Chinese researchers look to Chongqing caves for lunar answers

Chinese researchers have chosen a potential karst cave, in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality, as a terrestrial simulation platform to test and design a human base in the lunar lava tube, according to a report on Science and Technology Daily.

They have published their joint research results in an article titled Karst Cave as Terrestrial Simulation Platform to Test and Design Human Base in Lunar Lava Tube in the English journal Space: Science & Technology.

Xie Gengxin, an author of the article, said that human beings must set up a safe, stable, low-power consumption and long-term shelter if they want to survive on other planets for a long time, and the tube has the advantages to provide such an ideal habitat.

The tube is a hollow tubular cave formed by volcanic activity and has a hard basalt top, according to Xie, deputy head of the Center of Space Exploration under the Ministry of Education. It offers stable structures, suitable temperatures, low radiation doses and low meteorite impact rates.

Until now, more than 300 potential cave entrances or "skylights" have been identified on the moon, which can be used as natural alternative for the lunar base, Xie said. The "skylight" is a kind of pit caused by an active lava tube collapsing.

Xie, also dean of the Advanced Technology Research Institute of Chongqing University, said that the Earth's karst caves can be considered as good analogs of lunar lava tubes within three aspects: structure, environment, and insulation.

Although the formation mechanism and environment of the Earth karst caves and the lunar lava tube are different, they are similar in size and both are curved semicircle caves, and the space provided by the karst cave meets the current research needs at this stage, Xie said.

Researchers intend to find potential karst caves in Chongqing and simulate the internal environment of extraterrestrial caves and isolate them from the external environment by sealing the caves.

The cave experiment is divided into two parts: the first part is the automatic construction technology in the cave and the in-situ utilization technology; and the other part is the artificial ecosystem experiment, using light pipes to introduce sunlight into the ecological laboratory and provide it for crop growth.

Xie said that researchers have to solve two major problems, how to seal a large building and how to remotely control the machine for construction. Researchers will focus on sealing technology, automatic construction technology, underground communication and ecosystem circulation.