The Remarkable Accuracy of Space 1999’s Moonbase Alpha
I’m in the research and planning phase of my next novel, which is a hard SF story set on the moon. This has so far been a lot of fun, not just in terms of learning amazing facts about the moon, but also being able to design and build a Lego moonbase model with my daughter.
But what really struck me as I did my research, which included a 2022 design study by NASA, was just how much Space 1999, which was made in 1975, got right with its own moonbase design. In fact, I would go as far as to say that in light of current plans for a real moonbase, most of the design holds up today.
Here are some of the things they got very, very right:
- Constructed from materials found on the moon. This is how a permanent moon base will be built — it’s going to be 3D printed on the moon with materials made from the lunar regolith. But, more to the point, it’s how a permanent moonbase would HAVE to be built, and not just because of the expense of bringing building materials to the moon. The moon is outside of the Earth’s magnetic field, and therefore has no protection from solar and cosmic radiation. Materials created from the lunar regolith, on the other hand, are quite good at blocking harmful radiation.
- Large spaces. This actually checks out — one of the key limiting factors of what you can build in space is what can be loaded onto a rocket ship. But, if your building materials are mainly already on the moon, this is no longer a problem. You can have large buildings and spaces. You can have proper living spaces for the people who live and work there. But, there is one limitation, and that brings me to…
- Almost no domes. You’d think that domes would be an obvious feature of a moonbase — they are, after all, the strongest structure it is possible to build. But, as I realized when I was figuring out what the moonbase in my own setting would look like, the realities of 3D printing with lunar materials argue against it. Moon dust is a nightmare to deal with — it has an electrostatic charge (so it attaches itself to and gets into just about everything), the actual particles are very spiky and harsh, and they would be hell on the equipment. So, you’d want to minimize the amount of material you had to use. And that lends itself to flat roofs (with the 1/6 gravity making it easier for the structure to bear the weight).
- Radiating out from a central point. That’s right out of the 2022 NASA design study. In fairness, in the design study the central point was the original lander, but if you’re actually building permanent structures, I think you’d want logistics/command and control in the centre instead…and that’s what’s at the centre of Alpha as well.
- Landing and launch pads well away from the rest of the moonbase. Bad things happen if a spaceship explodes on a landing pad, so just for safety you want them far away. But, there’s also a problem anything with thrusters causes — remember that moon dust? It travels a long way in 1/6 gravity. The 2022 design study even goes as far as to have a berm around the landing pads to protect the rest of the moonbase.
- Everything fully pressurized. So, interesting thing about moonbase design: you don’t need to bring oxygen. At least half of the materials on the lunar surface contain oxygen, and there are plenty of ways to get it out. The lunar dust also contains nitrogen brought there by the solar winds, along with quite a few other important elements.
- Water in situ. Actually a thing. There’s strong evidence for frozen water in the south polar region in places like Shackleton Crater, where the crater interior is in permanent darkness. And the thing about this is that between water and the elements in the lunar regolith, most of the things you need for sustaining life (except food) are already present on the moon. In fact, once you have in-situ water, you also have the ability to manufacture rocket fuel in tandem with the other resources present. And that’s why the location of the first permanent moon base is going to be somewhere in the lunar south polar region.
So, based on what we have for building a moonbase in 2024, the show stands up. They wouldn’t have to worry about running out of fuel, because they’d just be manufacturing it from the materials on site. From those same materials, they’d be able to repair spacecraft, computer components, etc. So as the manufacturing equipment is there, Moonbase Alpha would be pretty self-sufficient.
That said, what we now know the show got wrong (speaking from the first season and a smattering of the second season) is kind of interesting too:
- Concerns about how many people the life support system can support. Now that we know how easy it would be to get oxygen out of the materials on the moon, this just wouldn’t be a limiting factor. Actually, the big limiting factor would be food.
- A special anti-radiation force field. This just would not be necessary in the first place. So long as it’s thick enough, the regolith material used to construct the moonbase would protect it from radiation, as well as most micro meteoroids.
- Location. The water is in the south polar region, and that’s pretty much where the first moonbases will have to be.
- Gravity generation. That’s not a real thing. Moonbase Alpha would have the same gravity as the rest of the moon.
To learn more, I’d recommend reading The Moon: Resources, Future Development, and Settlement (Second Edition), by Schrunk, Sharpe, Cooper, and Thangavelu, as well as the NASA design study.
