ESA Moon Village

The European Space Agency's boss Jan Woerner plans to build a village on the moon.

'The future of space travel needs a new vision,'

The concept is a base for lunar exploration by humans and robots, which would act as a stopover for spacecraft, and become a 'village' with mining and even tourism.

The project could allow exploration of the far side of the moon.

'No human has ever visited the far side of the Moon,' he wrote.

'Astronomers want to set up radio telescopes there because it is shaded from Earth's radio pollution. Building a telescope with innovative techniques like 3Dprinting, perhaps using lunar soil, would enable us to look much deeper into the Universe.

'No human has ever visited the lunar pole regions, where unmanned missions found water ice.

'Water is an important resource, because you can produce rocket propellant and oxygen from it.

'Both lunar regions are scientifically very promising places.'