top of page
Search

A Starry Outlook—The Moon, Cheese, & Interplanetary Conquest

Updated: Aug 23, 2020



Introduction


"The moon is made of cheese." You may be surprised that I, a writer on a quasi-professional science column, would use this to begin a space article. Regardless, the saying about how the moon is made of cheese "is a statement referring to a fanciful belief [...]" according to Wikipedia. Though there isn't any cheese on the moon, the supposed fanciful belief isn't that fanciful, because the moon, though seemingly barren and useless, contains countless treasures below its rocky surface.

Cheesy Observations


Today, I will be talking about the moon, how to build a colony there, and the reasons behind doing so. This article will take you through specific phases of the colonisation process, some information on the moon itself, and the benefits of creating a moon base.

First off, I would like to lay out some facts about the moon. As you all know, it is a natural satellite of dear, dear Earth. And from our point of view, it appears to be a chunk of grey-yellow rock with craters all over, hence the cheese reference.



According to space.com, "[the] average composition of the lunar surface by weight is roughly 43% oxygen, 20% silicon, 19% magnesium, 10% iron, 3% calcium, 3% aluminium, 0.42% chromium, 0.18% titanium and 0.12% manganese." Though this doesn’t help you visualise anything, it does make clear the fact that the moon is composed of an abundance of resources. (As a side note, the exact percentage of materials vary from source to source.)


Also, one moon day lasts 29 Earth days, and on the poles, the days and nights are six months long. One of the more important things you should know is that, on moon days, the temperature will be higher than 100 ºC, and at night it will be lower than -150 ºC. This page at nasa.gov also tells us that there is in fact water on the poles of the moon. This water is only contaminated by moon dust, perhaps one of the more inviting prospects of the moon.

Currently, we already have the technology to colonise the moon. According to Kurzgesagt, "[the] monetary cost is an estimated amount of US$ 20B~40B, spread over a period of 10 years", and that "this amount of money is comparable to the [budget of the] ISS (about US$ 150B), and also the budget surplus of Germany in 2017." In total, it isn't extremely expensive (in space terms).

So, how shall we go about doing it? This article will cover three phases: explore, sustain, and connect.


/Phase 1/ Explore


This process is one that has started way back from 60 years ago, in the Apollo missions. We orbited the moon with artificial satellites, threw some people down there, and dropped in some rovers. From these, we uncovered the composition and terrain of the moon.

This phase is already more-or-less complete, but there are a few things that have been left to be done. As I've mentioned above, the moon has an extreme temperature difference, and so, first, we need to find a place where we will not get killed by that. Second, there is a constant threat of being bombarded by meteorites (remember our apt comparison to cheese that drew you here.) For both of these, I can point out a very clear solution: caves. There is a second ingredient that is necessary to ensure long-term survival: Water, the source of life. A lot of this resource happens to be congregated in the Lunar North Pole, where sunlight lasts six months, an ideal condition because we can then use solar panels to power our base.


In conclusion, to complete phase one, we just need to find a place in the north pole where there is plenty of sunlight and water, while also having a cave or crater where we can reside in.



/Phase 2/ Sustain


After scouting out our perfect residence, we can finally drop down onto the moon. In this subsection, I will talk about how we can establish the beginning of a residence, and how, therefore, we can take advantage of the various resources on the moon.


1. Food, Water, and Oxygen


Water first, from the basic information about the moon section, I talked about how there is nearly pure ice on the moon, mixed in only with some dust and debris. So, all we need to do is to melt it and run it through a simple filter, which the landing spacecraft will provide.

According to various websites, plants can be grown with modified moon dust, but aquaponic farming (a more dependable option) can also work.


Aquaponic farming can be used as a primary resource of food due to the fact that the equipment needed cannot be developed without some degree of advanced technology. For our landing crew, the equipment -- fish eggs, plant seeds, water, and various containers, pumps, and other devices -- will be carried by the spacecraft. However, once the colony becomes larger, we will need to use a more accessible method of farming, because, though more efficient, aquaponics


The other method is the more traditional soil method, which, well, just like it seems, it is based on dirt. According to smithsonianmag.com and several other sources, experiments of germination from moon soil have been tested. And a few have proven successful. Anyways, from the Moon Palace simulations underway in the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, they used dirt, which could be either brought from earth or refined on the Moon to grow plants. These plants will go through photosynthesis and produce oxygen from carbon dioxide, all the while growing food for the astronauts. As for protein, they ate powdered worms, (yeah, the juicy, nutritious, and absolutely revolting ones) which were also farmed in the same dirt as the plants.



“Why,” you might ask, “should we eat powdered worms if fish fillets are viable?” Well, as I have mentioned, aquaponics requires more advanced technology and materials than soil. So, if one day, the aquaponic system isn’t enough to sustain the colony, the traditional soil method -- easier to recreate and expand -- may be the only option. Also, it would be cheaper for our colonists to develop their own farming techniques, because otherwise, everything must be shipped from Earth, meaning a huge expenditure of fuel.

Now, the final thing: Oxygen. Unlike Mars, which has an atmosphere of mainly CO2 (which can be turned into oxygen by simply feeding it to the plants,) the moon has almost no atmosphere at all. Sure, humans exhale some CO2, and that can be recycled. But as the colony expands and as time flies by, you are guaranteed to lose oxygen—a lot of it. So, we need to find a reliable source of oxygen.


You might remember from my basic information section that a whopping 40% of the moon’s soil is made from oxygen. And all of that is trapped in the moon's rocks and dust. And so, all you need to do is to extract that oxygen, using a very simple method called vacuum pyrolysis. The way this works is simple, according to this page on nasa.gov: "All you need to do is to heat up the material until it releases oxygen." From this, we could obtain two things: the oxygen we wanted so much, and two, semi-de-oxidised versions of silicon, iron, titanium, magnesium, etc. These materials can prove to be essential for future development in our colony. What makes this method even more appealing is that the large amount of heat needed for this to function can be gathered easily -- with a focusing lens that redirects a large amount of sunlight onto a small point.

2. Construction


Almost none of us wants to live in an inflated shelter of mainly plastic and metal, so, we will need to build a home on the moon. If you can recall those stupid-looking glass domes from sci-fi movies, you should be able to picture what I want to do. According to nasa once again, "Lunar soil is rich in oxides, the most common is silicon dioxide (SiO2)". Well, it turns out that this material is the main ingredient for glass, and so, with the metals we have from the vacuum pyrolysis in the last subsection, we can create a really strong metallic glass dome. This dome will surround an area (most likely a collection of tubes and caves in which we spend our day in), and this area will be pressurised with the oxygen we already had. With a mix of other gases to prevent an explosion, we could make a patch of land where people will not have to wear space suits in, only face masks—the effectiveness of which I believe would be greatly improved after COVID-19—to prevent the moon dust from getting into the lungs.


Now we have our liveable habitat, we can have it transformed. First of all, we would need to make sure that the scorching sunlight -- uninhibited by an atmosphere -- will not just fry us into crisps. So, one possible method is to line the glass with semi-transparent photovoltaic cells. These cells will absorb most of the light and radiation for electricity, while filtering through just enough so that humans, plants, and livestock can survive. With this done, we may sustain a colony.

3. Power & Fuel


As I have said before, the surface of the moon can reach more than water's boiling point in the daytime. With the mirror tower technique (see photo below) or simply photovoltaic cells, we can generate enough energy to power a colony much bigger than the one we already have. How about the long night on the moon? Well, with the surplus energy gained from solar power, we could use electrolysis (a fancy way of saying 'running an electric current to break chemical bonds') to turn water into hydrogen and oxygen. These two elements can be compressed for storage. With a fuel cell, you could create electricity with these two ingredients. In addition, they could also be manufactured as rocket fuel, which will be used for both inter-planet travel and going from one end of the moon to the other.


/Phase 3/ Connect:


Here, we are basically done with creating our colony on the moon, and will need to find ways to make some money out of it. This is where we look at why we wanted to colonise the moon in the first place. First of all, it is in a very convenient position for spreading to other planets and perhaps the asteroids. It would be easier and less expensive to launch rockets here, and also to produce rocket fuel, as energy can be easily obtained. But what's better is the precious metals and materials found in impact craters all across the moon. Platinum, gold, uranium, titanium, you name it. These are extremely beneficial for Earth as well. Through the many years the colony develops, there are many possible advances that could be made. Plants that grow with little water but also produce lots of nutrition while recycling carbon dioxide. More effective and quick 3D printing. Maybe even jet packs from the abundance of fuel! The most important aspect of the moon, however, is the experience we gain from it. To survive on the moon means to survive in extreme environments. Maybe one day, Earth becomes as much of a wasteland as the moon is. In that case, we will be prepared for survival on Earth. If, for some reason, Earth becomes uninhabitable, the moon colony may be the only way out for humans.

This is why we want to colonise the moon;

And why we should do it now.







Bibliography:


Sources (For further reading)

Cover Image: https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/moon-cheese-vector-5058217

Comentarios

bottom of page