre even want to give the moon its own time zone.

We’ve known for years that there was a possibility humans could one day live in outer space, but now that NASA has said it might happen in the next few years, what would life in space actually look like, and what do humans need to survive?

NASA’s Artemis Program

NASA’s Artemis program is giving us our first taste of the possibilities of spending extended time in space. The space agency currently has a three-step program in place.

With the Artemis missions, NASA says it will land the first woman and person of color on the moon before establishing a “long-term presence” there. After these missions, they will send the first astronauts to Mars.

Artemis I

In November 2022, NASA began its Artemis 1 mission by sending its Orion spacecraft to journey around the moon. This was the agency’s first integrated flight test of its Deep Space Exploration System.

According to NASA’s website, “Artemis I will provide a foundation for human deep space exploration and demonstrate our commitment and capability to extend human existence to the Moon and beyond prior to the first flight with crew on Artemis II.”

Earlier this month, the agency confirmed that the Artemis I mission was a success and paved the way for them to land the first astronauts on the moon in 50 years. While the launcher experienced more damage than expected, NASA is already preparing Artemis II for liftoff with people onboard.

The Orion capsule on Artemis I returned to Earth in December, safely splashing into the Pacific Ocean.

Artemis II

NASA’s Artemis II mission will be the first crewed flight test of its Space Launch System. The astronauts onboard the Orion spacecraft will travel further into space than ever before and determine everything is in place for deep space exploration.

Four astronauts will be on board the Orion and travel 6,400 miles beyond the far side of the Moon. From this distance, the crew can see both the Earth and the Moon from inside the spacecraft’s windows.

While the crew is traveling quite a distance, the trip will only last 10 days beginning in November 2024.

Artemis III

Following two Artemis missions, Artemis III, currently planned for December 2025, will be the first time people land on the moon since 1972. NASA chose SpaceX to build a landing system to transport Artemis III astronauts from the Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit to the Moon's surface and back home.

While NASA wants to explore locations around the lunar South Pole, extreme conditions make it a “challenging location for Earthlings to land, live, and work.” But the surface's unique characteristics promise new scientific discoveries.

Axiom Space will provide the astronauts with advanced spacesuits, giving them more flexibility and range of motion for their month-long stay in space. As the astronauts explore and live in space, they will survey geology, collect data, and take photos and videos. Additionally, the crew will identify if there is water present there, which could fuel future trips to Mars.

What Do We Need to Live in Space?

“Certainly in this decade, we’re going to have people living [on the moon],” Howard Hu, the program manager for the Orion spacecraft on board the Artemis 1 flight, told the BBC. “We're going to be sending people down to the surface, and they're going to be living on that surface and doing science.”

If humans are to establish a presence in space, they will need a few things.

Infrastructure

Before anyone can live in space, infrastructure for day-to-day life must be built. It’s not the same as just visiting the moon, as the infrastructure must protect astronauts and scientific equipment from harsh conditions for longer periods of time.

Last year, NASA announced its plans to build nuclear reactors on the moon to provide energy for human settlements. A reliable source of energy, in this case, nuclear energy, would power activities like heating and refrigeration.

But there’s a reason NASA has struggled to accomplish this for the past 15 years: it’s hard to fit a nuclear reactor onto a rocket. In 2018 the agency developed the tiny but mighty KRUSTY and selected industry partners to design other prototypes. The designs have the capacity to generate 40 kilowatts of constant power for 10 years, which is the equivalent of powering several average households.

But building liveable infrastructure in space is expensive. However, one study found that it could be possible to use lunar soil as a building material and use lunar regolith to 3D print structures and equipment.

Other Liveable Conditions

While NASA has created more comfortable living conditions on the International Space Station over the last few decades, it doesn’t mean we are currently prepared to live in space. I mean, the moon can get down to -298°F at night!

There is also toxic lunar dust in space as well as radiation. Apollo 17 astronauts said the dust made their throats sore and irritated their eyes. Astronauts are also exposed to between 50 to 2,000 mSv of radiation, equivalent to 150 to 6,000 chest x-rays. NASA, however, is working on shielding methods to protect astronauts.

But perhaps the biggest concern about living on the moon is a lack of food and water. NASA knows there isn’t liquid water on the moon, but it also isn’t sure if there is any accessible water in ice form either.

In terms of food, last year, a NASA-funded study successfully grew plants in lunar soil and tomatoes on the ISS. This indicated that it might be possible for astronauts to grow plants in space for consumption. But can they water them?

Fortunately, the issue of making the air breathable is relatively simple. Lunar soil is around 42% oxygen, and NASA-built robots can harvest the oxygen for crewed missions.

What Would Life on the Moon Be Like?

“I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small,” said Neil Armstrong, the first person on the Moon.

According to people who have been to space, it smells like burnt cookies and barbecue. But what would life on the moon be like?

The moon's surface is in a vacuum with no weather or bodies of water. A project scientist for NASA said living on the moon would be a “kind of perpetual balmy sunset” as the temperature remains on the cold side, at around 32°F.

People living on the moon would be witness to beautiful sights, including the surface’s lava plains that are as tall as Mount Saint Elias, located in Alaska and Canada. As well, the large craters on the moon would make the Earth’s Grand Canyon look pretty boring in comparison.

While there would never be rain, life on the moon would come with dangerous “space weather,” including golf-ball-sized meteor particles, solar flares, and moonquakes. Moonquakes, in particular, can last up to an hour and have measured up to 5.5 on the Richter scale, meaning they are strong enough to cause severe structural damage to buildings.

Overall, it wouldn’t look much like The Jetsons, but it would undoubtedly be different from life on Earth. An animation by Alex Gendler for TEDEd suggests any habitat on the moon would be less like a village and more like a research base.

Much More to Learn

You might be asking why NASA would want to go through all of this trouble to travel to a dead rock in space.

Space is vast, and we have only explored a small portion of it through NASA’s Apollo missions. Since then, we have made new discoveries that prove outer space has much more to teach us.

We may have only visited the Moon, but we are getting closer to making it a second home base and becoming an interplanetary species.