Mars is out. And next time I might go to stay there.
On Tuesday (March 24), NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced new plans to establish a “sustainable human presence” on the moon with a permanent lunar base. Isaacman said construction of humanity’s new home away from Earth could begin as early as 2027.
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It’s an exciting prospect, but scientists say colonizing the moon won’t be as simple as packing and lifting. The moon’s environment is harsh. Think razor-sharp, electrically charged dust and a constant stream of radioactive particles traveling at the speed of light. Scientists do not yet know how this increase in cosmic radiation, combined with the Moon’s weaker gravitational pull compared to Earth, will affect humans in the medium to long term.
And there’s also technical feasibility. Where will astronauts live and with what resources? For now, these big questions are still waiting to be answered, and may not be ready in time for NASA and Musk’s plans.
“I don’t think we’re quite ready yet,” Caitlin Ahrens, a researcher who studies the lunar environment at the University of Maryland and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, told Live Science. “Ten years may seem far away to some people. To scientists, it’s like a blink of an eye.”
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Moon dust is quite different from what we call dust on Earth. Without wind and liquid water, lunar dust would not soften over time. “We’re talking about very, very sharp little pollen grains.[-size] There’s debris here,” Ahrens said.
Powering up is also easy. Simply walking on the moon kicks up a cloud of dust, Ahrens said, and a rover crossing the moon’s surface will send up a “chicken tail” of electrically charged, floating dust that will stick to anything in its path. Energized dust can clog breathing holes in potential habitats, damage spacesuits, and coat solar panels, causing them to overheat and damage. (Several Mars rovers have already been doomed by dust jams.)
Without the soft blanket of Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic shielding, the Moon’s inhabitants would continue to be exposed to radiation. Dr. Emmanuel Urquieta, an aerospace medicine researcher at the University of Central Florida, told Live Science that cosmic radiation is “pretty much ubiquitous everywhere you go into space,” including the lunar surface. “It’s very difficult to defend against.”
Cancer is a potential risk, but because the health effects of radiation take time to develop, we won’t know whether it’s a major risk factor until potentially decades after humans land on the moon. “Everyone who goes to space will absolutely be a test subject,” Urquieta said.
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Humans living on the moon will need large amounts of construction materials to protect their lunar habitat from these hazards. Metal or glass domes, underground habitats, and homes made from 3D printed lunar soil are all potential options being considered.
But Ahrens, who is also working on a lunar risk assessment, doesn’t think we’re ready to plan on building. For example, even if NASA decides to invest in underground habitats, which are probably the surest way to avoid radiation, scientists still don’t know how to dig on the moon, she says.
Even with well-protected habitats, the moon’s gravitational pull is only one-sixth that of Earth’s, which could pose health risks. We know from past space travel that without the gravity that humans have evolved with, we would need significant amounts of exercise to keep our bones and muscles from deteriorating. But Urquieta said it would be impractical to transport heavy treadmills like those used on the International Space Station to the moon.
The lack of gravity can redistribute the body’s natural balance of fluids, with potentially disastrous effects. Normally, up to 80% of our blood is concentrated in our legs at any given time due to the downward force of gravity, says Urquieta. But on the Moon, more fluid flows into the upper body, causing blood loss as the body tries to regain balance, as well as swelling behind the eyes and jugular vein thrombosis, which can cause a potentially fatal blood clot in the neck. Compared to zero gravity, the Moon’s partial gravity may or may not pose similar health risks. Urquieta said researchers won’t know until people spend some time there.
The future of lunar settlement
Ahrens said these challenges boil down to the need for more data, which scientists hope to collect on missions like NASA’s Artemis campaign, which aims to return humans to the moon by 2028. But she envisions a much slower timeline than Musk and Isaacman plan. Scientists have yet to even collect a sample of the moon’s ice — a resource that lunar settlement planners rely on.
Depending on its depth and composition, lunar ice could provide water, rocket fuel, and rare earth metals. But until scientists have a physical sample of the ice, they can’t trust its usefulness or economic prospects. So far, scientific knowledge about the actual chemical composition of ice is very limited. “We know the ice is cold, and we kind of know where it is,” Ahrens said.
When it comes to the moon and its offerings, “we have to be very careful not to sell anything.” [we] We don’t have one,” said Giuseppe Raibaldi, president of the Moon Village Association, a nonprofit organization focused on international cooperation in lunar activities.
Rivaldi told Live Science that what we discovered in the moon’s ice could be the difference between the lunar surface, which corresponds to California’s gold-rush boomtowns, where settlements have sprung up in response to mining opportunities, and the Antarctic, to which a small number of scientists travel only for research purposes.
But even if permanent settlement doesn’t happen as quickly as hoped, Ahrens said he’s optimistic about the moon’s development projections. “I don’t think it’s all sunshine and rainbows, but I don’t think it’s dark rain clouds either,” she said.
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