- NASA hopes to have a lunar railway built by 2030s
- Railway would be part of wider plan to build a sustainable base there
- Rather than conventional trains and tracks, unpowered magnetic robots will levitate over a flexible track
Space agency NASA is planning to build a railway on the Moon as part of plans to develop a sustainable base on there.
In a blog on NASA’s website, Ethan Schaler from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explained the reasoning for it: “A durable, long-life robotic transport system will be critical to the daily operations of a sustainable lunar base in the 2030’s, as envisioned in NASA’s Moon to Mars plan.”
Ethan added that the railway would use FLOAT — Flexible Levitation on a Track — for the railway. He said that the FLOAT system works by employing “unpowered magnetic robots that levitate over a 3-layer flexible film track: a graphite layer enables robots to passively float over tracks using diamagnetic levitation, a flex-circuit layer generates electromagnetic thrust to controllably propel robots along tracks, and an optional thin-film solar panel layer generates power for the base when in sunlight.”
In addition, FLOAT robots have no moving parts and levitate over the track, which minimizes lunar dust abrasion/wear, unlike lunar robots with wheels, legs or tracks.
Nasa say that FLOAT will operate autonomously in the dusty, inhospitable lunar environment with minimal site preparation, and its network of tracks can be rolled-up/reconfigured over time to match evolving lunar base mission requirements – which minimizes the impact of building them and saves time and money by not having to send up additional tracks as and when required.
This is part of a wider plan by NASA to return to the Moon. The agency hopes to have astronauts on the Moon possibly as soon as 2026 as part of its Artemis mission, with, as mentioned, a long-term aim to establish a permanent base there.
