Level 1 - Absolute Beginner

NASA wants to build a base on the Moon. People will live and work in it one day. But first NASA must learn if the Moon is safe.

On 8 October 2026, NASA picked three new science projects. Small private spaceships will carry them to the Moon. Each project looks for something different.

One project sits at the south pole of the Moon. It listens for shaking in the ground. It also counts tiny rocks that fall from space. Engineers can then build safer things on the Moon.

Another project studies a deep hole in the ground. The hole may open into a long cave, and a cave can keep people safe. The last project looks for ice in very cold, dark places. Ice can give water, air and fuel, so NASA does not have to bring it all from Earth.

base

A place where people live and work for a long time.

Moon

The big round object that goes around the Earth.

safe

Not dangerous. Nothing bad can happen to you.

project

A piece of work with a clear plan and a goal.

spaceship

A machine that flies into space.

shaking

Moving quickly from side to side.

cave

A big hole under the ground or in a hill.

ice

Water that is very cold and hard.

Level 2 - Elementary

On 8 October 2026, NASA announced that it had chosen three science investigations to prepare the way for its first Moon base. All three were selected through a NASA program called PRISM, which stands for Payloads and Research Investigations on the Surface of the Moon, and commercial landers will deliver them to the lunar surface under an initiative known as CLPS, or Commercial Lunar Payload Services. They share one goal: to find natural shelters, locate useful resources, and measure the dangers that could damage equipment or harm future crews.

The first investigation is LEMS-SP, short for Lunar Environment Monitoring Station, South Pole, and it is led by Dr. Mehdi Benna of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The station will work on its own over a long period. It will detect the tiny pieces of space rock called micrometeoroids, which hit the ground hard because the Moon's thin atmosphere does not burn up most incoming debris. It will also measure volatiles, substances that easily turn to gas, in the Moon's very thin outer layer, and it will run a short-period seismometer to record vibrations and moonquakes. Engineers will use all of that data to design safer buildings and machines.

The second investigation, GIMLI, stands for Geophysical Instruments for Marius Lunar pit Investigation and is led by Dr. Nathaniel Putzig of the Planetary Science Institute. Its target is the Marius Hills Pit, an opening in the surface that may lead down into a large underground lava tube. Lava tubes are tunnels left behind by lava that flowed long ago. The team will take geophysical measurements to learn what lies beneath the pit and whether it connects to a bigger cavity. A large underground space could offer natural shelter from radiation, from micrometeoroid impacts and from the huge temperature swings on the surface, where day and night each last about two Earth weeks, and it could change where habitats are placed and how they are designed.

The third investigation is DISCO, the Depth Imager with Spectral and Color Optics, led by Dr. Ariel Deutsch of NASA's Ames Research Center. It will make the first direct measurements from the lunar surface of ice inside micro-cold traps, small areas that are extremely cold because they get little or no sunlight. The team wants to know where the ice is, how much of it there is and how it is spread out, because that decides whether it is a practical resource: water found on the Moon could be split into oxygen and hydrogen instead of being carried up from Earth. DISCO will also study how rocket exhaust blows dust around during landing and how stable the ground is for people, rovers and equipment.

investigation

A careful study made to find out the truth about something.

commercial

Run by a private company to make money.

shelter

A place that protects you from danger or bad conditions.

micrometeoroid

A very small piece of rock travelling fast through space.

Level 3 - Intermediate

NASA's announcement on 8 October 2026 was less about discovery for its own sake than about reducing uncertainty. The agency selected three investigations through its PRISM program, Payloads and Research Investigations on the Surface of the Moon, and will fly them on commercial landers arranged under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, known as CLPS, in support of the Moon Base Program. The common thread is practical: find natural shelters, identify resources that can be used where they are found, and quantify the hazards that could shorten the life of a habitat or a rover.

The hazards are not hypothetical. Because the Moon has no magnetic field and no thick atmosphere, radiation reaches the ground unfiltered and most incoming debris is not burned up on the way down, which means micrometeoroids arrive at full speed. LEMS-SP, the Lunar Environment Monitoring Station, South Pole, led by Dr. Mehdi Benna of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, is designed to stay in one place and keep watching: it will register micrometeoroid impacts, measure volatiles in the Moon's extremely thin outer layer, and run a short-period seismometer sensitive to vibrations and moonquakes. Infrastructure designed against guessed loads is either unsafe or needlessly heavy, and mass is the single most expensive thing to launch, so a long, continuous record of the real environment is worth more to engineers than any brief survey.

GIMLI, Geophysical Instruments for Marius Lunar pit Investigation, led by Dr. Nathaniel Putzig of the Planetary Science Institute, comes at the problem from the opposite direction: rather than measuring what the surface does to hardware, it asks whether the hardware has to sit on the surface at all. The team will make geophysical measurements at the Marius Hills Pit to work out what lies beneath the opening and whether it connects to a larger cavity, possibly an intact lava tube left behind by lava that flowed in the Moon's distant past. If such spaces exist, they would offer natural protection from radiation, from micrometeoroid impacts and from the brutal temperature swings of a surface where day and night each run about two Earth weeks, and that would shape not only where habitats are placed but how they are designed. The same measurements also tell geologists a great deal about the Moon's volcanic history.

DISCO, the Depth Imager with Spectral and Color Optics, led by Dr. Ariel Deutsch of NASA's Ames Research Center, takes on the resource question directly, making the first measurements from the lunar surface itself of ice held in micro-cold traps, small patches that receive little or no sunlight and stay extremely cold as a result. Knowing that ice exists is not enough: its location, quantity and distribution decide whether it is a practical supply or merely a curiosity, because water that can be split into oxygen and hydrogen on site removes the need to haul both from Earth. DISCO will also watch how rocket exhaust lifts and throws dust during landing, and test how well the ground bears the weight of people, rovers and equipment. Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, described the wider effort as building an "ultimate interplanetary survival guide", so that science goes first and crews have the information they need ahead of time, minimizing risks while humanity's first lunar outpost is set up ahead of sending astronauts to Mars.

Level 4 - Advanced

Every proposal for a permanent human presence on the Moon eventually collides with the same arithmetic: the surface is a hostile place, protecting people from it costs mass, and mass is the one commodity spaceflight cannot discount. NASA's selection on 8 October 2026 of three investigations under its PRISM program, Payloads and Research Investigations on the Surface of the Moon, to be flown on commercial landers through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative in support of the Moon Base Program, is best read as an attempt to attack that arithmetic before the first module is built rather than after. The three are nominally unrelated, one environmental monitor, one subsurface survey, one resource prospector, yet they converge on a single question: how much of the burden of keeping a crew alive can be shifted off the cargo manifest and onto the Moon itself?

The case for building down rather than up is largely a case about shielding. With neither a magnetic field nor an appreciable atmosphere, the lunar surface receives cosmic radiation essentially unattenuated, and the debris that would burn up over Earth arrives intact; a surface habitat must therefore carry or manufacture its own protection, and regolith piled over a structure buys shielding only at the price of heavy machinery and long hours of robotic labor. A pre-existing void does that work for nothing. This is the premise behind GIMLI, Geophysical Instruments for Marius Lunar pit Investigation, led by Dr. Nathaniel Putzig of the Planetary Science Institute, which will take geophysical measurements at the Marius Hills Pit to establish what lies beneath the opening and whether it joins a larger cavity, possibly an intact lava tube of the kind left when ancient lava drained away. Depth also flattens the thermal problem: a surface subject to days and nights roughly a fortnight long swings through extremes that punish seals, bearings and electronics, whereas a few meters of rock turns that cycle into something close to a constant.

Shelter, however, is only half of the ledger. The deeper economic question is whether anything already on the Moon can substitute for what would otherwise be launched, and water is the obvious candidate, since it serves at once as drinking supply, radiation shield and, once split into oxygen and hydrogen, as breathable air and propellant. DISCO, the Depth Imager with Spectral and Color Optics, led by Dr. Ariel Deutsch of NASA's Ames Research Center, will make the first measurements from the lunar surface of ice held in micro-cold traps, the small, barely sunlit patches cold enough to hold volatiles in place. The mission's framing is notably unsentimental: not merely whether ice is present, but where it sits, how much there is and how it is distributed, because a deposit too thin or too scattered to work is, in economic terms, not a resource at all. The same instrument will characterize how rocket exhaust mobilizes dust during landing and how the ground bears load under crew, rovers and equipment, the unglamorous constraints that decide whether a site can be used more than once.