Karst Cave as Terrestrial Simulation Platform to Test and Design Human Base in Lunar Lava Tube

Abstract

Developing efficient approaches to building a suitable environment for humans on the moon play a key role in future long-term sustainable lunar exploration activities, which has motivated many countries to propose diverse plans to build a lunar base. The lava tubes discovered by the Kaguya mission offer huge potential sites to host such bases. Through computation and analysis, we show that lunar lava tubes offer stable structures, suitable temperatures, low radiation doses, and low meteorite impact rates. We summarize previous research results and put forward the conditions to find and use a suitable lunar lava tube for human habitation on the moon. The establishment of extraterrestrial bases still faces many technical bottlenecks; many countries have begun to use the earth’s environment for extraterrestrial exploration and simulation missions. In this regard, we proposed the idea of using the Earth’s karst caves to simulate extraterrestrial lava tubes, selected caves in Chongqing as the simulation site, and demonstrated the feasibility from both structural and environmental aspects. Finally, we proposed a karst cave simulation platform with three main research directions: cave sealing technology, efficient daylight system, and internal circulation research of artificial ecosystems containing natural soil and rock. We hope to promote the development of related research on extraterrestrial bases through simulation experiments.