A Moon Base at Calvius

Establishing a fixed base on the Moon at a high southern latitude but off-polar site, with a versatile mobility system for surface and point-to-point transportation, would far more optimally serve the United States’ science, exploration, and strategic interests on the Moon than the series of sortie missions to the lunar south polar regions currently planned in the Artemis program. In an ongoing search for candidate sites to establish a lunar base, Clavius crater is emerging as an intriguing option. It offers unique and exciting geology spanning almost the entire history of the Moon, and relatively easy access to many other sites of interest including the lunar South Pole. Beyond Clavius’ exceptional inherent value, a “Clavius Base”, first depicted in the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey”, could also serve as a public engaging case of reality meeting fiction.

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