lunar base

One the major differences between visiting the moon and staying on the moon involves resupply. In fact, the prospect of constantly hauling water and oxygen to the moon is so daunting that NASA offered a million dollars to the first lab that could extract 11 pounds of oxygen from a simulated pile of moon rocks.

Well, it seems like scientists at the University of Cambridge may want to start thinking about how they're going to spend their million.

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The Winnebago isnt exactly a marvel of technology. But theres a good chance that NASAs next generation of lunar travelers will live and work out of a two-piece system—a mobile robot and habitat combination that will allow astronauts to bring base camp with them—that has plenty in common with the humble RV.

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Some of you may be wondering what cruel fate may have befallen our brave podcaster Jonathan Coulton out on Lunar Base One. Well, a critical Doritos shortage after a lunar cargo supply chain error left Jonathan with a choice: continue to broadcast his weekly dispatches in solitude on the moon sans Doritos, or return to Earth to devote his full energies to being the interstellar rock star that he is, with the added benefit of all the Doritos he could eat. I think we can all see how the latter option won out. We wish our contributing troubadour all the best—you can still relive all the excitement via the same RSS feed in iTunes where every episode is archived.

If you're a regular listener to the PopSci Podcast, you already know how proud we are of the reporting being done by Jonathan Coulton, our far-flung correspondent dutifully manning PopSci's satellite office on the moon, Lunar Base One. We're so proud, in fact, that we recently sent up Jonathan's first-ever live visitor in the form of Mr. John Hodgman—author of the all-purpose reference work The Areas of My Expertise, the Daily Show's expert-of-all-trades or, of course, that totally square PC guy. Aside from delivering a fresh shipment of Yoo-hoo and Doritos, Mr. Hodgman let Jonathan in on the real story behind those fuzzy undersea lobsters.

Check it out...