Colonization of the Moon

{{Further|Exploration of the Moon|Moon#Human presence|Space colonization}}

Colonization of the Moon has been imagined as early as the first half of the 17th century by John Wilkins in A Discourse Concerning a New Planet.{{cite web |author=Haskins |first=Caroline |date=August 14, 2018 |title=THE RACIST LANGUAGE OF SPACE EXPLORATION |url=https://theoutline.com/post/5809/the-racist-language-of-space-exploration?zd=3&zi=v4x73sgl |access-date=November 1, 2020}}{{cite book |author=Johnson |first1=S. W. |title=Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21st Century |last2=Leonard |first2=R. S. |publisher=Lunar and Planetary Institute |year=1985 |location=Houston, Texas |page=48 |language=en-us |chapter=Evolution of Concepts for Lunar Bases |bibcode=1985lbsa.conf...47J}}

File:Buzz salutes the U.S. Flag.jpg the USSR and the US engaged in dropping pennants{{cite book | last=Capelotti | first=P.J. | title=The Human Archaeology of Space: Lunar, Planetary and Interstellar Relics of Exploration | publisher=McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers | year=2014 | isbn=978-0-7864-5994-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=98qFL5AYIjQC&pg=PA44 | access-date=October 15, 2022 | page=44}} and raising flags on the Moon, like this Lunar Flag Assembly of 1969, but agreed internationally in 1967 with the Outer Space Treaty to not lay any claims over the Moon or any other celestial bodies.]]

Colonization of the Moon as a material process has been taking place since the first artificial objects reached the Moon after 1959. Luna landers scattered pennants of the Soviet Union on the Moon, and U.S. flags were symbolically planted at their landing sites by the Apollo astronauts, but no nation claims ownership of any part of the Moon's surface.{{cite web |url=http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/FAQ/splawfaq.html#Q6 |title=Can any State claim a part of outer space as its own? |publisher=United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs |access-date=March 28, 2010 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100421232450/http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/FAQ/splawfaq.html#Q6 |archive-date=April 21, 2010 }}

Russia, China, India, and the U.S. are party to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty,{{cite web |url=http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/FAQ/splawfaq.html#Q4 |title=How many States have signed and ratified the five international treaties governing outer space? |date=January 1, 2006 |publisher=United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs |access-date=March 28, 2010 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100421232450/http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/FAQ/splawfaq.html#Q4 |archive-date=April 21, 2010 }} which defines the Moon and all outer space as the "province of all mankind", restricting the use of the Moon to peaceful purposes and explicitly banning military installations and weapons of mass destruction from the Moon.{{cite web |url=http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/FAQ/splawfaq.html#Q5 |title=Do the five international treaties regulate military activities in outer space? |publisher=United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs |access-date=March 28, 2010 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100421232450/http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/FAQ/splawfaq.html#Q5 |archive-date=April 21, 2010}}

The landing of U.S. astronauts was seen as a precedent for the superiority of the free-market socioeconomic model of the U.S., and in this case as the successful model for space flight, exploration and ultimately human presence in the form of colonization. In the 1970s the word and goal of colonization was discouraged by NASA and funds as well as focus shifted away from the Moon and particularly to Mars. But the U.S. eventually nevertheless opposed the 1979 Moon Agreement which aimed to restrict the exploitation of the Moon and its resources. Subsequently, the treaty has been signed and ratified by only 18 nations, as of January 2020,{{cite web |url=http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/SpaceLaw/moon.html |title=Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies |publisher=United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs |access-date=March 28, 2010 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100809072447/http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/SpaceLaw/moon.html |archive-date=August 9, 2010}} none of which engage in self-launched human space exploration.

After U.S. missions in the 1990s suggested the presence of lunar water ice, its actual discovery in the soil at the lunar poles by Chandrayaan-1 (ISRO) in 2008–2009 renewed interest in the Moon.{{cite thesis | last=Alvarez | first=Tamara | title=The Eighth Continent: An Ethnography of Twenty-First Century Euro-American Plans to Settle the Moon | date=January 1, 2020 | url=https://www.academia.edu/43890727 | access-date=November 1, 2021 | page=59 | archive-date=February 5, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220205171101/https://www.academia.edu/43890727 | url-status=dead }} A range of moonbases have been proposed by states and public actors. Currently the U.S.-led international Artemis program seeks to establish with private contractors a state run orbital lunar way-station in the late 2020s, and China proposed with Russia the so-called International Lunar Research Station to be established in the 2030s and aim for an Earth-Moon Space Economic Zone to develop by 2050.{{cite web | last=Pillow | first=Liz | title=From a farside first to cislunar dominance? China appears to want to establish 'space economic zone' worth trillions | website=SpaceNews | date=February 16, 2020 | url=https://spacenews.com/from-a-farside-first-to-cislunar-dominance-china-appears-to-want-to-establish-space-economic-zone-worth-trillions/ | access-date=October 23, 2022}}

Current proposals mainly have the goal of exploration, but such proposals and projects have increasingly aimed for enabling exploitation or commercialization of the Moon. This move to exploitation has been criticized as colonialist and contrasted by proposals for conservation (e.g. by the organization For All Moonkind),{{cite web | title=Moonkind – Human Heritage in Outer Space | website=For All Moonkind | url=https://www.forallmoonkind.org/moonkind-mission/human-heritage-in-outer-space/ | access-date=November 1, 2021 | archive-date=November 1, 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211101214336/https://www.forallmoonkind.org/moonkind-mission/human-heritage-in-outer-space/ | url-status=live }} collaborative stewardship (e.g. by the organization Open Lunar Foundation, chaired by Chris Hadfield){{cite web | title=What we do on the Moon can transform how we live on Earth. It starts with community. | website=Open Lunar Foundation | date=May 8, 2023 | url=https://www.openlunar.org/library/it-starts-with-community | access-date=June 14, 2023}} and the Declaration of the Rights of the Moon,{{cite web | title=Declaration of the Rights of the Moon | date=February 11, 2021 | publisher=Australian Earth Laws Alliance | url=https://www.earthlaws.org.au/moon-declaration/ | access-date=May 10, 2021 }} drawing on the concept of the Rights of Nature for a legal personality of non-human entities in space.{{Cite journal|last1=Tepper|first1=Eytan|last2=Whitehead|first2=Christopher|date=December 1, 2018|title=Moon, Inc.: The New Zealand Model of Granting Legal Personality to Natural Resources Applied to Space|url=https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/space.2018.0025|journal=New Space|volume=6|issue=4|pages=288–298|doi=10.1089/space.2018.0025|bibcode=2018NewSp...6..288T|s2cid=158616075|issn=2168-0256}}

{{Further|Moonbase|Space advocacy}}

File:Inflatable habitat s89 20084.jpg

The colonization of the Moon has been pursued and advocated for by a range of civil actors and space advocacy groups since the advent of spaceflight, mainly to establish a permanent human presence and settlement on the Moon.{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}}

States have explicitly refrained from calling for lunar colonization and particularly from laying any claims of territory on the Moon, in accordance with international bans on any such claims.{{cite web | last=Smith | first=Kiona N. | title=How Apollo 11 Raised The Flag on the Moon, And What It Means Today | website=Forbes | date=Jul 20, 2019 | url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/kionasmith/2019/07/20/how-apollo-11-raised-the-flag-on-the-moon-and-what-it-means-today/ | access-date=Dec 28, 2024}}

States though have been pursuing the establishment of moonbases, the first being the temporary Tranquility Base of Apollo 11 in 1969, the first crewed mission on the Moon.

Those and contemporary concepts and plans for moonbases have had the purpose to advance spaceflight and space exploration.

Contemporary plans for moonbases, such as the leading Artemis program and International Lunar Research Station projects, have supported in-situ resource utilization and therefore prospecting for lunar resources.{{cite web |url=http://www.cnsa.gov.cn/english/n6465652/n6465653/c6812150/content.html |title=International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) Guide for Partnership |work=CNSA |date=June 16, 2021 |access-date=June 16, 2021}} To complement the Artemis program private commercial space enterprise and services have been enabled and contracted.{{cite web | last=FoustMonday | first=Jeff | title=The Space Review: The search for a commercial lunar economy | website=The Space Review | date=2024-11-25 | url=https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4898/1 | access-date=2024-12-28}}

{{Excerpt|Moon#Legal status}}

{{anchor|Lunar mining}}

{{Main|Lunar habitation|Lunar resources|Space-based economy|Commercial use of space}}

For long-term sustainability, a space colony should be close to self-sufficient. Mining and refining the Moon's materials on-site – for use both on the Moon and elsewhere in the Solar System – could provide an advantage over deliveries from Earth, as they can be launched into space at a much lower energy cost than from Earth. It is possible that large amounts of cargo would need to be launched into space for interplanetary exploration in the 21st century, and the lower cost of providing goods from the Moon might be attractive.Tung Dju (T. D.) Lin, cited via {{cite news |title=On Moon, Concrete Digs? |url=http://www.iht.com/articles/1992/02/13/moon.php |first=Barry |last=James |newspaper=International Herald Tribune |date=February 13, 1992 |access-date=December 24, 2006 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20061124100043/http://www.iht.com/articles/1992/02/13/moon.php |archive-date = November 24, 2006}}

In the long term, the Moon will likely play an important role in supplying space-based construction facilities with raw materials.{{Cite web| url=http://www.russianspaceweb.com/lunar_base.html| title=Lunar base| publisher=RussianSpaceWeb.com| access-date=December 24, 2006}} Microgravity in space allows for the processing of materials in ways impossible or difficult on Earth, such as "foaming" metals, where a gas is injected into a molten metal, and then the metal is annealed slowly. On Earth, gas bubbles may rise or fall due to their relative density to air, but in a zero gravity environment this does not happen. The annealing process requires large amounts of energy, as a material is kept very hot for an extended period of time (allowing the molecular structure to realign), and this too may be more efficient in space, as the vacuum drastically reduces all heat transfer except through radiative heat loss.

Exporting material to Earth in trade from the Moon is problematic due to the cost of transportation, which would vary greatly if the Moon is industrially developed. One suggested trade commodity is helium-3 (³He) which is carried by the solar wind and accumulated on the Moon's surface over billions of years, but occurs only rarely on Earth.Mark Williams Pontin, [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/408558/mining-the-moon/ Mining the Moon]. MIT Technology Review. August 23, 2007. Helium-3 might be present in the lunar regolith in quantities of 0.01 ppm to 0.05 ppm (depending on soil). In 2006 it had a market price of about $1,500 per gram ($1.5M per kilogram), more than 120 times the value per unit weight of gold and over eight times the value of rhodium.

In the future ³He harvested from the Moon may have a role as a fuel in thermonuclear fusion reactors.{{cite web| url=http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/research/he3| title=FTI Research| access-date=September 30, 2014| archive-date=June 9, 2010| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100609234057/http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/research/he3| url-status=dead}} It should require about {{convert|100|MT|lb}} of helium-3 to produce the electricity that Earth uses in a year and there should be enough on the Moon to provide that much for 10,000 years.{{cite web |author=Kazmi |first=Shameem |title=Moon Mining: Myth or reality? |url=http://www.earthtimes.org/energy/moon-mining-myth-reality/2201/ |access-date=June 12, 2015 |work=earthtimes.org}}

In 2024, an American startup called Interlune announced plans to mine Helium on the Moon for export to Earth. The first mission plans to use NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program to arrive on the moon.{{Cite web |last=Eaton |first=Kit |date=March 14, 2024 |title=Space Startup Interlune Emerges From Stealth Mode to Start Moon Mining Effort |work=Inc |url=https://www.inc.com/kit-eaton/space-startup-interlune-emerges-from-stealth-mode-to-start-moon-mining-effort.html}}

To reduce the cost of transport, the Moon could store propellants produced from lunar water at one or several depots between the Earth and the Moon, to resupply rockets or satellites in Earth orbit.

{{cite journal |last1=Spudis |first1=Paul D. |last2=Lavoie |first2=Anthony R. |date=September 29, 2011 |title=Using the resources of the Moon to create a permanent, cislunar space faring system |url=http://www.spudislunarresources.com/Bibliography/p/102.pdf |journal=AIAA Space 2011 Conference & Exposition |volume=1646 |page=80 |bibcode=2011LPICo1646...80S}}

{{Main| Lunar water}}

File:LRO Peers into Permanent Shadows.oggs)]]

Lunar scientists had discussed the possibility of water repositories for decades. They are now increasingly "confident that the decades-long debate is over" a report says. "The Moon, in fact, has water in all sorts of places; not just locked up in minerals, but scattered throughout the broken-up surface, and, potentially, in blocks or sheets of ice at depth." The results from the Chandrayaan mission are also "offering a wide array of watery signals."{{cite news | url =https://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2009-09-23-moon-water_N.htm | title =It's not lunacy, probes find water in Moon dirt | date =September 23, 2009 | access-date =September 26, 2009 | newspaper =USA Today}}{{cite news | url =http://www.hindu.com/2009/09/23/stories/2009092357770100.htm | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20090926073133/http://www.hindu.com/2009/09/23/stories/2009092357770100.htm | url-status =dead | archive-date =September 26, 2009 | title =Water discovered on Moon?: "A lot of it actually" | date =September 23, 2009 | newspaper =The Hindu | access-date =September 26, 2009 }}

It is estimated there is at least 600 million tons of ice at the north pole in sheets of relatively pure ice at least a couple of meters thick.Bill Keeter: [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Mini-RF/multimedia/feature_ice_like_deposits.html NASA Radar Finds Ice Deposits at Moon's North Pole – Additional evidence of water activity on moon] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150921013327/http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Mini-RF/multimedia/feature_ice_like_deposits.html |date=September 21, 2015 }}. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, March 2, 2010, retrieved June 27, 2011

Gerard K. O'Neill, noting the problem of high launch costs in the early 1970s, proposed building Solar Power Satellites in orbit with materials from the Moon.{{cite book |author=O'Neill, Gerard K. |author-link=Gerard K. O'Neill |title=The High Frontier, Human Colonies in Space |isbn=978-0-688-03133-6 |page=57 |year=1977 |publisher=Apogee Books }} Launch costs from the Moon would vary significantly if the Moon is industrially developed. This proposal was based on the contemporary estimates of future launch costs of the Space Shuttle.

On April 30, 1979, the Final Report "Lunar Resources Utilization for Space Construction" by General Dynamics Convair Division under NASA contract, NAS9-15560 concluded that the use of lunar resources would be cheaper than terrestrial materials for a system comprising as few as thirty Solar Power Satellites of 10 GW capacity each.{{Cite book| url=https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19830077470_1983077470.pdf| title=Lunar Resources Utilization for Space Construction| year=1979| author=General Dynamics Convair Division| id=GDC-ASP79-001}}

In 1980, when NASA's launch cost estimates for the Space Shuttle were grossly optimistic, O'Neill et al. published another route to manufacturing using lunar materials with much lower startup costs.{{cite journal |author1=O'Neill, Gerard K. |author-link1=Gerard K. O'Neill |author2=Driggers, G. |author3=O'Leary, B. |author-link3=Brian O'Leary |title=New Routes to Manufacturing in Space |journal=Astronautics and Aeronautics |volume=18 |pages=46–51 |date=October 1980 |bibcode = 1980AsAer..18...46G }} This 1980s SPS concept relied less on human presence in space and more on partially self-replicating systems on the lunar surface under telepresence control of workers stationed on Earth.

{{Portal|Spaceflight|Solar System}}

{{div col|colwidth=22em}}

• Aurora programme
• Colonization of Mars
• Human outpost
• In situ resource utilization
• Lunar Explorers Society
• Lunar Gateway
• Lunarcrete
• Lunarcy!
• Moon in fiction
• Moon landing
• Moon Society
• National Space Society
• NewSpace
• Planetary defense
• Planetary habitability
• Space architecture
• Space Frontier Foundation
• NASA lunar outpost concepts
• DARPA lunar programs
• Coordinated Lunar Time

{{div col end}}

Notes

{{Reflist|30em}}

General references

• {{Cite book | last = Peter Eckart | title = The Lunar Base Handbook, 2nd edition |year = 2006 | publisher = McGraw-Hill | pages = 820 | isbn = 978-0-07-329444-5}}
• {{Cite book |editor = Wendell Mendell |url=http://ads.harvard.edu/books/lbsa/ |title=Lunar bases and space activities of the 21st century |year = 1986 | publisher = Lunar and Planetary Institute | pages = 865 | isbn = 978-0-942862-02-7}}
• {{Cite web | url = http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Dec04/spaceResources.html |title = Cosmochemistry and Human Exploration | last = G. Jeffrey Taylor | publisher = Planetary Science Research Discoveries | date = December 23, 2004}}
• {{Cite web |url = http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Nov00/mining.html | last = G. Jeffrey Taylor | title = Mining the Moon, Mars, and Asteroids | publisher = Planetary Science Research Discoveries | date = November 21, 2000}}

• [https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:BoCLnaClDwIJ:www.spacegeneration.org/files/images/MMWFILES/ISRU_presentation.pdf+human+outpost&hl=en&gl=ca&sig=AHIEtbR531BikZhNPCsx08s2KFYV1WbArg Resource Utilization Concepts for MoonMars]; ByIris Fleischer, Olivia Haider, Morten W. Hansen, Robert Peckyno, Daniel Rosenberg and Robert E. Guinness; September 30, 2003; IAC Bremen, 2003 (Sept 29 – October 3, 2003) and MoonMars Workshop (Sep 26–28, 2003, Bremen). Accessed on January 18, 2010.
• {{cite book |first=Erik |last=Seedhouse |title=Lunar Outpost: The Challenges of Establishing Human Settlements on the Moon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZJm_i3GS4r4C |year=2009 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-0-387-09746-6}} [https://www.springer.com/astronomy/space+exploration/book/978-0-387-09746-6 Publisher's book page.]
• {{cite book |first1=Madhu |last1=Thangavelu |author2=Schrunk, David G. |first3=Burton |last3=Sharpe |first4=Bonnie L. |last4=Cooper |title=The Moon: resources, future development, and settlement |publisher=Springer |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-387-36055-3 |edition=2nd }}

{{Wikiversity|Lunar Boom Town}}

{{Commons category|Colonization of the Moon}}

• {{cite journal |doi=10.1126/science.274.5292.1495 |vauthors=Nozette S, Lichtenberg CL, Spudis P, Bonner R, Ort W, Malaret E, Robinson M, Shoemaker EM |title=The Clementine bistatic radar experiment |journal=Science |volume=274 |issue=5292 |pages=1495–8 |date=November 1996 |pmid=8929403 |bibcode=1996Sci...274.1495N |display-authors=1|doi-access=free |hdl=2060/19970023672 |hdl-access=free }}
• NASA Ames Research Center [https://web.archive.org/web/20061209110937/http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/results/ice/eureka.htm Eureka! Ice found at Lunar Poles]. Retrieved December 18, 2004.
• Cornell News [http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Nov03/radar.Moonpoles.deb.html Arecibo radar shows no evidence of thick ice at lunar poles (...)]. Retrieved December 18, 2004.
• NASA Johnson Space Centre [https://web.archive.org/web/20030928144705/http://aerospacescholars.jsc.nasa.gov/HAS/cirr/em/8/1.cfm Liftoff! Moon Base Alpha]. Last checked January 20, 2005.
• Encyclopedia Astronautica [https://web.archive.org/web/20050206205953/http://astronautix.com/craft/mancraft.htm Subcategory: – Manned – Lunar rover]. Retrieved December 20, 2004.
• [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/exploration/main/index.html The vision for space exploration] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210211220500/http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/exploration/main/index.html |date=February 11, 2021 }}, NASA.
• [http://science.howstuffworks.com/what-if-moon-colony.htm How Stuff Works – What if we lived on the moon?] Retrieved March 15, 2007.
• Wiki devoted to the return to the Moon – [http://www.lunarpedia.org Lunarpedia].
• OpenLuna Foundation [http://openluna.org OpenLuna.org].
• Elements of a south polar lunar settlement [http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/elements_for_a_sustainable_lunar_colony_in_the_south_polar_region.shtml].
• [http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Technology/Building_a_lunar_base_with_3D_printing Building a lunar base with 3D printing] (ESA).
• Moon Storage: One Small Space For Man, One Giant Space For Mankind [http://www.selfstorage.com/tips/storage-on-the-moon-infographic/ Moon Storage Infographic]. Retrieved September 1, 2014.
• [https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07107-4 Researchers are ramping up plans for living on the Moon].

{{Moon colonization}}

{{The Moon}}

{{Moon spacecraft}}

{{Space colonization}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Colonization Of The Moon}}

Category:Exploration of the Moon

Category:Fiction set on the Moon

*Moon