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Our First Moon Colony Will Be Filled With Garbage
Forget futuristic glass domes filled with plants and high-tech infrastructure, Jared Isaacman, the head of NASA, says of humanity’s first space colonies. In reality, because of the cost of travel, they will most likely be scrappy bases surrounded by garbage.
- We’re going back to the moon. - “And lift-off! Artemis II, now bound for the moon.” “History unfolding along with a history-making crew.” “The flight marks a key step in the broader Artemis program.” “So we can build the lunar base, realize the scientific and economic potential there, which is someday sending American astronauts to Mars.” What does the moon base look like physically? OK, so this is a good question because people ask me this, and sometimes we have a habit of jumping to the dream state. This amazing dome, right, with all this vegetation being grown in it, inside it. It’s going to look like a junkyard for a while. I mean, just set expectations here. We are going to land lots of low-cost rovers and landers and set up comm antennas. Those rovers are going to burn out after maybe a single lunar night. And that’s OK. Because we have to learn, and we have to learn in an inexpensive way to get the data to inform our future architecture. So yeah, you know what? For the first maybe, I don’t know, 10 years, it’s going to look like a pretty cool, futuristic junkyard with lots of landers and rovers around. But someday, someday that will evolve as the cost to put mass on the lunar surface goes down, into some pretty cool infrastructure.
Our First Moon Colony Will Be Filled With Garbage Our First Moon Colony Will Be Filled With Garbage
Forget futuristic glass domes filled with plants and high-tech infrastructure, Jared Isaacman, the head of NASA, says of humanity’s first space colonies. In reality, because of the cost of travel, they will most likely be scrappy bases surrounded by garbage.
By Interesting Times
April 3, 2026
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