More than one hundred people will live in the Lunar Village (3 photos + video)

At ESA (European Space Agency)developed a curious plan, more like a science fiction. Here it is believed that in the coming years, the ISS can be sent on a well-deserved rest. A new international project in the space sector will be the lunar settlement. From the ice located on the moon, water will be extracted, tools and houses will be printed on 3D printers, and plants grown in local soil.

Bernard Foing, Representative Europeanspace agency, said at the European Congress of Planetologists in Riga that the first colonists could be on the Moon for a decade and a half. This will be up to ten specialists, and in a quarter of a century already the number of settlers will exceed a hundred.

& times

By the 50th year of this century, there will be a thousandmoon inhabitants. Then, perhaps, on the satellite will appear the first families, with children born on the moon. At the moment, delivery of relatives to the "Lunnaya derevnya" village would cost at least hundreds of millions of euros per person. But for several decades now, this figure will significantly decrease. On the moon there is the possibility of basalt mining and the use of extracted materials for three-dimensional printing of spacecraft. Running them from the lunar surface is forty times cheaper than from the earth.

Water is quite possible to get at the poles of the satelliteout of ice. If you split it into oxygen with hydrogen, it is possible to produce raw materials for rocket fuel. Scientists also noted the presence of the helium-3 isotope. It can be the basis for safe, clean nuclear energy.

According to Christiana Heinicke, physicist, lunarlife will be difficult. She understands what is being said: together with other scientists, she spent a year in the dome of the dome, trying to imitate the Martian life. Being in a residential module or in a spacesuit outside, a person does not fully feel the atmosphere of the planet. From colleagues, he can not go anywhere. And green grass behind the window will be replaced by rough stones, but so unlike the sky we are used to.

Scientists complain that at this stage of the policy is notshow serious interest in their idea of ​​"Moon Village". Although the project was strongly supported by commercial firms and representatives of the scientific world. SpaceX will launch tourist travel to the moon next year. The ship Dragon 2 only, having rounded the satellite, will return tourists home. But NASA and Roscosmos plans to build a new space station in the lunar orbit.

Source: phys.org