NASA recently gave a company $57.2 million to develop infrastructure for the Moon but one astronaut doesn’t think we’ll all be living there any time soon.
Nasa astronaut Stan Love spoke exclusively to The U.S. Sun about plans for humans to live on the Moon and why he doesn’t think it’s a great idea to have people there permanently.
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Love thinks some humans will live on the Moon for work but won’t make a permanent home.
He told The U.S. Sun: “I think they will live on the Moon and have a base there.
“But I don’t imagine they’ll move their families there. My example is Antarctica.
“We’ve had people in Antarctica continuously since 1957 and that’s around 60 years ago and no one’s moved their family there.
“What are the schools like? Yeah no, we’re not going there.”
Love explained that he thinks any future Moon bases will be treated more like a research station than a city.
He said: “It will be like an Antarctica research station. Antarctica is a really good analogy for the Moon, it’s been used for science.
“All nations share it, although some nations claim it, they don’t recognize each other’s claims.
“Military use is not allowed and resource extraction is not allowed right now.”
He laughed when adding: “The Moon has those precious resources so we might want to tweak that treaty and make sure we can use them.”
Moon ice is going to become a hot commodity when research stations are finally on the surface.
Any other unknown natural resources will also be highly desired as they could aid with prolonged stays on the Moon and even help us launch rockets from there.
Even though Love doesn’t think humans will be living on the Moon, Nasa has given 3D printing firm Icon $57.2 million to develop a plan that could help build infrastructure on the lunar surface.
Types of infrastructure would include landing pads, habitats, and roads on the lunar surface.
Not only would the developments be built for Nasa but for commercial companies, as well.