Expert Urges NASA To Test Mars Base Tech On Moon First

An expert from France’s space agency suggested that the technology that will be used in Mars human colonies should be tested on the Moon first. According to the expert, the upcoming mission to the Moon will help space agencies prepare for a voyage to the Red Planet.

Currently, NASA is preparing the various phases for its latest spaceflight program dubbed as Artemis. According to the agency, the first major step in the program is to send a new crewed mission to the Moon.

If everything goes well for the agency, the upcoming lunar expedition will then be followed by a human mission to Mars.

For Erwan Beauvois, a space operations engineer for France’s National Center for Space Studies (CNES), NASA should look into bringing the technology it intends to use on Mars on the upcoming mission to the Moon. Beauvois noted that doing so will allow NASA and other space agencies to test if the technological systems they intend to use for a human colony on Mars will really work.

“There's a long road leading to sustainability, but there are opportunities for technology transfer," Beauvois said during the recent International Astronautical Congress held in Washington D.C., according to Space.com.

"A good moon program is a good Mars program,” he added. “If you think of the space program as a road map, it can be coherent, and it is pretty beneficial to do this."

One of the technologies that Beauvois suggested is the development of an artificial ecosystem on the Moon. Theoretically, this ecosystem would cultivate microorganisms such as bacteria and algae that can recycle air and waste on the lunar surface in order to naturally produce important resources such as oxygen and food.

If such an ecosystem is established, it would eliminate or at least minimize the need for regular resupply missions to a lunar base.

Another system that the operations engineer brought up is the extraction of water from dust on the Moon. According to Beauvois, this method can also be applied to the regolith on Mars, which would serve as an important step in establishing a habitable colony on the Red Planet.