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NASA predicts that it will be possible to construct residential houses on the lunar surface by 2040, more than 50 years after the agency eventually succeeded in landing the first man on the moon in 1969. According to a report by The New York Times, NASA hopes to achieve this feat using the help of 3D printing.
Social media users posted numerous jokes about how they would pass their time on the moon after learning this. However, some people felt like the government had their priorities wrong as problems still needed fixing on Earth, while others entirely disregarded the possibility of lunar living. One X user commented on the platform:
According to an October 1 report by The New York Times, NASA is gearing up to build residential homes on the moon by 2040, not just for astronauts but also for civilians. NASA’s director of technology maturation, Niki Werkheiser, told the outlet that this was always an inevitability and that they had all the right people needed for the job.
She further stated:
"We’re at a pivotal moment, and in some ways it feels like a dream sequence,"
She added:
"Everyone is ready to take this step together, so if we get our core capabilities developed, there’s no reason it’s not possible."
Netizens speculate living costs of NASA lunar homes
The Times report indicates that the agency will make use of 3D printing technology to build homes. NASA will launch 3D printers into the moon to help construct these buildings with the help of "specialized lunar concrete", from the lunar surface. As an indication that this was not a distant baseless speculation, the agency has partnered up with universities and industry giants in order to achieve this goal.
Once the news broke, the internet went wild, with a variety of social media accounts reporting the news and gaining a ton of traction. DailyLoud's tweet on October 3, regarding NASA's incredible speculation went viral on the platform, amassing over 840,000 views, at the time of writing this article.
The internet reacted to the news with a handful of memes. X users comedically speculated about what living on the moon would be like. Real estate prices, property taxes, the cost of rent, and the availability of Airbnb were some of the factors of discussion. A few people dismissed the whole thing and went on to claim that the moon landing was fake.
However, some X users were not impressed as they feared that the government was setting their priorities wrong. They felt like there was still a lot left to do on Earth, like fixing the homelessness problem, the massive rents, and the exploration of the still mostly unexplored ocean, before any lunar ambitions.
The last time, the moon was trending on the Internet was when the India-launched Chandrayaan-3 made a successful landing on the south pole of the moon. Meanwhile, NASA's Artemis program successfully launched Artemis 1, an unmanned spacecraft to orbit the moon and return to the Earth, in November 2022.
Artemis 2, scheduled in November 2024 will perform a crewed flyby of the moon, along the same path as Artemis 1, carrying 4 astronauts. A year after Artemis 2, scheduled for December 2025, is Artemis 3, which is set to become the first crewed lunar landing since Apollo 17, in 1972.
