Could humans survive on the moon?

The nearest celestial body to Earth is the moon at an average distance of 384,400 km away, which makes it by far the nearest place for us to try and establish a base, or even a second home for the human race, but just how possible would it be and could people survive on the moon?

(A picture of the moons surface from one of the NASA cameras)

The problem with the moon’s atmosphere

The atmosphere on the moon is very thin and is mostly made up of gases that are poisonous to humans. There is oxygen on the moon but it’s mostly attached to something else, like in the form of frozen water below the surface. The size of the moon also makes it impossible for it to be able to hold an atmosphere thick enough to be able to sustain enough oxygen to breathe, because it can’t produce the required amount of gravity needed to hold gases close to it.

(A classic sci-fi picture of a base on the moon, but we are hundreds of years away from being able to build something like this)

Even if huge amounts of oxygen were brought in and dumped on the surface, they would be stripped away by solar winds and other effects, so trying to terraform the planet into a breathable environment wouldn’t be possible, at least not with the level of technology we’ll be able to produce in the next few hundred years.

The only option for moon survival

Artificial domes built within impact craters would be the safest option, which would partially protect any structures from the harmful and unfiltered radiation of the sun, something that earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field protect against. On the moon, harmful radiation from the sun would cause anything that isn’t buried to be constantly bombarded, forcing people to build either very thick structures or have them partially underground, but there is a solution.

The moon mud brick

One option for building structures on the moon is to build them openly with materials brought from earth, and have properly protected and constructed environments to work and live in, but then build a mud brick factory that would use the moon’s soil. The bricks would be made by growing plants in a greenhouse dome which can then be used to create a glue-like substance that is mixed with the soil. These will then be pressed into thick bricks and a wall will be built on the outside of the structures brought in from earth. The purpose of these outer walls would be nothing more than to shield the buildings from harmful radiation and provide protection from the extreme temperature changes the moon faces. One interesting note on the mud bricks is that they are going to be made using glue from a plant they grow on the moon, but there hasn’t been any confirmation of which plant this is going to be.

(concept art of what a realistic moon base could possibly look like, with soil covering as much of the domes as possible)

Is a moon colony likely to happen?

A colony of some sort on the moon is almost guaranteed, but when exactly this will happen is anyone’s guess. A press release from NASA in the early 2000s stated they wanted to have a permanently inhabited base on the moon by the mid-2020s. Today the date for when this base will be built has been changed to at least the mid-2040s, and even at that stage would be nothing more than the most advanced technology on the planet creating a small observation or research station. It’s very unlikely people will move to the moon to create a population there since everyone would have to live inside all the time with a complete lack of farmland, it doesn’t seem like a very attractive place, but realistically it will be hundreds of years before something like this happens in more than the pioneering sense.

Food and water on the moon

Water could be purified from existing underground ice deposits and filtered from the water used by other people, but food would be a major problem. The soil on the moon is capable of sustaining certain crops and could grow a great number of things if it were brought down to Earth where there is an atmosphere, something the moon doesn’t have. Plants would need gases and protection from radiation, so the only option would be to grow indoors, creating a very expensive and space-consuming area of the base.

(A realistic idea of what it would be like to grow food on the moon)

Even with the most advanced hydroponics set-ups and nutrients the greenhouses wouldn’t be able to produce nearly as much food as would be needed, leaving the only option to bring it in from earth, meaning a very expensive and slow process.

How would we power a moon base?

With our current level of technology, we couldn’t do much more than keep a small landing craft there for a few days. We would have to rely on a nuclear battery as liquid fuel would be too heavy to transport and consumed too quickly, requiring a more permanent option. Using solar power alone would be dangerous as the air systems would all be powered by electricity, and batteries aren’t quite there yet in terms of rapid charging super-high capacity batteries, making it very risky and requiring a huge array to gain enough power during the time the earth isn’t blocking the sun’s rays.

(A modern space shuttle is capable of lifting almost 30 tons into low orbit, but carrying thousands of tons of construction materials is currently not possible)

Power is the single biggest factor that stops us from traveling through space, and even though the moon is the closest celestial body by a very long way, it still takes millions of dollars of fuel to send a surprisingly small payload into space. A power system would be responsible for everything from flushing toilets to the LED lights that grow food, and we simply do not have the advanced energy production technology we need to be able to stay there.