GabyNASA says the railway will be crucial for operating lunar bases over the next decade.
The idea of building a railway on the Moon sounds like science fiction. You are not alone. The lunar railway is one of six “science fiction” concepts that NASA will fund through its “Innovative Advanced Concepts” program.
The company Flexible Levitation on the Track (FLOAT) plans to use magnetic, engine-less robots to transport about 100 tons of materials daily across the Moon’s surface. According to the project team, this will be a reliable, autonomous way to move resources extracted on the Moon.
Dr. Ethan Schaller, the project’s lead and a robotics engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, wrote, “A reliable and durable robotic transport system will be crucial for the daily operations of a sustainable lunar base in the 2030s.” In his blog, Dr. Schaller added, “We want to build the first lunar railway system that will provide reliable, autonomous, and efficient transportation of cargo on the Moon.”
What makes this marvel of engineering so impressive?
Unlike Earth railways, the lunar transport network will not use familiar fixed tracks. Dr. Schaller and his team propose segments of a flexible pathway that can be deployed directly on the lunar surface and, if necessary, rolled up and moved to another location.
FLOAT plans to operate the pathway with magnetic, engine-less robots that hover above the surface of the tracks. The tracks would generate electromagnetic propulsion to move the robots to their destinations. On Earth, maglev trains use strong electromagnetic fields to move motorless carriages along specialized tracks. In other words, the tracks—rather than the vehicles—would provide propulsion, the Daily Mail explained.
Dr. Schaller says each robot will carry loads of various shapes and sizes at about 1.61 km/h across the lunar surface. Because they hover, these robots should not wear down the flexible tracks in the Moon’s dusty environment.
What are the next steps for the colonization of the Moon?
Although the idea of building lunar bases may seem far-fetched to some, the possibility of a sustained human presence on Earth’s natural satellite is becoming more realistic every year.
As part of the Artemis program, NASA plans to land a crew near the Moon’s south pole, a region believed to hold ice in its craters. Although the agency has delayed that landing, it says it will continue advancing its projects to put humans on the Moon.
In his blog, Dr. Schaller noted that FLOAT “will operate autonomously in a dusty, inhospitable environment.” Future Moon explorers will be able to use the system to transport mined regolith or to deliver materials to landing sites.
Jim Free, NASA’s Deputy Administrator for Research Systems Development, said the agency is likely to establish more than one base camp as part of the Artemis lunar landing campaign. Ultimately, NASA and its partners will aim to build permanent lunar settlements. But because conditions on the Moon are so harsh, extracting and transporting materials could be dangerous for humans.
