By Debra Kamin
The moon is a magnet and draws us back. Half a century ago, the astronauts of Apollo 17 spent three days on that pockmarked sphere. For 75 hours, the astronauts walked on the moon in their spacesuits and rode in a lunar rover, while humanity watched on television sets 250,000 miles away. The Apollo program was halted after they crashed back into the Pacific Ocean in December 1972, and the moon has hung in the sky ever since, unknown and empty, like a siren.
NASA is now plotting a return. This time the stay will be longer. To make this possible, NASA will build houses on the moon – houses that can be used not only by astronauts, but also by ordinary citizens. They believe that by 2040, Americans will have their first subdivision in space. Life on Mars is not far behind. Some in the scientific community say NASA’s timeline is overly ambitious, especially in light of proven success with another moon landing. But all seven NASA scientists interviewed for this article said a 2040 target for lunar structures is achievable if the agency can continue to meet its goals.
The US space agency will shoot a 3D printer to the moon and then build structures, layer by layer, from special lunar concrete made from crushed rock, mineral fragments and dust found on the top layer of the moon’s crater surface. and billows into toxic clouds when disturbed – a moonshot of a plan made possible by new technology and partnerships with universities and private companies.
Niki Werkheiser, director of technology development at NASA, said: “It feels like it was inevitable that we would get here.” Werkheiser guides the creation of new programs, machines and robotics for future space missions. NASA is more open than ever to working with academics and industry leaders, making the playing field much broader than it was in the days of the Apollo missions, Werkheiser said.
Converting a problem into a solution
One of the many obstacles to settling on the moon is the dust: a fine powder so abrasive that it can cut like glass. It swirls in noxious plumes and is poisonous when inhaled. But four years ago, Raymond Clinton Jr., deputy director of the science and technology office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, pulled out a whiteboard to sketch out the idea of houses, roads and landing pads. The dust is a problem, yes. But it could also be the solution.
If houses on Earth could be successfully 3D printed from soil made from the minerals found here, he thought, then houses on the moon could be printed from the soil above, where temperatures can reach 600 degrees and a cruel combination of radiation and micrometeorites. pose a risk to both buildings and bodies. NASA calls its return to the moon Artemis, named after Apollo’s twin sister. Last November, Artemis I, the first of five planned lunar missions, lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center with only robots on board, orbited the moon and returned safely to Earth. Artemis II, which will carry four human crew members, including the first woman and the first black person in history, on a 10-day flight around the same route, is scheduled for November 2024. That mission will be followed a year later by Artemis III, when people will land on the moon’s surface. Two more manned missions are planned before the end of this decade. Clinton, 71, said he knows the average American may not live on the moon in his lifetime, but for those just a few decades younger than him it is a real possibility. “I wish I was there to see it,” he said.
©2023 The New York Times News Service