Pressurised natural caves could offer a home from home on the Moon
It would make building bases a lot cheaper and easier
Imagine a habitable colony on Mars or the Moon and the kinds of structures that come to mind are probably gleaming domes or shiny metallic tubes snaking over the surface. But with no Earth-like atmosphere or magnetic field to repel solar radiation and micrometeorites, space colonists would probably need to pile metres-thick rocks and geological rubble onto the roofs of such off-world settlements. More like a hobbit hole than Moonbase Alpha.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Lunar living”
Science & technology March 18th 2023
From the March 18th 2023 edition
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