Building a Home on the Moon

Series date: September 7, 2026

From a feather falling beside a hammer to a light left on for the next crew, this 32-article series explores the science, skills, and people needed for a lasting lunar presence.

A Moon base is the subject that connects the articles. Each chapter approaches a different part of the larger question: what would it take to make a place that remains useful for the people who arrive next? The series moves from the reasons for returning to the Moon to the practical work of transport, power, communications, construction, resources, health, and everyday life.

Follow the complete journey

The opening articles introduce the main ambitions and approaches. The next group looks at the journey and the infrastructure that would support it, including rockets, cargo, electricity, navigation, software, and rovers. From there, the series turns to site selection, dust, building materials, repairs, water, and the choices involved in producing supplies locally.

The later articles bring the discussion inside the habitat. Air, water, food, radiation protection, work, rest, and emergency planning belong in the same conversation as engineering. The closing chapters consider rules, costs, economic promises, possible benefits on Earth, science, and what it means to leave a useful place for another crew.

Read the articles in order using the contents below, or choose a question that interests you. Every article has links to the previous and next chapter and back to this page. The reader introduction explains how the manuscript distinguishes historical events, current plans, and imagined future scenes.

Continue with the lunar economy

This series asks what it takes to establish a lasting foothold. Its companion asks what people might do once that foothold exists. Building the Lunar Economy contains 60 articles about possible services, research, jobs, businesses, and wider public benefits. The two collections are linked so readers can move from the practical requirements of a base to the opportunities and tradeoffs around it.

Contents

Articles

1. We Are Not Just Returning to the Moon—We Are Preparing to Stay
2. Why the Lunar South Pole Attracts So Much Attention
3. America’s New Moon Base Strategy
4. Elon Musk’s Lunar City: What Would It Take to Grow?
5. China’s Road to a Crewed Landing and Lunar Research Station
6. Two Lunar Systems—and the Problem of the Wrong Plug
7. The Moon Has Room for More Than Two Flags
8. The Road to the Moon Begins on Earth
9. The Whole Trip: Comparing Lunar Rockets Fairly
10. The Moon Needs a Loading Dock
11. Keeping the Lights On When the Sun Goes Away
12. Building the Moon’s Internet, GPS and Clock
13. When a Software Update Becomes a Life-Support Question
14. The Lunar Rover Becomes a Truck, Laboratory and Home
15. Before the First Habitat: Choosing the Site
16. Landing Pads, Roads and Flying Moon Dust
17. Can We Build with Moon Dirt?
18. The Repair Shop That Keeps the Base Alive
19. Finding Water Is Not the Same as Running a Mine
20. Making Air and Rocket Propellant from Lunar Resources
21. What Should a Moon Base Make First?
22. A Home That Makes Its Own Air and Reuses Its Water
23. Radiation, Dust and a Body Built for Earth
24. Taco Night on the Moon: The Real Work of Space Farming
25. Work, Sleep and the Right to Close a Door
26. When Something Goes Wrong: Shelter, Medicine and a Way Home
27. Who Can Use the Moon—and Who Makes the Rules?
28. What Will a Moon Base Cost—and Who Will Pay?
29. Helium-3, Lunar Factories and the Big-Promise Test
30. What People on Earth Could Gain
31. Listening to the Early Universe from the Moon
32. The Day a Moon Base Becomes a Place