NASA and China Race to Build Permanent Moon Bases

Under NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, the agency has made a series of bold announcements, according to the report. The plans include drones, robotic landers, communication satellites and a nuclear power plant, as well as plant terrariums, moonquake sensors and mechanized scouts exploring craters for water. NASA moon base program manager Carlos García-Galán said the effort will become an expanse that adds up to hundreds of square miles.

China has near-identical plans to build its own base on the moon, and being first matters because the victor gets to define the terms, the report says. Those terms could decide whether the moon is treated as a militarized outpost, a manufacturing hub or a wilderness to be studied and preserved. The rivalry is fueled by nationalistic competition, but there are also scientific and practical reasons to go. The moon contains primeval rocks that hold clues to the formation of the solar system, and its surface, with virtually no atmosphere, is an ideal place for telescopes examining the most ancient epochs of the cosmos.

Josef Aschbacher, director general of the European Space Agency, said the far side of the moon would be a fantastic place to explore the further universe. He also said it is far more energy efficient to launch rockets from the low-gravity lunar surface than from Earth, making it less difficult to send astronauts or robotic spacecraft farther into the solar system. "The moon is critical. It will be a stepping stone for going further—that means to Mars and beyond," Aschbacher said.

The report describes a daunting amount of work before such visions can become reality. A sprawling moon base must be safe for astronaut inhabitants, protected from falling asteroids, endless cosmic radiation, razor-sharp lunar dust and torturous temperature swings. It also must be somewhat self-sustaining so that it can weather changing political fortunes and avoid ruinous maintenance costs. That will require finding ways to use the moon's resources to keep the base operating and ideally generate revenue, as well as autonomous robots that can build, maintain and expand the base when humans are not present. "It's almost like starting civilization from scratch," said Simon Middleburgh, co-director of the Nuclear Futures Institute at Bangor University in Wales.

The moon is a tremendously hostile place to set up camp, according to the report. Daytime temperatures can reach more than 250 °F, while nighttime temperatures can plummet to less than –200 °F. The surface is constantly exposed to carcinogenic radiation and frequently hit by meteoroids, and its volcanic dust is sticky and corrosive, destroying equipment and choking lungs. NASA is targeting the lunar south pole, where permanently shadowed craters are thought to harbor water ice. Purified, that ice could water crops and hydrate astronauts; split into oxygen and hydrogen, it could provide breathable air and rocket propellant. But temperatures in those craters can be lower than –410 °F, making them among the coldest places in the known universe, and on the surface outside them astronauts would face 14 days of scorching sun followed by an equally long frigid night.

Assuming those starting challenges can be overcome, the report says that decades from now—by 2100—initial moon bases could grow from barely visible structures into luminous cities, perhaps not too dissimilar from those dreamed up by authors and screenwriters. García-Galán said, "It's like science fiction today that we really want to turn into a reality."