Railways on Moon? NASA Announces Plans to Build First Railway System on Moon

Due to a lot of riproaring steps towards the moon by NASA, it has also shared the fact that recycled parts have been flown in the robot train on the lunar ground. In the "Flexible Levitation on a Track (FLOAT)" whitepaper, NASA spelled out the objectives behind the project in which a "robotic transport system" would be used to meet the lunar exploration needs of astronauts on the moon. This way, the base infrastructure can "keep the residents fed and housed" enabling them to concentrate on the research task.

NASA said in a statement, "We want to build the first lunar railway system, which will provide reliable, autonomous, and efficient payload transport on the Moon," robotics expert Ethan Schaler of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said. "A durable, long-life robotic transport system will be critical to the daily operations of a sustainable lunar base in the 2030s," he added.

According to NASA's draught plan, the ground operation itself appearing like a "billiard table" for electronic devices is possible thanks to the rapid development in the robotics and other relevant technology. They are going to make those films with vertically aligned carbon nanotube structures, and these films will be moving with such open speed as 1.61 kilometers per hour. These robots shall be able to bring to & from the base NASA built cargo around 100 tons daily.

Providing transportation services to parts of the moon that are frequented by astronauts becomes the principal purpose of the Future Lunar Operations and Access to the Moon service. It will help in moving materials like lunar soil between different friction area locations which were accessible through transportation services. Furthermore, the space railway could allow the transportation of greater quantities of necessary materials and equipment to and from the locations where the landing of spacecraft has occurred.

Following passage contains no engagement but more of a social mission statement. This passage is the writer's guess about what the main railway would be used for. But they gave no evidence or reasons for their ideas. The author uses the connector "other" to indicate that FLOAT will also be responsible for the transportation of these pieces of soil and other materials to the airbag areas. FLOAT will be able to operate in a very challenging and dusty environment relying mostly on AI software without the need to prepare the area-minimally, and its track system can evolve over time to match the needs of the lunar base mission". NASA made this clarification in their post.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California is already developing the FLOAT system. The development of the FLOAT System is currently being done at different parts by NASA to test a different part of the system.

NASA intends to return astronauts to the moon by the end of the Artemis project. They set it as a mission. The moon landing is scheduled to be made in September 2026 by the space company to place astronauts on the lunar surface.