NASA Moon Habitat

NASA Moon Habitat

NASA's Exploration Technology Development Program is working on designs for a Moon habitat

The light-weight experimental house shown here is inflatable, so would not take up much space until needed.

The materials to build the Moon habitat should be lightweight, since they will have to be boosted out of Earth's gravitational field using rockets.The habitat will have to be sent to the Moon in pieces and assembled by the explorers once they arrive. So it should be easy to put together, since the Moon explorers will be working in space suits.

As with any Moon habitat, it must have an airlock. The airlock is a small room between the door to the outside and the door to the inside. Both doors must close very tight and not leak any air. Before the astronaut opens the outside door, the inside door must be closed. The astronaut enters the airlock and closes the outside door. Then the airlock is pumped full of air. Only then can the astronaut open the inside door to enter the habitat. Leaving the habitat, the astronaut (in a spacesuit, of course), steps into the airlock with the outside door closed. The inside door is then closed and all the air pumped out of the airlock, making it a vacuum, just like the outside. The astronaut opens the outside door and steps outside.