Life on Earth has become quite demanding in recent times, so I have decided to take this wonderful opportunity and participate in this Project with a small group of children who adore science, the Solar System and Paxi.

We have planned our Moon Camp as four mobile “cupolae”, hence the name we chose for our team. Since on the Moon we are facing “days” and “nights”, i.e., sun and shadow periods of fourteen days each, we have come to plan our Moon Camp as mobile camps that can be moved towards the sunny side of the Moon once there comes up the “night” so that the astronauts needn’t interrupt their project and can carry on working all the time.

Our four cupolae i to iv include the following spaces:

i) office, kitchen, infirmary, server room and antenna control centre (Alberto)
ii) greenhouse garden to grow vegetables and breed chickens, bathroom, sewage and water purification system, sleeping room with sleeping bags, emergency power units (Daniele)

iii) recreation and leisure rooms with satellite TV and sofa (Michele)

iv) garage with lunar vehicles: van to collect material, tank for special protection, drone to check out new territories (Giorgio)

Each one of my students has created his own little 3D model during and after the meetings and videocalls to get everything organised, each one of them with their own creative ideas. Each one of the cupolae provides required room, facilities, food or air as well as shelter in case of danger for the astronauts.

Close to the Lunar Poles

One reason to build up our Moon Camp near the lunar poles is that we want to save fuel by being able to move the camp quickly from one side of the Moon to the other where the Sun rises after the “night”.

Another reason for choosing this position is that there is supposed to be iced water at the poles of the Moon. Water that we would like to use to build up our “cupolae” since we have learned about the possibility to use lunar material that might be transformed into a kind of cement by adding water.

We would use water and regolith that we can extract from the lunar poles and take to the Moon the platforms on which we plan to build up each cupola, together with bulletproof glass, wheels, solar-operated motors, solar panels, reflector antennas and all the required electronic and personal equipment. Since we have learned that everything weighs on the Moon only one sixth of its weight on Earth, we believe our cupolae can easily be moved from one place to another, though being heavy enough not to lose stability.

During construction, the astronauts stay in the equipped van or rocket.

The water we need for the construction of our cupolae as well as the irrigation water in our greenhouse garden (which will be recycled by the greenhouse effect and hence be of permanent use) will be extracted from the lunar poles whereas the drinking water will be mainly “imported” from the Earth and recycled together with food and compostable garbage back into water by means of our sewage and water purification system.

Our astronauts will need to bring supplies of basic dishes (space food) and specially prepared dishes with recyclable bio-degradable organic packaging from the Earth and have these while the vegetables planted in our hydroponic greenhouse garden grow and get ready to be eaten. We are thinking about unpretentious and quickly growing types like lettuce, tomatoes, corn that can be eaten raw. Furthermore, we want to provide the astronauts with eggs by the imported chickens. They will have vegetarian food grown on the Moon, eggs, and a variety of imported dishes that can be warmed up in the microwave oven.

Since we are planning to imitate the sun flowers’ strategy and keep moving our Moon Camp towards the Sun, we assume that we are going to have permanent solar energy, hence the solar panels we are planning to operate all the cupolae as well as the vehicles with. Nevertheless, we want to take some mobile power banks to the Moon that can be charged during normal operation and which serve as emergency power units for any cupola.

We want to generate the air our astronauts breathe inside our greenhouse in cupola ii) where they are going to grow vegetables and raise chickens to provide food for the astronauts and bring also some bees for pollination. The plants are going to provide them with breathable air. Of course, in the beginning, they are going to need oxygen supplies imported from the Earth. Since we are planning the cupolae to be interconnectable with doors and extensible corridors, it should be easy to provide air for all the cupolae.
e) Protection: Our innovative concept is based on the idea that the camp shall consist of four mobile cupolae which can be displaced or moved away in case of predictable major meteorite impacts. The protection against minor impacts is provided by the shape (like a turtle, close to the Moon surface) and material (strong bulletproof glass and cement) of the cupolae. Cupola i) provides an infirmary for primary medical care. All my students’ works are a little different from each other, individual, but in case of production, we would consult an engineer to optimise and standardise the size of the wheels/doors.

Once the camp is established, our astronauts wake up every morning in their sleeping bags in cupola ii), where they can use the bathroom for personal hygiene. Still in cupola ii), they irrigate the plants in the greenhouse garden and get fresh vegetables (once they are ripe) to take to the kitchen.

Through the doors and extensible corridor, the astronauts now move on to cupola i) where they have a great Italian coffee and breakfast (space snacks) in the kitchen. The packages of the dishes will be taken to the sewage purification system in cupola ii). After the breakfast, they go to the office in cupola i) where they talk to their ESA colleagues on Earth and schedule the new working day.

Those astronauts who go on expedition wear their suits and get prepared with their vehicles in cupola iv) to go and get some material samples or discover new zones on the Moon. These astronauts will take a space sandwich on their trip.

Back “home”, the astronauts take the material samples to the office in cupola i) to examine and report everything to their Team on Earth. After a little spare time to talk to their families, the astronauts get together in the kitchen to have dinner and then move on to the leisure zone in cupola iii) to watch tv together, play cards (hoping they are heavy enough) and wait for Paxi to come by for a visit before they go back to sleep in cupola ii).