Our Moon Camp project aims to set up a sustainable astronaut settlement in a South Pole mountain to study space phenomena, regolith properties and use, and plant growth. There is a laboratory for food production, but also for experiments with digital microscopes and microgravity glove boxes; a greenhouse to grow crops hydroponically; a gym in an oxygen-producing green area, with power-generating stationary bicycles and treadmills for daily usage; individual bedrooms with small working areas; a strategically placed eating area and kitchen; an advanced medical post; three toilets, washbasins and showers; a sitting room with a Moon map hologram to assist with route planning; a fully-equipped meeting room; a garage with tools, and rovers; a disinfection area; a basement with a storeroom for long-term supplies, bulky equipment, a water treatment plant and a composting area; an Earth/Moon communication and solar panels control room. The camp is mostly doorless for better communication.

In the South Pole inside the Cabeus crater.

We picked the South Pole for our camp because it is the location of the Moon’s largest water ice reservoir. Unlike the Moon equator, poles have constant sub-zero temperatures which reduces energy costs and allows for stable humidity levels in the air. All in all, lunar poles are a safer option and a more grounded environment for a moon camp. Since poles are permanently exposed to sunlight, solar panels constantly generate electricity which allows a stable power supply to reach the camp. Additionally, astronauts can conveniently tend to their upkeep.

Some areas in the permanently shaded northern and southern lunar poles have ice, also known as lunar water (e.g., the Cabeus crater on the Southern lunar Pole, according to the LCROSS mission). Astronauts collect lunar water wherever it is available, but before it can be used it must be distilled and filtered in the Moon Camp water treatment plant. Later, along with sweat, urine and condensation droplets from the greenhouse, it is sent as waste water into the water treatment plant in order to be reused again, generating a cycle.

The astronauts will bring dehydrated food from Earth that will serve as reserve food supplies and will be very important at the beginning when there are still no plants.They will produce in-vitro meat in the laboratory and they will have a greenhouse where they can produce fruit and vegetables, using hydroponics, for example: melons, berries, cabbage, pumpkin, tomatoes, cucumbers and carrots. Astronauts eat a healthy and energetic diet with a balanced intake of plant-based foods, protein, and seeds, and will also take vitamin pills.

Our camp is mostly powered by multiple solar panels which are continuously flooded with sunlight on the South Pole of the Moon. This generates a constant and reliable flow of solar energy that powers the camp. Additionally, there are bioreactors at the camp’s basement that generate electricity that can be stored. Last but not least, each of the three astronauts works out three hours a day at the gym’s power-generating treadmills and stationary bicycles.

Our camp has air quality analysers in several places to carefully monitor its composition, humidity and levels of indoor pollution. Levels of oxygen and other gases are limited at the camp because our main source of oxygen is the greenhouse, followed by the gym’s green area and the vertical garden in the laboratory. Oxygen can also be extracted from regolith and ice on the Moon.

Our astronauts dismantle the steel rocket they travelled in to build the camp’s steel frame. That steel is to be reused. Its shock resistant properties that take extreme temperatures are ideal. In the meantime, a temporary shelter made of inflatable material covered with a thick layer of regolith is assembled. They dig the mountain and set the camp’s steel frame. Inside, there is a 180º dome with an LCD virtual ceiling with earthly soundscape and a simulation of the Earth’s circadian cycle from dawn to sunset, for the astronauts’ psychological well-being. The inner walls around the frame are of polypropylene.

Our Moon Camp has a steel frame and is deeply set in a mountain covered with regolith. It can take impacts and extreme temperature and its placement on the Moon was carefully chosen for its safety, in order to protect our astronauts  from radiation, solar storms, cosmic rays and meteorites. Our astronauts are highly trained in safety and emergency protocols. There are emergency batteries in the basement which are filled with solar energy, in case of power failure as well as oxygen tanks and fire extinguishers. There are also several 3D printers to make any spare part that may be needed.

Our astronaut sleeps for eight hours and wakes up to a natural earthly soundscape and a simulated sunrise on the camp’s virtual ceiling. After her personal hygiene, she has breakfast with her colleagues, checks her work schedule and the weather forecast. Her stay is spent indoors, except when going out to collect resources or samples from the Moon poles, the dark side, or the equator. For security reasons, one astronaut stays at the camp to help remotely, or to monitor the equipment. After coming back to the camp and disinfecting, samples are dropped at the laboratory. When staying in, our astronaut can work at the laboratory, tend to the greenhouse, or check the fleet of moon vehicles. Waste water must be correctly recycled, suits and all surfaces disinfected, and compost has to provide new nutrients for greenhouse plants. Solar panels are monitored from the Control room, just as the satellite that allows communication with Earth and the radio telescope set on the dark side of the Moon to capture early radiation from the Big Bang. She works out for ninety minutes at the gym, before having a nutritionally balanced lunch with her colleagues. When work is over, she socializes in the sitting room, or talks to her family in the Control Room. She hits the gym for another ninety minutes, takes a shower and deodorizes her clothing with coffee grounds, before dining with her colleagues and logging in her journal. A simulated sunset on the virtual ceiling makes her sleepy.