Moon City: The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, is dreaming of establishing human settlements on the Moon and Mars. But new research claims that building a city on the Moon is impossible. Let’s find out why scientists have given this.
According to a CNN report, a study was published on Monday in the journal “Frontiers in Space Technology.” In it, researchers reported that trillions of pounds of water are stored inside tiny glass beads spread across the Moon’s surface. But this water would not be enough to sustain a large city for long.
How many years will it take for the Moon’s water to run out?
The researchers wanted to know how large a city could be built on the Moon using the Moon’s water supply. Martin Elvish, lead author of the study and senior astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, explained that they calculated how long different population groups could survive, using 1 billion tons of water as an estimate. They found that a population of 1 million people would exhaust its water supply in less than two and a half years.
Elvish and his colleague, astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell (now an honorary professor at Durham University’s Space Research Centre (SPARC) in the UK), explained that water would be used extensively for drinking, cleaning, growing food, rocket fuel, and even breathing.
Recycling will last a century.
According to the researchers, if water is recycled efficiently, as the International Space Station has achieved a 98% water recovery rate, a city of 1 million people would take 100 years to exhaust it.
Smaller cities would be more successful.
The researchers calculated that a small city of about 100,000 people could survive for 1,000 years, which is long enough to be considered sustainable. Whereas if you have a small city of just 10,000 people… you’ll have water for 10,000 years.
Elon Musk’s Announcement
Musk announced in February that his aerospace company, SpaceX, is focusing on building a self-sustaining city on the Moon rather than colonising Mars. Elon Musk says that achieving the goal of establishing a city on the Moon will be faster, perhaps in less than 10 years.
