Building on the Moon: Tests for Future Lunar Missions Begin on Earth, at a New Center in Texas
Recently, the crew for the Artemis III mission was announced, which will include Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano, who will conduct tests in low Earth orbit (LEO) dedicated to lunar landers. The aim is to establish a long-lasting presence on the Moon through a permanent lunar base in response to China's ILRS (International Lunar Research Station).
To prepare for future missions to the lunar surface, starting with Artemis IV (in 2028), engineers are looking for solutions to problems encountered during the Apollo program. Specifically, they are focusing on a silent hazard: this is not soil in the traditional sense but rather lunar regolith. This is an ultra-fine, sharp, and lethal dust composed of rock and glass fragments that can corrode seals, damage closures, and float in a vacuum environment bombarded by radiation and temperature fluctuations capable of warping steel.
Lunar exploration starts from Earth. Texas A&M University is considering lunar regolith as a raw material to build the first permanent settlements on the Moon. The starting point is essentially economic. Transporting materials from Earth to the Moon costs between one million and 1.3 million dollars per kilogram, a figure that makes any colonization project based solely on terrestrial resources unthinkable.
The solution, therefore, necessarily involves using what is already present on the lunar surface (utilization of in situ resources). Patrick Suermann (a construction science professor at the Texas A&M College of Architecture and a retired U.S. Air Force colonel) stated, "we need to stop thinking like explorers and start thinking like settlers. We need to build with what we have under our feet."
In addition to settlements, plans are in place for producing rocket propellant. Transporting it from Earth costs about ten thousand dollars per kilogram, while local production on the Moon would drop the price to five hundred dollars. To seek solutions to these problems, the Texas A&M University Space Institute was established, led by Professor Robert Ambrose and backed by a two hundred million dollar investment from the Texas legislature.
It's important to note that the facility is located next to the Johnson Space Center in Houston and spans an area of about ninety-seven acres. Inside, there are test zones that accurately reproduce the surfaces of the Moon and Mars. Various tests can be conducted under real conditions, such as the absence of radiation shielding, violent temperature fluctuations between lunar day and night, and dust capable of infiltrating any mechanism.
At the Texas A&M University Space Institute, we also find the CASE Lab (Construction Automation, Safety, and Education) overseen by Professor Gilles Albeaino. Here, one of the most delicate aspects of the entire lunar space exploration endeavor is addressed: how to effectively work together with humans and robots, not as operators and remote tools, but as true partners.
Suermann has worked in remote or hard-to-reach areas of Earth during his service with the Air Force. He has specifically built infrastructure from the Arctic to the desert regions of Afghanistan, looking for new solutions to the challenges ahead. If there is ever a permanent base on the Moon, it will also be thanks to the work done on Earth over these years. The challenge is just beginning, and many difficulties lie ahead, but space exploration will also have repercussions here on our Planet and beyond, looking towards Mars.