Though President Obama may have cancelled NASA’s mission to the Moon, that doesn’t mean the reasons to go there and establish a base aren’t continuing to add up. The latest comes via the Indian Space Research Organization who may have discovered a unique geological feature on the Moon that would make building a lunar base easier. Well, perhaps I shouldn’t say on the Moon. It’s more about what is in the Moon.
The organization has discovered a giant underground chamber near the Moon’s equator in an area referred to as the Oceanus Procellarum. The discovered chamber is much longer than the vertical moon hole found in 2009 by the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) which could house a small lunar base. Instead, the new chamber could house a small lunar city due to the fact that it’s one mile long and 393 feet wide. The new cave was discovered by the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft which was India’s first unmanned lunar proble launched in 2008. Chandrayaan-1 also assisted in the discovery of water on the Moon in September 2009 through the use of NASA‘s Moon Mineralogy Mapper.
By utilizing the existing underground geography on the Moon, a lunar base could be established much more easily due to the fact that the environment is more constant compared to the lunar surface which might see fluctuations of temperature between 266 degrees and -292 degrees Fahrenheit. In comparison, the newly found lava structure stays a consistent -4 degrees Fahrenheit. Another advantage is that the structure would provide natural protection from radiation, impacts, dust and extreme variations in temperature.
Of course, with the cancellation of NASA’s mission to the Moon, a lunar moon base seems a bit further out of reach, but at least we can say that when such a mission is renewed we now have a good starting point for a base.