Overview
- The analysis published Monday quantifies how much water is available in the Moon's polar cold traps and how long different-sized settlements would last under realistic recycling rates.
- The authors calculate a settlement of about 1,000 people could be sustained for centuries while a 100,000-person outpost would require strict water management to endure.
- Even with International Space Station‑level water recycling of roughly 98 percent, a one‑million‑person lunar city would exhaust available water in about 100 years under the study's assumptions.
- The paper notes today’s best water estimates are roughly 30 times lower than earlier high-end figures near a billion tons and says current remote sensing only probes a few meters deep, so deeper surveys could change the picture.
- The researchers say power for modest settlements can be met with solar arrays on crater rims but that much larger populations would need nuclear power, and they urge deeper subsurface exploration and international cooperation to manage scarce polar water.