WHAT THE FIRST HUMAN COLONIES ON THE MOON WILL BE LIKE?
Someday humanity will be able to live on the Moon, just as we live on Earth,
maybe by that time, there will still be a long way to go, but it is a fact that the day will
come when there will be human settlements on our natural satellite. And when might we see
the first colony of humans living on the Moon? The last time humans were on the Moon was in
December 1972, when Apollo 17, manned by Commander Eugene Cernan, command module pilot Ronald Evans
and lunar module pilot Harrison Schmitt lifted off from the lunar surface, thus ending the
Apollo program, the program we were able to do to place the first humans on our natural satellite.
Since then it has been almost 50 years since the last time humans walked on the surface
of the Moon. However, the new program that will take us back to our natural satellite
is already being planned; NASA's Artemis program, which we have already discussed in past videos.
This program aims to put the human race back on the lunar surface,
only with a slight difference; this time, it seeks to create a permanent settlement of humans on our
satellite since it wants to take advantage of the natural resources that are on the Moon.
Although there are still no exact dates for the upcoming moon landings,
large governments are interested in returning to the Moon and exploiting its resources.
FIRST LUNAR SETTLEMENTS To make the most of the resources of the Moon,
it will be necessary to create a permanent settlement of people,
and for this, we must contemplate the following. First of all, we must emphasize that there
are still no estimated dates of when the next generation of astronauts will be sent to the Moon,
and much less is it known when the first lunar bases will begin to be built;
what we do know is that for this there are still a couple of decades to go.
The next point is that it is also unknown who or who will be in charge of building these first
settlements on the Moon. However, if international trade agreements continue at the pace they are
doing today, the missions tasked with bringing the next generation of humans to the Moon
will be an international collaboration between space agencies worldwide, including private ones.
The new generation of astronauts will need all the available technology to be able to withstand
the harsh conditions of living on the Moon indefinitely,
and a single country or a single nation is not able to sustain all this technology;
the clearest example of this is found in the International Space Station "ISS" which depends
on the collaboration of various space agencies around the world for its most optimal operation.
Although a single nation can build a Space Station, it is possible to build
much bigger and more amazing things when all nations come together for a common purpose.
The first bases on the Moon will surely follow this pattern, and their construction
will depend on the best technology that all countries in the world can provide.
These must be made with materials similar to those used to build the "ISS,"
but with much more resistant outer layers and coated with maximum protection against dust
since the surface of the Moon is covered with an excellent powder that is the leading cause
of failures in all electronic systems. THE PROBLEM WITH LUNAR DUST
The surface of the Moon is covered by a layer of fragments of dust,
rock, and minerals, usually known as Regolith,
this layer of materials originated due to the bombardment of meteorites and micrometeorites,
solar radiation, and the significant variation of temperatures between day and night.
The texture of lunar Regolith closely resembles wet sand and adheres tightly to clothing,
its hue is dark, and its smell is similar to burnt gunpowder. However, according to astronauts,
this smell is probably due to the oxidation of lunar dust when it comes into contact with oxygen
from the air that is present inside astronauts' ships; that is to say, as long as it stays away
from oxygen, this material has no smell, but once it comes into contact with the oxygen we breathe
it gives off that pungent aroma. The biggest problem with the Regolith
is that it is fragile; the astronauts of the Apollo missions mentioned that one
of the things they most hated about walking on the surface of the Moon was that the dust that
adhered to the suits had such an excellent adhesion force that it was tough to remove.
The worst thing is that when they shook the suits, this dust fell on other garments. or appliances.
When they returned to Earth, the only way to remove the Regolith from the astronaut suits
was to deliver them to a division exclusively responsible for cleaning,
and sometimes the dust was not completely removed, which is why many times the suits
were sheltered in the museums still retain some lunar dust that was impossible to remove.
That was more than 50 years ago; indeed, today, we already have much more efficient
ways to remove lunar dust, right? The reality is that the cleaning
methods of 50 years ago and the current ones have not changed so much.
Regolith is still one of the biggest problems the new generation of astronauts will face.
Still, this problem is multiplied X2 if you want to establish a base on the Moon since Regolith is
something inherent in the entire lunar surface and will enter very quickly into any established base.
What worries NASA doctors is that astronauts who are exposed to this lunar dust for a long time
may end up developing respiratory problems or lung infections from breathing such fine dust,
even if they wear masks and space helmets when they enter their bases to remove their suits
this dust can enter their respiratory system very quickly and cause severe long-term damage.
Let's hope that by then, this small problem has been solved
and that, by the way, we will find a way to remove the annoying lunar dust from clothes.
WATER ON THE MOON Without water, there is no life; that is what is
constantly said; fortunately, this is a problem that does not worry scientists so much since,
after years of research, various discoveries have shown that on the surface of the Moon,
there are significant reserves of water that we could access with the technology of the present.
For the search for water reserves, NASA has the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy
(SOFIA), a 2.5-meter-diameter reflecting telescope installed on a Boeing 747SP
aircraft modified to scrutinize space from the Earth's stratosphere,
allowing it to exceed 99% of the Earth's atmospheric layer, a position from which
it can obtain data about the solar system that are not possible with ground-based telescopes.
After NASA scientists thoroughly analyzed the data and observations made by SOFIA,
they discovered that large reserves of frozen water exist in the large, cold,
and deep craters of the Moon's polar regions. In addition, they revealed that in the South
Polar region where the Lunar Prospect mission found water in the late 1990s, there are smaller,
shallower depressions that could be cold enough to hold ice for thousands or millions of years.
Establishing the first lunar base water will be fundamental; if future missions somehow extract
these reserves of frozen water at the poles and take advantage of it to meet human needs, it
will mean that the next generation of astronauts will not have to worry about water at any time.
FIRST LUNAR COLONIES The problems above are the most important and
crucial to solve to establish the first bases on the Moon, but if we want to build lunar colonies,
there are other challenges that we must solve. One of those challenges is permanence; for now,
the Moon is not habitable; that is to say, no matter how much we build bases on the surface,
there is no way that there are humans permanently since the weak gravity of the Moon
would atrophy their muscles and bones. Nor is there a magnetic field that protects
us from the devastating solar radiation that causes irreparable damage to our DNA and,
of course, the lack of vitamin B12 for not being able to expose ourselves to the sun.
These and other factors are the ones that we will not be able to solve
until the Moon begins a stage of terraforming, and for that, there is still a long way to go.
That is why the next generation of astronauts must have a maximum stay time of no more than
eight months or a year, and then they will be replaced by another team of astronauts,
the same as what we currently do on the ISS. To carry out these rotations of astronauts in
a hypothetical lunar base, it will be necessary to have spacecraft capable of traveling the enormous
distances from the Earth to the Moon constantly, and this will not be as easy as it sounds
since it will require a significant factor, money. THE DISEASE OF MONEY
The first colonies on the Moon will not be a political whim;
to sustain such an important and, at the same time, expensive project, a multimillion-dollar
investment will be necessary, an investment that private companies can only supply.
Analysts and scientists think that the only way a permanent human base on the Moon can
be sustained is by harnessing lunar resources. The Moon has a wide variety of valuable materials
and rare metals that are difficult to get on Earth; some are Limenite, Titanium, Aluminum,
Silicon, and of course, the valuable Helium 3. In the case of minerals, they are currently
used for our smart devices such as phones and computers, and in the case of helium 3,
it would be possible to use it as an energy source to power cars or even power plants.
All these materials, for now, are possible to get on Earth. However, experts estimate that there
will come a time shortly when extracting these materials from the Earth will be so expensive and
challenging that it will be much more viable to go and look for them on the Moon; if this happens,
then lunar mining will become a lucrative business, and it will be possible to establish
lunar bases to be able to exploit these resources. This would be the only way such an ambitious
project could be financed. In a way, this would completely stop the exploitation of
the Earth's natural ecosystems, and we would focus on taking advantage of the resources of the Moon.
Of course, this is where an ethical question arises, will we do well to stop destroying
our planet to destroy our natural satellite? So far, the progress of humanity has been measured
insofar as we can build, but unfortunately, we are not yet able to build without destroying.
THE DILEMMA OF LUNAR DESTRUCTION When we hear about all these future projects
about exploiting lunar resources and bringing those rare materials to Earth, it is inevitable
to think about all the damage we have done to our planet and what could happen to the Moon.
Will we do the same with the Moon? It is not an easy question to answer;
on the one hand, everything that humans do leads to destruction, and it seems that
destroying to build is inevitable. Perhaps what we should focus on
is not destruction but creation. Scientists who dream of seeing a colony
of humans on the Moon don't think so much about exploiting our satellite's natural resources,
but is there another way to do it? Unfortunately not, to build something on the Moon,
there must be a sufficiently large justification, something beyond fulfilling the capricious dream
of thousands of people, and that is solved with the use of the resources on the Moon.
The Moon has materials that will be useful to us to continue building incredible things that
years ago we could not even imagine would exist, smartphones, laptops, electric cars,
spaceships, solar panels, all those beautiful things that give us many comforts and at the
same time help us day by day, have been possible thanks to the fact that we have known how to take
advantage of the resources of the Earth. Although there is still much to be done
to replenish all the damage we have done to the planet, we are already doing it; we are building
a better planet on which future generations can live, and perhaps the Moon is the next place where
we can build our new home and being up there we learn to value much more what we have down here.