Geoff Brooks, a chemical engineer with Australia’s Swinburne University, has been giving considerable thought to the challenges of building structures under the extreme conditions of the Moon. Temperatures swing from -180° C to 120° as the Moon alternates between intense light and deep darkness. The surface is bombarded by solar and cosmic rays. Glass-like dust particles get everywhere. Even the chemical behavior of materials changes.
“If you think about the way bricks are made, a bit like pottery, imagine trying to make pottery on the moon, where the perfect vacuum changes the way materials heat up and the shape that they take,” Brooks tells Create, an Australian engineering publication. “These are the kinds of experiments we’re now building, to test not only how the materials will react on the moon but how we can work with those conditions to create a structure.”
Humans will need structures to shelter them from cosmic rays and moon dust. “We will need buildings with thick walls to protect space travelers,” he says. “However, on the moon we have only the rocks on the ground and the sun to work with. Everything else is difficult and expensive to get there.”
Other research priorities include finding ways to manage abrasive dust, and recycling space junk.
Brooks heads a team of approximately 15 academics and PhD students encompassing disciplines such as mechanical engineering, mechatronics, product design, and physics.