Name: What would it be like to live on the moon? - Alex Gendler
Uploaded: 2018-09-14T03:55:22.000Z
Duration: 4 min 52 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

You roll out of bed and leap eight meters  across your underground habitat.

The greywater from your sink drains into a small greenhouse

you head through a transport  chute to inspect the generator.

Outside, it's pitch black - just as  it's been for the last 12 days.

This isn't some post-apocalyptic scenario; it's just another day of life on the moon.

And with the European Space Agency's idea

to establish a functioning  "moon camp" by the 2020s,

Of course, living on  the moon won't be easy.

The camp envisioned is not so much a village as an inhabited research base

similar to those  in places like Antarctica.

But there are far greater obstacles to living on the moon than just cold weather.

Unlike the Earth, the moon has  no atmosphere and no magnetic field.

A person on its surface can receive  over 400 times the maximum safe dosage

enough to be fatal within ten hours,  even in a spacesuit.

The first step would likely involve robots

and 3D printers constructing  covered habitats from lunar soil,

formed by lava tubes  from the moon's volcanic past.

Supplies would need to be transported  from Earth at first.

Growing plants requires greenhouse soil  and air rich in carbon dioxide,

but could be synthesized  from recycled materials.

A water treatment plant could be supplied  by ice mined from the polar regions

using a specialized drill that can bore  two meters beneath the lunar surface.

Friendly bacteria and viruses necessary  to the human microbiome and immune system

would also have to be imported  or synthesized on site.

And lunar inhabitants would have  to exercise for hours a day

That's because the moon's gravity  is just one-sixth that of the Earth,

and the everyday strain of working  against gravity

is part of what keeps our bodies healthy.

It might seem strange to go  to all this trouble

to build a base on a dead rock  we've already visited.

But NASA's Apollo missions only explored  small portions of the moon.

such as ice near the poles and particles  of solar wind gases

They collectively show that the moon  has much more to teach us

A radio telescope on its far side could  observe the cosmos,

shielded from the Earth's electromagnetic interference.

And the lunar surface is rich in minerals, like silicon, aluminum, and magnesium,

creating great economic  potential for mining.

But the biggest benefit of the moon camp  may not lie on the moon but beyond it.

With the nearest possibly habitable  world light-years away,

and the International Space Station  to be retired in about a decade,

towards becoming  an interplanetary species.

And proposals such as  the Deep Space Gateway

envision launching future  missions from lunar orbit.

The smaller gravitational pull  would require less fuel to overcome,

allowing for larger ships and more cargo.

Meanwhile, the base on the surface  could serve as a testing ground

With Europe, Russia, China, and the US  expressing interest in the project,

the space agencies of all major nations,  as well as private companies.

the moon may be bustling  with mining operations,

alongside a construction yard  under an orbiting space port.

but now we're closer than ever  to making it part of humanity's home.