In-situ resource utilization (ISRU) will be used to reduce the risk and the cost of lunar base construction and operation.
Our Moon camp includes diverse modules for daily life, communications, food production, fuel and water generation, storage and other facilities, including a leisure space.
Various semi spherical-based buildings covered with regolith, will compose the different interconnected modules. We have done this in order to facilitate motion to the astronauts, who will be protected from solar radiation. These buildings form geometrical structures, layered over subterranean places where humans will sleep highly protected. Some water and food stores will also be located underground.
For its long-term operation, autonomous or Earth-controlled construction systems will be needed, including rovers and robots. These devices are capable of working in conditions of reduced gravity (1/10 that of Earth). Large-scale 3D printers will be used for diverse building construction, as well as autonomous electrolysis systems to produce oxygen and other systems for communications and fuel production.
Daily life on the Moon requires food production in-situ. It implies a greenhouse to grow vegetables on enriched lunar soil. Different procedures can be combined to produce water and nutrients from regolith as well as human urine and wastes. Communications with Earth will be easily carried out, due to the expertise and background of the space agencies. This will be possible thanks to diverse probes already launched and currently travelling in outer space.

The Sun shines the most on the hidden face of the Moon. If we locate our camp on this area, we will get electricity with solar panels due to the great quantity of sunlight. Furthermore, we would like to place it on the south pole. There are deep dark craters filled with ice and chemical elements, from which we could obtain oxygen, hydrogen, water, fuel… Moreover, we could get water from the ice without running out of it.

As far as we are concerned, we believe the best option is to locate our camp on the south pole and on the hidden face of the Moon. In this way, we would have more light, ice and we could prevent thaw. As this satellite does not have an atmosphere, the closer we are to the south pole, the less temperature variation we will suffer, as we would have ice blocks around.

The building of a moon camp requires the use of materials that can be obtained there, also known as ISRU. One of these resources that can be found in abundance is regolith. It has many uses, such as the extraction of oxygen, but it also allows the formation of bricks for the lunar base. It is composed of dust, soil, pieces of basaltic rock and more materials that can be obtained in any planetary surface. It is a hard and compact material.
The base will be built using bricks, created mixing regolith and astronaut´s urine, that will be used to create concrete. The regolith will form the bricks throughout specific 3D solar printers that are being designed by the DIR, ESA-ESTEC and DIR.
The moon base will have spherical shape. This is due to the pressure of air that will be exerted towards the outside, so the base must simulate the structure of a hyperbaric chamber, that endures great levels of pressure. The ceilings must be low, due to the high seismic movements that are found on the moon surface, and to save material and time, that can be used to create the different modules that compose the base. There will be tubular corridors in the base connecting the modules.Part of the base will be built underground for a better protection from harmful solar radiation (bedrooms, Food and water stores).

The moon is inside the heliosphere produced by the Sun, which protects it from most of the cosmic radiation. However, as it is outside the magnetosphere, the protective magnetic field of the Earth that deflects most of the solar particles, it does receive high-energy solar radiation. This ionizing radiation produces different forms of biological damage to biomolecules, cells and tissues, which can be harmful for astronauts’s mental health leading to changes in behavior, fatigue or high levels of stress in them, or even can cause them cancer. To avoid this negative effect on astronauts, we would mainly work with the natural resources from the Moon. We would use regolith to build the infrastructures, due to its proven protective effect against radiation. Apart from that, we would place the sleeping module, all the deposits and a food storehouse in the lunar underground caves that function as natural radiation mitigators.

The base is going to be located in the south pole of the Moon, in order to extract water from ice. It will be collected and filtered in the base for its later use. Moreover, we will obtain more water from craters close to the settlement. These craters contain ice and chemical elements. We will be able to get hydrogen and oxygen atoms, to form water molecules. The ice will be collected and filtered in the base for its later use. Water will also be obtained from regolith, methane and from human waste.

Vegetables and fruits will be grown in a greenhouse. The soil will be made up of regolith, water and human waste. It must be rich in nitrogen, too. The pressure in the interior of the greenhouse will be similar to the pressure of the Earth’s atmosphere. There will be a circular water circuit in the camp which will redirect the excess of water to the greenhouse. The objective is to water the plants inside the greenhouse. Food will be stored in a storehouse near the kitchen. Apart from the grenhouse’s food, the astronauts will carry processed food packages from Earth.

Electricity can be obtained from solar panels, as more energy is obtained at the Moon due to the lack of an atmosphere or ionosphere. However, radiation is 1000 times greater than on Earth, so it can damage solar panels or decrease their efficiency.
Fuel obtained from regolith could also be used, as there are some methods to obtain it. The most effective method is the use of non-radioactive helium-3 that exists on the Moon to make fission reactions.
The energy will be stored in superconducting batteries, being available during the lunar night, which is when it is most needed.

To obtain oxygen, the use of the lunar regolith is one of the best options, as it contains 45% oxygen in its composition. It is chemically bonded to metals, so it is hard to extract oxygen atoms from it. The process requires a chamber in which the regolith is immersed in molten salt compounds at 950ºC, and an air stream passes through. Due to this, the oxygen extraction process is triggered. Recent research is improving the temperature requirements for obtaining oxygen. Obviously, this must be complemented by oxygen recycling methods. The most effective one currently available is known as roxin.

The main purpose is a scientific one, focused on exploring the lunar surface and its materials. It will also allow scientists to experiment under different pressure, radiation, gravity and humidity conditions than the ones found on Earth. There is another scientific purpose, that consists of creating a shuttle to Mars or other missions. As there is no gravity on the Moon, launching of rockets is easier to achieve. Besides, the Moon can be used as a transit space for astronauts to travel to Mars when reached optimal time to travel.

There is a technological-industrial purpose, as the Moon is rich in materials and minerals that are interesting for different uses, such as titanium and other rare metals. There are several enterprises that are already focused on the exploitation of these resources. Besides, there are some companies focused on the possibilities of touristic uses, but this is a long term idea.

Considering that a day of light on the Moon is 14 Earth days, and that the human body is unable to endure that many hours without sleep, we will take as a reference an Earth day (24 hours) that would be similar to a day on the International Space Station.

We will divide the day into three different parts: working period (around 12 hours), resting period (4 hours) and sleeping period (8 hours).

To begin with, the astronauts will have an hour (the first one of the resting period) after they wake up, in order to warm up their bodies by doing physical exercise. As the gravity of the Moon is ten times lower than the Earth’s gravity, the muscles and organs get altered and weak due to the change in blood pressure. Because of this, a complete physical preparation at the beginning of the day is crucial. After the workout, all the crew members will gather together in the kitchen, so that they can have breakfast. Then, they will carry out a meeting in the telecommunication module in order to distribute the daily tasks.
At that moment, the working period will begin. The tasks related to the maintenance of the station include: revising the water and fuel levels in the deposits. Light, humidity, pressure and temperature levels at the greenhouse must be checked. Lunar dust must be removed from the solar panels to ensure they work correctly, as well as cleaning drones and rovers, removing dust and remains of regolith using ultrasonic washing, in case it is needed. The rest of the activities to be carried out during the working day would be related to the purposes of settling on the Moon that have already been mentioned in another section.

In between the tasks, there will be a lunch and rest period of the first half of the day, where everyone will gather in the dining room for about an hour. Once all duties are finished, by around the middle of the day, they will have free time for about 2 hours before having dinner and going to sleep again so that astronauts can get an appropriate amount of sleep (8 hours).