In January, European Space Agency (ESA) director general Johan-Dietrich Woerner announced plans to build a permanent habitation on the Moon. Emulating the process that enabled the International Space Station (ISS) to become a reality, the project intends to follow a similar course of international co-operation.

Woerner says this approach would “combine the different capabilities of space-faring nations, whether robotic or also human”. Not only would this remove national competition, but also give the ESA access to countries’ combined exploration budgets, and the finest technologies and minds in the world, in order to forge ahead.

But why do we need a ‘global exploration scheme’?

The idea is to create a sophisticated laboratory in space for launches and landings to explore the universe and its origins, as a natural step following the ISS. By discovering how water formed on the Moon and analysing the properties of deep craters caused by meteorites, it may be possible to understand more about the formation of the Earth and life itself.

Matching the grandiose concept, Woerner says his vision has room for all manner of programmes, from the usual space agency purpose of seeking knowledge, to interstellar tourism and the more practical, though less romantic, matter of mineral mining.

“It’s an open station, for different member states, for different states around the globe,” Woerner says. “Multiple uses by multiple users, but a single place.” So the moon is up for grabs, and we can all take a wedge.

Building on-site

The optimum area for habitation is the south pole: near the borderlands, it could act as a gateway into the as yet unexplored far side of the Moon. A place of extremes, it is in permanent darkness, so offers a refuge from radiation, and has deep craters that hold water (for supplies of hydrogen and oxygen), as well as having peaks high enough to be in constant sunshine for inexhaustible solar power.



Far from home and even further from practicality, the Moon’s environment is not designed to sustain human life. Aside from not having a breathable atmosphere, there are high levels of radiation, wildly fluctuating temperatures and the constant threat of microsatellites dropping into the yard.

Considering the unpredictability of Earth equipment weathering these hazards, as well as the expense of shooting masses of kit into space, scientists came up with the novel idea of using native materials instead.

“We’ve found ice at the lunar poles and we’ve found areas that are in almost constant daylight,” says Bernard Foing, director of ESA’s International Lunar Exploration Group. “And these places can offer us resources that we can use for construction, and that support the lives of the astronauts on this lunar base.”

Based on the metals, minerals and water ice present in the lunar soil, the ESA is testing the feasibility of 3D printing accommodations that would be perfectly adapted to the environment while, crucially, saving time and millions.

The plan involves landing a rover on the Moon that would level a surface area and inflate a dome to act as a foundation. Using UK company Monolite’s D-Shape printer, robots would then build external walls around the dome by applying, sintering and re-applying ink in layers.

Monolite founder Enrico Dini explains how the process faired during tests: “First, we needed to mix the simulated lunar material with magnesium oxide. This turns it into ‘paper’ we can print with. Then for our structural ‘ink’ we apply a binding salt which converts material to a stone-like solid.”

The Monolite mobile printing array “builds at a rate of around 2m per hour, while our next-generation design should attain 3.5m per hour, completing an entire building in a week,” says Dini. One entire dome accommodation is expected to take three months to construct.

A trial period

Years lie ahead before the Moon Village concept will be ready for in-situ trials, with the first 3D printing test anticipated for two years’ time.

The process has been tested on Earth with support from architectural firm Foster + Partners, which has experience erecting habitations in extreme and adverse conditions, such as in the Arctic. Using the array, the collaborators successfully printed a 1.5t cellular brick from lunar soil.

3D printing has also been performed in a vacuum to mimic the Moon’s environment and further work will be done on the response to temperature control and dust management. Tons of lunar soil are available for the building experiments – at a high cost – but, separately, volcanic rock formations in Italy proven to have a 99.8% similarity to those on the Moon, making it an ideal location for performing practical tests with as near realism as is possible.

To date, astronauts have been unable to spend very long lengths of time in space without developing health issues, so it is essential for them to exercise several hours each day to keep strong, and even then muscle strength and bone density are affected. The longest time an astronaut has spent in space on a single mission was Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 days at the Mir space station. However, this is rare and typical missions often last up to six months.

Moon Village inhabitants would have more regulated environments than the microgravity of the ISS, so be able to live in space for longer periods.

Space farming

Although plans are yielding positive results, there is still room for scepticism.

The ESA is using existing missions’ programmes to accelerate the schedule as, by piggybacking on another’s landing mission, the teams can take soil samples and test theories in advance. Once prep is complete, it will still be decades before a satisfactory village is built, interior accommodation and research facilities fitted out and manned missions finalised.

You have two options: regular mass supply missions or reliable space farming

However, as technology evolves rapidly and space travel captures people’s imaginations, progress should be continuous even if slow. And as well as technical capabilities, the level of funding should rise, with the first portions able to be carried out through small startups, before larger-scale financing need to be secured.

“The different actors, the different players worldwide, they look in their special capabilities, in their special interests and they bring just their part into the idea,” says Woerner. “That means we can start with a small landing mission, which many countries are planning up to a huge investment.”

Then there is the matter of thriving: how do you feed an entire space village?

ISS houses a maximum of eight personnel and NASA aims to keep supplies at a minimum of six months; however last year, several failed rocket supply missions by the US’s Orbital ATK and SpaceX and Russia’s Soyuz highlighted the fragility of the imperfect food supply method, as well as the epic costs when a mission goes wrong. Scale that up to feeding an entire village of people for indefinite lengths of time and you have two options: regular mass supply missions or reliable space farming.

Space farming has been ongoing for decades and last August, NASA’s Marshall space flight astronauts set a new record when they ate red romaine lettuce they had ‘home grown’ at the ISS using Orbital Technologies’ ‘Veggie’ LED system. The agency plans to plough ahead with its space farming programmes, starting on a small scale with plants used mainly for nutrient purposes, and on to both satisfying and sustenance for long-term missions.

Progress may be slow, but each glimmer of success has spurred on advancements in other areas. For instance, a 1980s partnership between NASA-sponsored research unit BioServe Space and company AgriHouse produced an aeroponic plant cultivation (plants grown in air instead of soil) and a sensor to manage watering levels, and further achievements from other groups resulted in advances to air quality regulation, lighting and environment equipment.

Preparing for take-off

This type of multi-disciplinary development is typical of the exponential growth that could ensure the lunar village comes to fruition. With each minor triumph along the journey, more investors are sure to jump on the bandwagon and startups inspired to create new technologies for the challenge.

Danish Astronaut Andreas Mogensen, who lived on the ISS during the iriss space mission, said at the space centre in Cologne: “It’s the entire suite of technology that we need to develop”, which includes everything from rockets, landers, energy supplies and life support systems, in addition to the habitation itself.

“We did this in the 60s within a decade. And today, in terms of development – technology development – we’re much, much further ahead. Of course we can do it again.”