We intend to travel to the Moon and establish there for 3 years. We have many things to explore: the rocks, the possibility of discovering useful materials, the survival of human and plants and the conditions of rockets’ launching. Therefore we’ve made a project of the camp we must build, with all the buildings and facilities. We must carry a lot of materials, water, oxygen and food, but we are ready to start a new adventure. After all, we are the “Fabulous Researchers’’.

Close to the Lunar Poles

There is water ice at the poles of the Moon that we can use. Furthermore, there is light all the time. A constant sun light that  allow little temperature variations that  is good for both humans and plants. The constant incident energy from the sun offers good conditions for using it as a source of power for the camp. The lunar poles are also perfect places for communications with people on the Earth because there won’t be any interruptions.

A large amount of water must be transported on the Moon for the first period of time. When the shelter is almost ready, we must search for ice water in the craters of regolith, dig, melt and distillate it . We need a lot of water because we’ll use it for both human and plants in the greenhouse. For perfect safety and purity , the water must be treated with performing systems.

Food supplies must be brought from the Earth not only as tinned food but also as frozen fruits, vegetables and meet. For the greenhouse we need roots and seeds to grow as much vegetables as we can. Fresh vegetables will offer us the vitamins that will keep us in good health.

Sun is the only source of energy on the Moon so we’ll definitely use it to supply our power plant. Spreading the solar panels over a large area means a lot of energy lost for maintenance and reparations. That’s the reason we decided a good solution would be to cover a cylindrical tower having 15 m high and a diameter of 12 m with solar panels. So, our power plant looks like a tower empty inside, having a winding staircase from the bottom to the top that allow our access to every solar panel. Setting panels on a round shape has another huge advantage: a part of the panels will be lighted by sun rays every time of the day. The tower presents at the ground floor a small nuclear reactor that will provide us energy at the beginning, until the tower and the solar panels become functional. These two sources will provide energy for the entire camp. Above the nuclear reactor is a huge boiler with water that will be heated for bathroom, laundry and kitchen. The waste water will be treated and re-used all the time because we must do economy of water.

We must transport tanks with pressurized oxygen. After building the greenhouse and planting the seeds and roots, the plants will produce the oxygen necessary for breathing. The small hall between the doors contain air pumps that will absorb the air released when the inside door is open. The air will be conducted back to the shelter through pipes, hindering the air to disperse outside. Meantime we must search rocks and extract the oxygen inside.

The shelter will be built on the surface. The entire surface of the camp is about  1 000 m² with all the buildings situated very close on each other. We’ll have a central building of 400 m²  where we live and work, a greenhouse spreading on 500 m² , a power plant of  about 100 m² and a garage (for our land rover, used also as a store), of another 30 m². The main material used for constructions is the regolith on the Moon. Using dust of regolith and a 3D printer we can make enough bricks for everything we build. Dust can be find everywhere, is free and we don’t have to spend money to transport it from the Earth. There are other materials that must be brought from the Earth instead: steel, titan, glass, chernozem  and polyethylene. Titan will be used for the double roofs and entrance doors, steel for the structures of the power plant and greenhouse and glass for the windows of the main building and for the greenhouse. The roofs will be made of titan because it is a resisting material and won’t broke if  is hit by the meteorites. We must also transport a huge amount of chernozem because it is good for the seeds and  roots planted in the greenhouse.

We know that the sun radiations are dangerous and there is the risk of meteorites impact but we think the way we build our shelter offers  the best protection. The buildings have double walls of bricks. Between the walls there is a layer of polyethylene. There are two layers of tiles of titan on the roofs, also separated by polyethylene. These materials were chosen to protect the buildings and people inside against both radiations and breaking made by meteorites. The entrance also have double walls and double roof for best protection and 2 automatic doors assembled at 1 m distance from each other. Each door will be made of titan and have layers of airtight and motion sensors. The astronauts will be protected outside against radiations by their costumes, made of a layer of 15 cm of polyethylene.

In our camp will live five astronauts because we think all the work in the camp can be done by only five  persons. One is the manager / researcher, the second one is a doctor/ cook and the other three are an engineer, and two building-workers. They will all help each other when the need arises ( for instance while building or planting) and will do the cleaning in turn. It will be rather difficult to send more than five people in the camp because of the limited oxygen, water and food supplies. Here is the daily program of the manager.

In the morning, the manager take a quick shower and then go to the central control room. He checks the working of all the systems of the camp to ensure they all work all right. Then he goes to the gym apparatus in the living and work out. After that he meets the other astronauts in the kitchen and they all have breakfast. He discuss with the others and establish together the program for each one, for the entire day. Then he puts on his suit and go out of the shelter with one of the workers. They take the land rover and travel to search rocks from different places. They are also taking pictures and map drawing all the places they go. Then they come back to the shelter and the manager take the rocks to the laboratory and put them in closed boxes. He has lunch with the others and they all talk about their morning work. He rest for one hour and he goes to the lab. He analyses the rocks with different devices and save the results on the computer. Then he send images and data on Earth. He checks again the apparatus, systems and devices in the central control room. In the evening they have dinner together in the kitchen and talk. They all go to the central control room and the manager establishes video contact with the Earth and they all chat a little with their families. He writes down in the diary all the day activities  and finally he takes a bath and go to sleep.