Moon Base House

[Faith Lienhard]

Themagic tree house lands in a space motel. The kids are curious about the building and the surrounding area. There is no one there to answer their many questions. Jack removes his moon book from his backpack. The book plus the motel's maps and posters answers some of their questions.

Jack and Annie help each other to don space suits. They explore the moon. The moon is a colorless, barren place. There are gray rocks and craters. Dust is everywhere, but there is no breeze, so the dust remains where it lay. Jack and Annie find a moon buggy. The pair goes on a wild ride on the moon surface. Jack and Annie view the American flag left by the astronauts during their moon exploration. They meet a mysterious moon man, as well. Best of all, the children find the final item needed to break the spell on their friend, Morgan le Fay.

"Jack!" whispered a voice. Jack opened his eyes. He saw a figure in the moonlight. "Wake up. Get dressed." It was his sister, Annie. Jack turned on his lamp. He rubbed his eyes. Annie was standing beside his bed. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt. "Let's go to the tree house." she said. "What time is it?" asked Jack. He put on his glasses. "Don't look at your clock," said Annie. Jack looked at his clock. "Oh, man," he said. "It's Midnight. It's too dark." "No it isn't. The moon makes it bright enough too see," said Annie. "Wait 'till morning," said Jack. "No---now," said Annie "We have to find the fourth M thing. I have a feeling that the full moon might help us." "That is nuts," said Jack. "I want to sleep." "You can sleep when we come back home." said Annie. "No time will have passed." Jack sighed. "Oh, brother," he said. But he got out of bed. "Yay!" whispered Annie. "Meet you at the back door." She tiptoed out of Jack's room. Jack yawned. He pulled on his jeans and sneakers and a sweatshirt. He put his notebook and pencil into his backpack. Then he crept down the stairs. Annie opened the back door. Quietly, they stepped outside. "Wait---" said Jack. "We need a flashlight." "No we don't. I told you---the moon will light out way," said Annie. And she took off. Jack sighed, then followed her. Annie was right, thought Jack. The moon was so bright that he could see his shadow. Everything seemed washed washed with silver. Soon they left their street. Annie led the way into the Frog Creek woods. It was so much darker under the shadows of the trees. Jack, searching for the tree house. "There!" said Annie. The magic tree house was shining in the moonlight. Annie Grabbed the rope ladder and started climbing up. "Careful---go slowly," said Jack. He followed her up the rope ladder and into the tree house. Moonlight streamed through the window. It shone on the letter M that shimmered on the wooden floor. It shone on the three M things that rested on the M: a moonstone from the time of the ninjas, a mango from the Amazon rain forest, and a mammoth bone from the Ice Age. "We need just one more M thing," said Annie, "to free Morgan from her spell." Squeak. "Peanut!" said Annie. In the dim light, Jack saw a tiny mouse. She sat on a open book. "You didn't expect to see us this late, did you?" said Annie. She picked up Peanut. And Jack picked up the open book.

A moonbase (or lunar base) is a human outpost on or below the surface of the Moon.[1] More than a mere site of activity or temporary camp, moonbases are extraterrestrial bases, supporting robotic or human activity, by providing surface infrastructure. As of 2024 missions to the Moon have realized single-mission bases, (Tranquility Base being the first), as well as some small permanent installations.

Plans for establishing moonbases, with surface or sub-surface research stations, have been proposed and are actively pursued nationally and increasingly internationally. As of 2024, the two most advanced projects to set up moonbases have been pursued multilaterally as part of the US-led Artemis program, with its planned Artemis Base Camp and as the China-led International Lunar Research Station.[2] A broader, international infrastructure has been envisioned with the so-called Moon Village concept, and a general international regime for lunar activity has been called for by the 1979 signed Moon Treaty, and advocated for with an implementation agreement since 2020.[3][4]

The surface infrastructure of a base may consist of pre-integrated basic landers, as supporting stations for robotic rovers, or habitation modules for crewed presence, or of surface assembled or in-situ derived and constructed surface stations for sustained lunar habitation.[1] Lunar bases may work with lunar space stations, which in contrast provide infrastructures in lunar orbit supporting activity from there, as with the planned Lunar Gateway of the Artemis program.

The development of moonbases into permanent extraterrestrial settlements has been put forward.[1][5] Broader lunar colonization or space colonization in general, particularly as laying territorial claims, which is prohibited by international space law, has been criticized for perpetuating colonialism.[6]

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty defines the Moon and all outer space as the "province of all mankind".[8] It restricts the use of the Moon to peaceful purposes, explicitly banning military installations and weapons of mass destruction.[9] A majority of countries are parties of this treaty.[10]

The 1979 Moon Agreement was created to elaborate on the Outer Space Treaty, restricting the exploitation of the Moon's resources, particularly by any single nation, leaving it to a yet unspecified international regulatory regime.[11] As of January 2020, the Moon Agreement has been signed and ratified by 18 nations,[12] none of which have human spaceflight capabilities.

Current lunar programs are multilateral, with the US-led Artemis program and the China-led International Lunar Research Station. For broader international cooperation and coordination the International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG), the Moon Village Association (MVA) and more gernerally the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) has been established.

Since 2020, countries have joined the U.S. in their Artemis Accords, which are challenging the treaty. The U.S. has furthermore emphasized in a presidential executive order ("Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources.") that "the United States does not view outer space as a 'global commons'" and calls the Moon Agreement "a failed attempt at constraining free enterprise."[13][14]

With Australia signing and ratifying both the Moon Treaty in 1986 as well as the Artemis Accords in 2020, there has been a discussion if they can be harmonized.[15] In this light an Implementation Agreement for the Moon Treaty has been advocated for, as a way to compensate for the shortcomings of the Moon Treaty and to harmonize it with other laws and agreements such as the Artemis Accords, allowing it to be more widely accepted.[3][4]

In the face of such increasing commercial and national interest, particularly prospecting territories, U.S. lawmakers have introduced in late 2020 specific regulation for the conservation of historic landing sites[16] and interest groups have argued for making such sites World Heritage Sites[17] and zones of scientific value protected zones, all of which add to the legal availability and territorialization of the Moon.[18]

The Moon Village concept was presented in 2015.[19] "Village" in this context refers to international public and private investors, scientists, engineers, universities, and businessmen coming together to discuss interests and capabilities to build and share infrastructure on the Moon and in cislunar space for a variety of purposes. It is neither an ESA project nor a program, but being organized, loosely, by a nonprofit organization seeking to give a platform for an open international architecture and collaboration. In other words, Moon Village seeks to create a vision where both international cooperation and the commercialization of space can thrive.[20][21][22]

The open nature of the concept would encompass any kind of lunar activities, whether robotic or astronauts, 3D printed habitats,[24] refueling stations, relay orbiters, astronomy, exploiting resources, or even tourism. The idea is to achieve at least some degree of coordination and exploitation of potential synergies and to create a permanent sustainable presence on the surface of the Moon, whether robotic or crewed.[20][21] Jan Wrner, ESA Director General until 2021, described in 2017 the Village simply as "an understanding, not a single facility".[25] This initiative is meant as the first step in coming together as a species and developing the partnerships and "know how" before attempting to do the same on Mars.[20][26] The Director General of ESA, Jan Wrner, states that this vision of synergy can be as inspiring as the International Space Station but on a truly global, international-cooperation basis, and he proposes this approach as a replacement for the orbiting International Space Station, which is due to be decommissioned in 2024.[26][27]

China has expressed interest,[28][29] and NASA has also expressed interest in the potential synergy it offers to the proposed Lunar Gateway space station.[22][30] The private aerospace company Blue Origin has also expressed early interest and offered to develop a cargo lander with a 4,500 kg (9,900 lb) capacity of usable payload.[31] Astronaut Buzz Aldrin has long urged his fellow Americans to cooperate with international partners to reach the Moon.[32] The State Space Agency of Ukraine has agreed to uphold MVA principles and cooperate with the MVA to develop "sustainable habitation" of the Moon.[33]

While Wrner is the most famous advocate for Moon Village, it is not an ESA program.[citation needed] Instead, the concept is being organized, loosely, by a nonprofit organization established in November 2017 called the Moon Village Association.[34][35] It is a non-profit organization, registered in Vienna, with the mission to create a global forum for the development of the Moon Village, and to potentially implement a permanent human settlement near the lunar south pole, taking advantage of near-continuous sunlight and nearby deposits of ice and other useful volatiles.[34] In 2018, the Vienna University of Technology got sponsorship from ESA for a design workshop on the topic of the Moon Village. 35 master students have developed hypothetical scenarios for a future Moon village. Interestingly the cooperative concept of the workshop led to a number of new themes, such as multipurpose mobile infrastructure, an astro-scientist training campus on the Moon, an experimental research food lab up to a lunar recycling facility.[36][37]

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