Enabling technologies to support human life in permanent lunar base

The Moon is the next destination for future human space exploration beyond LEO and a key element of the roadmap towards humans missions to the ultimate goal, Mars. This evolutionary path is fundamental to reduce risks and costs associated to deep space missions, as well as to allow testing and validation of critical technologies. Indeed, a major factor affecting deep space mission resides in the ability to cope with a hostile environment, which make the human survival the most critical aspect. In this sense, lunar exploration is an essential milestone to achieve for setting a new era of coordinated human and robotic missions, enabled by broad international cooperation. Our natural satellite has been visited by astronauts in quite recent years, but only for short sorties, so longer missions would be needed to widen the exploration horizons. Extended lunar operations are of real interest, because the surface of the Moon is rich of resources, but this eventually requires the establishment of a human outpost. The paper analyzes enabling technologies related to long stay on the lunar surface, and investigates solutions to support human life. Main aspects that have been dealt with include crew size, tasks analysis, outpost location and configuration, the feasibility of ISRU facility and of lunar greenhouse, and EVAs. The crew and its related life support system are sized starting from the analysis of tasks and activities to be performed, as well as accounting for psychological and social aspects. For the assessment of habitat location and configuration, particular attention has been given to geography and illumination of the site. Illumination studies have been carried out using VERITAS, a VR software tool by Thales Alenia Space: this allows defining a virtual scene, analyzing it and interacting with the simulation. Moreover, the aim is indeed to respond to the need of a self-sustaining lunar outpost, where most of the consumables necessary for life support, such as oxygen, water and food, are produced in-situ: this is why ISRU and Greenhouse technologies are building blocks of key importance of the architecture of long stay manned missions. EVAs play also a crucial role for the sustainment of the outpost. The next generation space suit for such EVAs has been examined, with particular attention to ergonomics aspects, also considering the possible injuries that astronauts can experience.