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Our moon base will be more appropriate to a more advanced civilization fase, due to it’s dimensions and constitution. The base can be augmented to receive more habitants, and it will still ensure all the conditions necessary so they can live well and safely. Our main goal for our base was to guarantee a safe and sustenable space, that would allow the astronauts all the conditions to do the investigations and work needed, but that would also allow a good quality of life (through food and spaces built), because our base was idealized to be a permanent colony on the moon, with people staying on it for long periods of time. The base is built around a central dome, having space for habitations and gymnasiums. There will be two laboratories, a greenhouse, a solar panel field, rover stations and a rocket hangar.

Our moon base will be located in the northern rim of Peary Crater, the closest large lunar impact crater to the lunar north pole, due to it’s pratically constant illumination in the vast majority of the region, perfect for the use of solar power and also providing a relatively stable temperature at -50ºC, helping to regulate the temperature of the base evenly. There are also zones permanently shadowed, which may provide ice and low temperatures to help control and make the nuclear batteries more productive.

The cost of a trip to the Moon is very high. If we had to take all the resources from Earth, the cost would increase. This way, we have to extract resources like the moon soil (regolith). Using this, the construction of bricks would be possible, which would allow the construction of a building, using 3D printing. This way, we wouldn´t need the existence of a material to unite the bricks, such as cement. In our perspective, this would be the most adequate method, because it reduces the costs of the journey, which is an important factor on the final costs, which is a fact that we need to consider when we send things to space.

Given the high possibility of existence of ice near our chosen region, we can mine it and transport it in rovers to the base, where we can heat it and mineralize it, if needed. We can also heat the ice directly in the deposit zone using electrical resistances and transport it using tubes (also heated to avoid cloggings).

Our base will have a Greenhouse, in which the astronauts will produce mainly vegetables, the base of their diet, using seeds and soil from Earth, and taking advantage of the illumination in the majority of the region, or artificial illumination in other levels of the Greenhouse. In order to produce other proteins or vitamins essencial for a good diet of the astronauts, there will be a small laboratory inside the Greenhouse to create them.

Our base’s power will be divided in two: solar and nuclear energy. Using RTG’s (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator), a kind of nuclear energy that uses heat from the natural radioactive decay of plutonium-238 to generate electricity, we can charge batteries for decades with the same quantity of radioactive material. We’ll use this batteries for more demanding situations. A huge field of solar panels will provide basically all the energy required for the correct functioning of the base, only being replaced by the nuclear energy if some problem happens with the “solar field”.

Huge underground tubes will connect the centre of the colony to the greenhouse, in which, via photosynthesis, the carbon dioxide will be exchanged for oxygen, which will then be distributed, repeating the process. Another process to be used will be taking the oxygen from the lunar soil (it being the most abundant element in it), heating it and applying an electrical current to it. This can be a long and hard process, but it pays of if any other process turns out to be inefficient.

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The coating of the habitations and of the rest of the base needs to resist collisions, extreme temperature variations and pressure variations, cosmic rays… The best materials for this purpose will be steel and titanium, which will thicken the walls, so we will use this materials to reinforce the base, ensuring the safety of everyone.

A day on the lunar base, won’t be like in a beach resort, it will envolve a hard long day of scientific research and maintinence, to ensure the survivability of the astronauts, during the 6 months period, in which they will be deployed on the moon.

The timetable will be divided in 3 parts, acording to the time on Planet Earth, being that it will be caracterized by the periods of Morning, Afternoon and Evening. Due to the time zones of the planet, it will be used as a reference, the Greenwich Meridian Time (GMT), in which Portugal is placed.

Morning:

The day begins at 7.30AM, with the Dawn bulge call, where the inhabitants personal hygenes will be dealt with and the blinders will be opened, in order to simulate the sunrise and aproximating the situation to the Earth, with the intente to maintain the mental sanity of the astronauts. This is then followed by breakfast at 8.00AM and going to the gym at 9.00AM, so that the astronaut’s body mass is maintained.

After the physical exercise, it will be necesary to begin duties in the respective assignments until lunchtime, at arround 12.30PM, where the astronauts will have about 1 hour to eat and, opening the Afternoon period.

Tarde:

When the leisure is finnished, the labour on each department must ensue, to ensure that science advances and also to maintain the ideal conditions to ensure life to avoid the astronauts death.The last stage of labour will continue until 6.30PM, in order to guarantee a work period of 8 hours.

At 7PM, it will be made na extra to the phisycal exercise, to relieve the stress from work,as well as well as maintainig the fitness of the astronauts.

At arround 8PM, dinner will be served and after it’s end, the inhabitants will enter the evening period. At this time, the blinders will be shut, in order to replace the sunset.

Evening:

This period, will be noticed by the fact that the setlers are relieved and can preform leisure activities, or even continue researches or duties they have to do such has cleaning and research up to the recommended bedtime at arround 11.00PM.