Moon Base Sfs

[Jonathon Burnside]

JimFree, NASA's associate administrator for exploration systems development, said Monday (April 17) that the agency's Artemis program may ultimately build several bases around the moon instead of a single Artemis Base Camp at the lunar south pole as unveiled in 2020.

"It's really hard to say we're going to have a single base camp," Free told reporters here in a briefing at the 38th Space Symposium. "Because if we miss a launch window, we might have to wait a month to go back to that place."

Instead, NASA may work with its international partners to establish a series of moon camps spread across the lunar surface to maximize science and exploration. The agency, Free said, is studying whether it is a better idea to have a distributed approach with multiple moon bases, including some potentially contributed by international partners like the European Space Agency, Canada or Japan, who have all signed on as Artemis program partners.

NASA's Artemis Base Camp called for a primary moon base at the lunar south pole, possibly at Shackleton Crater, which has long been on the agency's candidate list to explore on an Artemis mission because it is known to harbor water ice in its shadowed regions. The base would serve as a hub for crewed Artemis moon landings and support a team of four astronauts for up to a week at a time.

Under the Base Camp plan, the habitat would include power infrastructure, radiation shielding, facilities for waste disposal and a landing pad for visiting crews. It would also be home to a lunar rover that astronauts could drive around the moon and a "habitable mobility platform" that crews could use to visit other locales on the moon for up to 45 days at a time.

But having multiple, smaller Artemis bases on the moon may yield better science and access to the lunar surface, Free said Monday. However, NASA won't be building those extra habitats anytime soon, he added.

NASA's next Artemis mission is Artemis 2, which will launch four astronauts around the moon no earlier than November 2024. NASA unveiled the crew of Artemis 2 earlier this month. The first crewed Artemis moon landing, the Artemis 3 mission, is slated for sometime in 2025.

"Artemis 3 is get the crew down, let them stay for six and a half days and get them back," Free said. "And we're slowly going to build the time that we will have the crew spend, and then the number of crew, on the surface."

As those longer and bigger missions develop, NASA hopes to send lunar rovers for Artemis astronauts to drive on the moon, starting with an unpressurized rover and leading to a truck-like pressurized vehicle. Japan's space agency has teamed up with Toyota to build such a moon truck. A permanent habitat would then follow for rotating crews, Free said.

On Tuesday (April 18), NASA's deputy administrator Pam Melroy will speak at the Space Symposium to "discuss progress toward a blueprint for sustained human exploration throughout the solar system," NASA has said. You can watch that speech, called "Our Next Steps to the Moon and Beyond," on NASA TV and YouTube.

Tariq is the Editor-in-Chief of Space.com and joined the team in 2001, first as an intern and staff writer, and later as an editor. He covers human spaceflight, exploration and space science, as well as skywatching and entertainment. He became Space.com's Managing Editor in 2009 and Editor-in-Chief in 2019. Before joining Space.com, Tariq was a staff reporter for The Los Angeles Times covering education and city beats in La Habra, Fullerton and Huntington Beach. In October 2022, Tariq received the Harry Kolcum Award for excellence in space reporting from the National Space Club Florida Committee. He is also an Eagle Scout (yes, he has the Space Exploration merit badge) and went to Space Camp four times as a kid and a fifth time as an adult. He has journalism degrees from the University of Southern California and New York University. You can find Tariq at Space.com and as the co-host to the This Week In Space podcast with space historian Rod Pyle on the TWiT network. To see his latest project, you can follow Tariq on Twitter @tariqjmalik."}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Tariq MalikSocial Links NavigationEditor-in-ChiefTariq is the Editor-in-Chief of Space.com and joined the team in 2001, first as an intern and staff writer, and later as an editor. He covers human spaceflight, exploration and space science, as well as skywatching and entertainment. He became Space.com's Managing Editor in 2009 and Editor-in-Chief in 2019. Before joining Space.com, Tariq was a staff reporter for The Los Angeles Times covering education and city beats in La Habra, Fullerton and Huntington Beach. In October 2022, Tariq received the Harry Kolcum Award for excellence in space reporting from the National Space Club Florida Committee. He is also an Eagle Scout (yes, he has the Space Exploration merit badge) and went to Space Camp four times as a kid and a fifth time as an adult. He has journalism degrees from the University of Southern California and New York University. You can find Tariq at Space.com and as the co-host to the This Week In Space podcast with space historian Rod Pyle on the TWiT network. To see his latest project, you can follow Tariq on Twitter @tariqjmalik.

Scientists and engineers are helping NASA determine the precise location of the Artemis Base Camp concept. Among the many things NASA must take into account in choosing a specific location are two key features: The site must bask in near continuous sunlight to power the base and moderate extreme temperature swings, and it must offer easy access to areas of complete darkness that hold water ice.

While the South Pole region has many well-illuminated areas, some parts see more or less light than others. Scientists have found that at some higher elevations, such as on crater rims, astronauts would see longer periods of light. But the bottoms of some deep craters are shrouded in near constant darkness, since sunlight at the South Pole strikes at such a low angle it only brushes their rims.

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]

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