Gray, cratered rock as far as the eye can see. Constant sun for two weeks straight, followed by two weeks of complete darkness. And static silence. That’s life on the moon, which is not a naturally hospitable place. But a team of designers is working to make human habitation a little more possible.
SAGA Space Architects tested Lunark in an environment that’s about as close as you can get to the moon without leaving Earth: the frozen tundra about 620 miles north of the Arctic Circle, in Greenland. Over a three-month period this winter, SAGA cofounders Sebastian Aristotelis and Karl-Johan Sørensen camped out in the small pod completely off the grid, with minus 41-degree wind chill. Due to the extreme conditions, Lunark had only a few tiny slivers of windows. The rest of the light came from artificial LEDs, which provided some insight into what longer-term lunar habitation might be like.
The circadian panels brighten at 6 a.m. and go dark in the evening. Purple and red lights replicate what happens during sunrise and sunset. But they also help differentiate between days: Some days the lighting remains dim, to re-create a cloudy setting; other times it’s more dynamic to mimic, say, passing clouds or full sun. There’s also a light show of sorts on Saturdays, when the space is bathed in monochromatic light like the aurora borealis. Hammer says the two men camped out in the hut really looked forward to the change of pace.
Hammer also contends that the Lunark unit isn’t just for astronauts. “We felt it’s relevant in pretty much any replication on Earth as well,” he says. “[Lunark] was set up when there was light in Greenland and then no light at all.” But it won’t be available anytime in the near future. SAGA has to wait until this summer to retrieve the Lunark from the icy tundra, and then a Lunark 2.0 will go through another round of testing—just enough time for NASA’s next scheduled moon landing in 2024.