Moonbase

The United States space administration NASA has requested an increase in the 2020 budget of $1.6 billion, in order to make another crewed mission to the Moon by 2024, followed by a sustained presence on the Moon by 2028. NASA is ready to announce plans to bring together a Commercial Human Lander Awards for Artemis Missions on the Moon. This specific program, “The Artemis Program,” encompasses NASA’s overview for lunar exploration plans. This announcement will go over the first in a series of many more to come complex missions. Artemis I will start off as an un-crewed flight test to demonstrate the capabilities of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft. The first flight with a crew will be Artemis II, closely followed by Artemis III that will actually land crew on the moon by the end of 2024 using a new commercially-procured Human Landing System (HLS). They hope to develop a sustainable lunar exploration program starting from 2028.[1]

Project Horizon was a 1959 study regarding the United States Army's plan to establish a fort on the Moon by 1967.[2] Heinz-Hermann Koelle, a German rocket engineer of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) led the Project Horizon study. It was proposed that the first landing would be carried out by two "soldier-astronauts" in 1965 and that more construction workers would soon follow. It was posited that through numerous launches (61 Saturn Is and 88 Saturn C-2s), 245 tons of cargo could be transported to the outpost by 1966.

Lunex Project was a US Air Force plan for a crewed lunar landing prior to the Apollo Program in 1961. It envisaged a 21-person underground Air Force base on the Moon by 1968 at a total cost of $7.5 billion.

In 1962, John DeNike and Stanley Zahn published their idea of a sub-surface base located at the Sea of Tranquility.[3] This base would house a crew of 21, in modules placed four meters below the surface, which was believed to provide radiation shielding on par with Earth's atmosphere. DeNike and Zahn favored nuclear reactors for energy production, because they were more efficient than solar panels, and would also overcome the problems with the long lunar nights. For the life support system, an algae-based gas exchanger was proposed.

3D representation of the planned Zvezda base by the Soviet Union[4]

Zvezda moonbase (Russian: звезда, "star") was a Soviet plan and project from 1962 to 1974 to construct a crewed moonbase as successor to the N1-L3 crewed lunar expedition program. The project was ordered by the Soviet space chief Korolyov to Barmin's Spetcmash bureau. The project was named DLB Lunar Base in technical specifications and Zvezda in government documents. Unofficially, the project was called Barmingrad (Barmin's city) by its designers.

The realization of the project depended on key parts of the N1-L3 program – the N-1 superheavy launcher, all 4 launches of which failed between 1969 and 1972. Zvezda moonbase was canceled with the rest of the Soviet human lunar programs. All crewed Soviet lunar programs, including a Zvezda moonbase, had been classified as top secret and were only published in the glasnost epoch since 1990.

Scale model of one moon base concept at the Euro Space Center in Belgium

The Moon Village (fr) concept was presented in 2015.[5] 'Village' in this context refers to international public and private investors, scientists, engineers, universities, and businessmen coming together to discuss interests and capabilities to build and share infrastructure on the Moon and in cislunar space for a variety of purposes. It is neither an ESA project nor a program, but being organized, loosely, by a nonprofit organization seeking to give a platform for an open international architecture and collaboration. In other words, Moon Village seeks to create a vision where both international cooperation and the commercialization of space can thrive.[6][7][8]

"The Moon Village is not one project or one program. It says, 'Let's do it together.'" | Jan Wörner[9]

The open nature of the concept would encompass any kind of lunar activities, whether robotic or astronauts, 3D printed habitats,[10] refueling stations, relay orbiters, astronomy, exploiting resources, or even tourism. The idea is to achieve at least some degree of coordination and exploitation of potential synergies and to create a permanent sustainable presence on the surface of the Moon, whether robotic or crewed.[6][7] Jan Wörner, ESA Director General, describes the Village simply as "an understanding, not a single facility".[11] This initiative is meant as the first step in coming together as a species and develop the partnerships and "know how" before attempting to do the same on Mars.[6][12] The Director General of ESA, Jan Wörner, states that this vision of synergy can be as inspiring as the International Space Station but on a truly global, international-cooperation basis, and he proposes this approach as a replacement for the orbiting International Space Station, which is due to be decommissioned in 2024.[12][13]

China has expressed interest,[14][15] and NASA has also expressed interest in the potential synergy it offers to the proposed Lunar Gateway.[8][16] The private aerospace company Blue Origin has also expressed early interest and offered to develop a cargo lander with a 4,500 kg (9,900 lb) capacity of usable payload.[17] Astronaut Buzz Aldrin has long urged his fellow Americans to cooperate with international partners to reach the Moon.[18] The State Space Agency of Ukraine has agreed to uphold MVA principles and cooperate with the MVA to develop "sustainable habitation" of the Moon. [19]

While Woerner is the most famous advocate for Moon Village, it is not an ESA program. Instead, the concept is being organized, loosely, by a nonprofit organization established in November 2017 called the Moon Village Association.[20][21] It is a non-profit organization, registered in Vienna, with the mission to create a global forum for the development of the Moon Village, and to potentially implement a permanent human settlement near the lunar south pole, taking advantage of near-continuous sunlight and nearby deposits of ice and other useful volatiles.[20]

China has proposed in 2020 the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), a somewhat similar proposal to the Moon Village, with Roscosmos and ESA showing interest.[22]

In 2007, Jim Burke, of the International Space University in France, said people should plan to preserve humanity's culture in the event of a civilization-stopping asteroid impact with Earth. A Lunar Noah's Ark was proposed.[23] Subsequent planning may be taken up by the International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG).[24][25][26]