Lunar Learning, Infrastructure, and Experience
Limited Time
Humans have plenty of time and money to prepare for lunar exploration. But our knowledge of the Moon? We could do better, but it’s not for a lack of effort.
Despite humanity’s well-advertised visits to the Moon, the total number of days humans have lived on our satellite’s surface is about 11. The Apollo 17 mission took the most of those days—three—as Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt crammed in as much exploration and experimentation as they could, occasionally singing as they worked. Three days—that’s not a lot of time for even the most scripted research and exploration schedule.
In comparison, three days is about the minimum number of days necessary for enjoying the Disney parks next to Orlando, Florida. Three days barely allows a young family to enjoy three amusement parks like: EPCOT, the Magic Kingdom, and Animal Kingdom. Despite convenient transportation, air conditioning, a generally decent (but sweaty) environment, and water everywhere (even the potable stuff), three days barely allows a young couple to do those things.
Like Disney visitors, Cernan and Schmitt had a full schedule. They took pictures and videos (of the Moon, not Mickey). The astronauts drove a little over twenty roadless miles in a lunar rover, picked up rocks and soil samples, and drilled out core samples. They accomplished exploration and research in cumbersome suits in a hostile lunar environment (arguably more hostile than Orlando in the summer). They were expected to contribute to humanity’s knowledge of the Moon, and they did.
The knowledge and exploration of all astronauts on the Moon’s surface was invaluable, but as any kid leaving the Magic Kingdom will tell you, three days is not enough. Humanity needs more time and experience on the Moon. It has a long way to go before building a comfortable lunar human habitat, much less an amusement park that takes advantage of its unique low-gravity characteristics.
Building a Highway to the Moon
That is a lengthy way of explaining why NASA and others send lunar landers to the Moon. Despite the last crewed lunar mission being conducted over fifty years ago, there's so much more Moon knowledge to be gained.
Getting there is expensive and time-consuming (much like Disney tickets and standing in line for a ride), primarily because every way to get there is experimental. Lunar and space infrastructure needs to be in place for humans to learn more about the Moon effectively.
Infrastructure is the systems humans create to make life more comfortable and tasks easier. A county road is part of transportation infrastructure, as is the truck driving down that road, lugging a shipping container behind it. Roman aqueducts were a part of Rome’s water infrastructure. Infrastructure exists for power, water, communications, excavating, and many other services and activities here on Earth. It’s pervasive and, ideally, reliable, making life without it challenging to imagine.
And yet, that’s what life will be like on the Moon for a long while. No infrastructure exists on the Moon, just the probes, rovers, and human detritus from previous lunar exploration efforts. When someone outfits a mission for the Moon, the understanding is that the equipment will likely remain behind—until someone else finally comes around and collects it for recycling or conservation.
But then, that requires recycling infrastructure, which some U.S. communities have difficulty working out in the human-friendly environments here on Earth.
Getting to the Moon is challenging, which is why NASA has doled out multiple contracts for lunar landers and rovers. Whether the fruits of those contracts will finally result in building a transportation infrastructure is unclear. However, establishing a transportation infrastructure will allow the agency and others to transport payloads (and eventually, people) to the Moon more frequently and reliably.
Such an infrastructure will aid humanity in becoming more acquainted with working in the lunar environment, from craters to lava tubes. But, as Astrobotic’s unfortunate Peregrine mission demonstrated, current transportation options to the Moon are less reliable than a Disney monorail ride.
Getting to Know the Moon Using Landers and Rovers
Despite Astrobotic’s challenges, sending remotely operated lunar landers and rovers to the Moon remains a much more straightforward and less complicated proposition than sending humans. Lunar equipment operators only need to worry about the machines they are sending to the moon. There is no need to consider the requirements and comforts of squishy humans.
Pressure differences? Metal wins out over meat. Extreme temperature swings? Well-designed electronic equipment tolerates that. Oxygen requirements? Maybe for propellant. Radiation? Safe mode is there for that (hopefully). Even with ways to overcome lunar environment challenges, what these commercial lunar companies are attempting is challenging, with some predecessors leaving several lunar pockmarks demonstrating how hard it is.
Lunar lander and rover operators would love their machines to do more than survive. The Moon and its environment work against their desire. The blanket of fine rock dust on the Moon’s surface, regolith, is no machine’s or person’s friend. It builds up static charge, coats everything, and can eventually cause equipment failure. According to Apollo astronauts, it seemed like the dust was everywhere. However, one observation indicates that it might not be so bad. Verifying either is a good reason for sending more moon landers and rovers.
Commercial lunar companies want their transportation systems to last long enough so that their payloads can expand their and humanity’s knowledge of the Moon. Maybe they will discover a few pointers for humans along the way so that they can do more than survive. Those companies might even profit.
Some will do much more applied research to help prove theories. Some are familiar with terrestrial services and activities and will conduct such work on the Moon, such as setting up a lunar communications network through rovers and satellites. Others, however, are more complex and ambitious, such as learning how to build bricks and then building structures using those bricks (the modern equivalent of adobe construction, except with robots—on the Moon’s surface—in the dust).
The companies’ contributions to lunar exploration vary in purpose. They are exploring not just the Moon but different infrastructure systems that could be set up on the Moon. Communications, shipping (transportation), and navigation are different infrastructure sectors being explored by these companies. Since these efforts are being set up on and around the Moon, the technology they use generally sits at the very beginning of the Hype Cycle.
Guided Lunar Activities
Not all pursuits are solely driven by NASA’s desires. DARPA’s 10-Year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) capability study also contributed a few categories. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) produced a Lunar Market Assessment research paper as well. Its paper contains similar categories to NASA and DARPA, plus a few extras, such as the concept of Lunar data. As PwC describes it, that latter category carries all the promises made for Earth observation data similarly but with less market potential.
All in all, the three organizations agree that transportation is a critical component of lunar exploration. At the very least, transportation includes rockets, spacecraft, landers, and rovers. Each transportation piece is challenging on its own.
NASA’s high-visibility programs, such as Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS—basically shipping) and Human Landing Systems (HLS—transportation), are baby steps towards building a transportation infrastructure between the Moon and Earth. They are transportation projects for conveying payloads and, eventually, humans to the Moon.
At the risk of providing an obvious example, Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander is transportation. Like airplanes, cars, trains, and ships, a lunar lander transports something—people, payloads, rovers, etc., from one point to another. Since Blue Moon will transport stuff and people to and from the Moon, it is placed squarely in the Infrastructure category, as are the other lunar landers. Robotic lunar rovers are also considered transportation, even if their immediate focus is merely determining how vehicles might work on the Moon’s surface.
However, companies are researching and developing more than transportation. They are also working on agriculture, communications, mining, construction, utilities, and navigation infrastructure. Some companies are working on enabling technologies for these categories, such as propulsion systems, sensors, robotics, flight control systems, and spacesuits. Others research critical knowledge enabled through lunar exploration, such as life sustainment, medicine, and lunar/planetary science.
Companies are testing designs and concepts with their landers and rovers. Those include autonomous flight systems, propulsion, autonomous robots, and even pervasive technologies, such as cranes (they don’t work on the Moon as they do on Earth). That critical distinction—what works on Earth probably does not work on the Moon—also indicates less mature technology readiness levels. On the Moon, even a crane, a technology that’s been around for centuries, will not work in the way humans are used to.
One example is the U.S. company Offworld. It is researching and demonstrating ways to mine the Moon using robot swarms. However, it’s also worked on ideas for digging up water on the Moon, a critical resource for anyone who wants to live longer than a few days on the Moon.
Crescent Space Services is tackling a different problem. It has publicized plans for deploying hundreds of satellites around the Moon to relay data and provide a lunar positioning service. Considering the lack of communications and PNT infrastructure around the Moon, both are desirable. It’s unclear if Crescent publicized its plans to gain some mindshare with NASA. It might be seeking to win some project funding from that agency.
These companies’ prototypes will not be deployed in the tens, much less hundreds. They are forerunners and a tiny part of the future lunar transportation infrastructure. If successful, they will have the distinction of working in a lunar environment. They will provide data—feedback—for companies and agencies to learn from, failures and successes.
The latest success belongs to Intuitive Machines as its lander landed on the Moon. However, the company learned through its success that a higher center of gravity and testing shortcuts make Moon landings more interesting.
Lunar Contraptions
Projects by NASA, DARPA, and other government agencies with Moon exploration plans are also research and development. CLPS and HLS are leveraging startups and commercial companies to accomplish R&D. Much more work needs to be performed to mature any company’s lunar transportation technology. The public is seeing some of that work.
Companies working on lunar programs for NASA and others have produced machines with a superficial resemblance to those introduced by companies and inventors learning to fly in the Earth’s atmosphere. Many of those flight pioneers’ attempts looked silly and nonsensical. A few inventions looked like they couldn’t possibly fly. Air transportation looked like a bird, a whirling maple seed pod, or it had to be complex, like the image below.
Maxim’s Fly Machine. Source: Everybody's Cyclopedia, Vol. 2, Syndicate Publishing Company, New York, Copyright 1912, F.E. Wright. from http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/public/maxim.html (public domain)
Inventors and companies learned from those silly-looking and dangerous air contraptions. That’s the age the lunar landers are in. Mistakes and Murphy’s Law are teaching their owners what not to do, and it’s to NASA’s credit that it’s willing to fund their misadventures.
Once these and other lessons sink in, serious plans for building an infrastructure for reliable lunar travel will emerge. An infrastructure that can safely transport robots and people to and from the Moon. One that can support people on the Moon for longer than three research-filled days. In time and after spending plenty of money, humanity’s knowledge of the Moon and how to survive there, perhaps even thrive, will grow.
For those curious about the details of these lunar programs, the companies working in them, and more, Astralytical can help. We understand a prospective vibrant lunar economy requires fundamental work, such as building infrastructure. We know it will take a lot of time and resources to build a foundation that results in a successful lunar toehold.
We hope this article provides readers with a glimpse of some of the challenges associated with lunar exploration and infrastructure and an idea of Astralytical’s depth of information for the small but active lunar business area.
John Holst is the Editor/Analyst of Ill-Defined Space, dedicated to analysis of activities, policies, and businesses in the space sector.
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