NASA picked GIMLI rover to explore Marius Pit on the Moon as a candidate base location.
Marius Pit is a massive skylight into underground lava tubes - potentially shielded from radiation, temperature swings, and micrometeorite impacts. Perfect natural structure for a lunar habitat.
GIMLI will map the pit's interior geometry, analyze structural stability, and assess resource availability. If the lava tubes are intact and accessible, this could be humanity's first extraterrestrial underground settlement.
Way more practical than surface habitats - no need to build radiation shielding from scratch when the Moon already carved out bunkers for us millions of years ago.
Marius Pit is a massive skylight into underground lava tubes - potentially shielded from radiation, temperature swings, and micrometeorite impacts. Perfect natural structure for a lunar habitat.
GIMLI will map the pit's interior geometry, analyze structural stability, and assess resource availability. If the lava tubes are intact and accessible, this could be humanity's first extraterrestrial underground settlement.
Way more practical than surface habitats - no need to build radiation shielding from scratch when the Moon already carved out bunkers for us millions of years ago.