Fusion Rockets Could Reach 10% Light Speed: The Breakthrough

TL;DR: Massive underground lava tubes on the Moon—some over a kilometer wide—could provide natural radiation shielding for permanent lunar bases, solving one of humanity's biggest obstacles to space colonization. Formed billions of years ago by volcanic activity, these caves offer protection from cosmic rays, solar particle events, and extreme temperatures at a fraction of the cost of building surface habitats. With robotic missions already mapping these structures and human occupation potentially beginning in the 2030s, lunar lava tubes represent humanity's first step toward becoming a true multi-world civilization.
In 2024, scientists confirmed what science fiction writers have dreamed about for decades: massive underground caves on the Moon, carved by ancient volcanic rivers, waiting like natural bunkers beneath the lunar surface. These aren't small cavities—some stretch wider than city blocks and longer than Manhattan. And they might solve humanity's most stubborn obstacle to becoming a spacefaring civilization: how to survive in an environment that bombards unprotected humans with enough radiation to guarantee cancer within months.
The discovery represents more than geological curiosity. It's a potential game-changer for lunar colonization. While engineers have long proposed hauling tons of shielding material from Earth or burying habitats under meters of Moon dirt, nature may have already built the perfect shelter. Lunar lava tubes offer protection from cosmic rays, solar particle events, micrometeorite impacts, and the Moon's brutal temperature swings—all without requiring a single construction vehicle. The implications stretch beyond the Moon, offering a template for settlements on Mars and other worlds where radiation makes surface living a slow death sentence.
Billions of years ago, the Moon was a very different place. Massive volcanic eruptions flooded vast plains with molten basalt, creating the dark "seas" visible from Earth today. As lava streams flowed across the surface, their tops cooled and solidified into hard crusts while the molten rock beneath continued moving, eventually draining away and leaving hollow tunnels behind—the same process that creates lava tubes on Earth.
But lunar lava tubes dwarf their terrestrial cousins. On Earth, gravity limits tube size to around 10-30 meters wide. The Moon's gravity is just one-sixth as strong, allowing tubes to remain stable at widths exceeding one kilometer. In 2020, researchers using NASA's GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory) spacecraft data identified subsurface voids more than 1 km wide with roof thicknesses as thin as 2 meters. These dimensions seemed impossible until scientists modeled the structural mechanics: the Moon's weak gravity dramatically increases the threshold at which a cave roof collapses.
These tubes snake beneath the lunar maria—the smooth plains of ancient lava—for tens to potentially hundreds of kilometers. Some estimates suggest individual tubes could extend 40 km or more. To put that in perspective, you could fit the entire city center of Padua inside a single tube, as researcher Francesco Sauro noted. The sheer scale transforms these from geological oddities into ready-made cities, requiring only life support infrastructure rather than construction from scratch.
The tubes formed roughly 3 to 4 billion years ago, during the Moon's final volcanic period. Since then, they've remained essentially unchanged, protected from the erosion that would destroy similar structures on Earth. This geological stability means they've already passed a four-billion-year structural integrity test—far longer than any human-built structure must survive.
To appreciate why lava tubes matter, you need to understand what lunar astronauts face on the surface. Unlike Earth, the Moon has no magnetic field to deflect charged particles and no atmosphere to absorb radiation. Two primary threats dominate:
Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs): These are high-energy particles—primarily protons (90%), alpha particles (9%), and heavy nuclei (1%)—that arrive from distant supernovae and other cosmic events. They travel at nearly the speed of light, carrying energies that can reach 10^20 electron volts. When they strike matter, they create cascades of secondary radiation. The challenge isn't just their energy but their constancy: they never stop coming.
On the International Space Station, astronauts receive about 72 millisieverts (mSv) during a six-month mission—roughly 12 times annual Earth exposure. But the ISS orbits within Earth's magnetic field, which provides substantial protection. On the lunar surface, measurements by China's Chang'e-4 mission in 2020 recorded dose rates of 0.5-1.0 mSv per day—about 200-400 mSv per year. A three-year Mars mission could expose astronauts to over 1,000 mSv, well above the lifetime occupational limit.
Solar Particle Events (SPEs): These are unpredictable bursts of high-energy protons ejected during solar flares and coronal mass ejections. They follow an 11-year solar cycle but can occur anytime. Energies exceed 200 MeV, creating what scientists call "ground-level enhancements" when they strike planetary surfaces. An unprotected astronaut caught in a major SPE could receive a lethal dose within hours. Because the Moon has no magnetosphere, these particles strike the surface directly.
The biological effects are severe. Radiation damages DNA, increasing cancer risk, accelerating cardiovascular disease, and causing central nervous system degradation. Heavy nuclei (HZE ions) create dense ionization tracks through tissue, damaging multiple cellular structures simultaneously—a type of injury Earth-based medicine has little experience treating. The practical upshot: living on the lunar surface without shielding isn't a matter of increased risk. It's a guarantee of debilitating illness.
Radiation protection follows exponential decay: each additional layer of material halves the dose. The thickness required to reduce radiation by half—the "half-value layer"—depends on both material density and atomic composition. For cosmic rays, thick layers of low-atomic-number materials work best because they minimize secondary radiation production.
Engineers typically specify shielding in terms of "g/cm²"—mass per unit area. Studies suggest 40 meters of basaltic rock can reduce cosmic ray exposure to acceptable levels for long-term habitation. Lunar basalt has a density around 3.0 g/cm³, meaning 40 meters provides roughly 12,000 g/cm² of shielding—enough to bring dose rates down to or below terrestrial background levels.
Lava tubes naturally provide this protection. Tubes lying beneath 40+ meters of basalt create an environment orders of magnitude safer than the surface. Even during major solar particle events, the overlying rock absorbs essentially all incoming protons. A 2022 study by Leonardo Carrer and colleagues confirmed radar evidence of a cave beneath Mare Tranquillitatis extending at least 80 meters in length, accessed via a pit roughly 105 meters deep. The rock overburden at that depth provides shielding comparable to Earth's entire atmosphere.
This natural protection carries another advantage: thermal stability. The lunar surface experiences temperature swings from 107°C during the two-week day to -153°C during the two-week night. Underground temperatures stabilize around -23°C year-round. A 2022 thermophysical study by Ho and colleagues found that one pit remained about 100 K warmer than surrounding surface at night and 20 K cooler during the day. This stability slashes the energy required for habitat heating and cooling, compounding the radiation benefits.
Compare this to surface habitats. To achieve equivalent protection, engineers would need to bury structures under meters of lunar regolith or launch thousands of tons of shielding from Earth. Both options are prohibitively expensive. Launching one kilogram to the Moon costs roughly $100,000-$500,000 depending on the system. A habitat requiring 50 tons of shielding would cost $5-25 billion in launch costs alone, before construction. Using local regolith requires massive excavation equipment and infrastructure. Lava tubes offer the same protection for the cost of entry—essentially free.
Identifying lava tubes from orbit requires detective work. The most obvious clues are "skylights"—circular pits where tube roofs have collapsed, exposing the cavity below. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has photographed over 200 such pits, ranging from 5 meters to more than 900 meters in diameter.
The most famous is the Marius Hills pit, discovered by Japan's Kaguya spacecraft in 2009. LRO imaging in 2011 revealed a pit 60-65 meters wide and roughly 36 meters deep. Angled sunlight illuminated part of a much larger void extending beneath the pit—a hollow chamber tens of meters across. This single image transformed lunar lava tubes from theoretical possibility to confirmed reality.
In 2024, an international team led by Lorenzo Bruzzone re-analyzed radar data from LRO's Mini-RF instrument, revealing a cave beneath the Mare Tranquillitatis pit extending more than 200 feet (60+ meters) from the pit base. The radar showed a continuous hollow encompassing the pit's circumference at roughly 40 meters depth—a genuine tunnel, not just a collapse cavity. The cave measures approximately 45 meters wide and up to 80 meters long, lying about 150 meters below the surface. This represents the first radar-confirmed lunar lava tube accessible from a known skylight.
Other candidate locations include Mare Serenitatis, Mare Ingenii, and multiple sites in Oceanus Procellarum. Gravitometric data from GRAIL hint at subsurface voids across the lunar nearside, where volcanic activity was most intense. In 2025, edge-detection analysis of GRAIL gravity data beneath Aristarchus Crater revealed sharp negative anomalies consistent with subsurface volcanic structures, including possible lava tube networks.
Artificial intelligence is accelerating discovery. In 2025, a University of Kent PhD researcher trained a deep learning model called ESSA (Entrances to Sub-Surface Areas) on public NASA images. Despite analyzing only 0.23% of the lunar maria, ESSA identified two previously unknown skylight candidates: Theich South Marius Hills Pit and Bel'kovich A Pit. The latter lies closer to the lunar north pole, where permanently shadowed craters may harbor water ice—adding resource availability to radiation protection.
The mapping challenge isn't finding tubes but characterizing them. Surface pits reveal only entry points. Understanding tube dimensions, structural integrity, and connectivity requires subsurface imaging—a capability no current lunar mission possesses at scale.
Exploring lava tubes requires new technology. Traditional rovers can't descend 100-meter vertical shafts or navigate pitch-black tunnels with boulder fields and unstable floors. Several missions in development aim to change that.
NASA CADRE (Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration): Set to launch on Intuitive Machines' IM-3 lander, CADRE consists of shoebox-sized robots with onboard computers, stereo cameras, and ground-penetrating radar. They'll explore the Reiner Gamma region, a high-probability lava tube site identified by laser altimetry. The robots operate autonomously, creating 3D maps and probing subsurface structures without real-time human control—essential given communication delays.
ESA DAEDALUS and RoboCrane: Selected in 2019, these concepts target vertical descent into skylights. DAEDALUS (Descent And Exploration in Deep Autonomy of Lava Underground Structures) is a sphere designed to rappel into pits, while RoboCrane proposes a tethered crane system lowering exploration payloads. Both emphasize autonomy and redundancy—if one robot fails, others continue the mission.
China's Robotic Dogs: In 2025, researchers from Peking University began testing quadruped robots in lava tubes near Jingbo Lake, chosen for geological similarity to lunar tubes. Equipped with autonomous navigation, obstacle avoidance sensors, and 3D mapping systems, these robots can traverse rough terrain unsuitable for wheeled rovers. A 2024 field trial in Lanzarote demonstrated that a robotic team could autonomously map 235 meters of lava tube in 21 days—proof of concept for lunar missions.
Ground-Penetrating Radar from Orbit: Future missions may carry multi-frequency radar systems designed to penetrate tens of meters into the lunar surface. Electromagnetic simulations show that lava tubes produce distinctive reflected signals regardless of size, allowing orbital detection and preliminary characterization before surface missions. This approach could create a global lava tube inventory before any robot touches down.
China's Yutu 2 Rover: Already operational on the lunar farside, Yutu 2 carries ground-penetrating radar probing up to 30 meters depth. While not designed for tube exploration, it has detected buried craters and thick regolith layers, demonstrating the feasibility of rover-based subsurface imaging.
These missions share a philosophy: autonomous, cooperative robotics. Communication delays (2.6 seconds round-trip) make real-time piloting impractical. Instead, robots must navigate, map, and make decisions independently, transmitting data when bandwidth allows. This requires sophisticated AI for hazard detection, route planning, and multi-agent coordination—technologies with applications far beyond lunar exploration.
Finding a lava tube is one thing. Building a livable habitat inside is another. Several engineering challenges dominate:
Access: Most tubes lie tens to hundreds of meters below skylights with steep, debris-choked walls. Descending requires either permanent infrastructure (elevators, ramps) or temporary systems (cables, rappelling platforms). The Mare Tranquillitatis pit's access path, for example, requires descending 125 meters through loose debris where any movement triggers avalanches, according to LRO scientist Robert Wagner. Early missions will likely use tethered systems, with permanent elevators installed once a site is selected.
Structural Integrity: While tubes have survived billions of years, human activity introduces new stresses. Excavating level floors, sealing against vacuum, and attaching equipment to walls risks inducing collapses. Solutions include spray-on structural supports (similar to shotcrete in terrestrial tunnels), tensioned cables creating reinforcement networks, or even melting basalt into place to form glass supports. NASA concepts envision "melt-as-you-go" systems that fuse regolith into structural elements using concentrated solar power.
Pressurization: Lava tubes aren't naturally airtight. Creating habitable volumes requires sealing the interior—either by constructing inflatable habitats inside the tube or sealing the tube walls directly. The former approach offers faster deployment but limits usable volume. The latter provides more space but requires extensive surface treatment. One promising technique uses light-based sintering: concentrated sunlight melts thin layers of basalt and regolith into airtight barriers. University of Arkansas researchers demonstrated this in 2025, creating interlocking bricks from lunar simulant without extraterrestrial binders.
Life Support Integration: Oxygen generation, water recycling, waste management, and power systems must function in a thermally stable but shielded environment. Dust—lunar regolith is abrasive and electrostatically charged—poses contamination risks for seals and equipment. HEPA filtration, airlocks, and strict contamination protocols are essential. Power likely comes from surface solar arrays with underground batteries, or eventually, nuclear reactors shielded within the tube itself.
Resource Logistics: Everything initially comes from Earth or lunar surface operations. Transporting equipment, consumables, and construction materials into tubes requires robust logistics infrastructure. Over time, in-situ resource utilization (ISRU)—extracting oxygen from regolith, producing water from polar ice, manufacturing metal from lunar minerals—reduces dependence on Earth. Lava tubes near polar regions, like Bel'kovich A Pit, offer potential access to water ice, dramatically improving sustainability.
Psychological Factors: Humans evolved under open skies with 24-hour day/night cycles. Living permanently underground, with no natural light or weather, raises concerns about circadian disruption, vitamin D deficiency, and psychological stress. Habitat design must incorporate artificial lighting mimicking Earth's day/night cycle, communal spaces with high ceilings (exploiting the tubes' natural volume), and possibly video feeds of Earth and surface landscapes. Lessons from Antarctic winter-over crews and submarine service will inform psychological support protocols.
Despite these challenges, the engineering consensus is optimistic. A 2024 study concluded that establishing a base in the Mare Tranquillitatis cave would be "easier to set up and maintain relative to constructing one on the surface, even accounting for the need to maintain the walls of the conduit to prevent collapse." The radiation protection, thermal stability, and micrometeorite shielding provided by the tube reduce ongoing operational costs below surface alternatives.
Multiple nations and organizations see lava tube habitats as strategic assets, but their approaches diverge:
United States (NASA and Commercial Partners): NASA's Artemis program aims to establish a sustained lunar presence, with habitats likely near the south pole for water ice access. While initial bases will be surface structures, long-term plans incorporate subsurface expansion. Commercial partners like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Intuitive Machines are developing landers and cargo systems that could deliver tube exploration equipment. NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program explicitly funds technologies like CADRE to reduce exploration costs.
China (CNSA): China's lunar program emphasizes scientific discovery and resource mapping. The robotic dog experiments suggest serious interest in tube exploration, potentially as sites for the planned International Lunar Research Station (co-developed with Russia and other partners). China's approach often integrates military, commercial, and scientific objectives, with tube habitats offering strategic advantages: hidden from surveillance, protected from attacks, and thermally ideal for sensitive equipment.
European Space Agency (ESA): ESA's PANGAEA training program uses terrestrial lava tubes (including Canary Islands sites) to prepare astronauts for lunar geology. ESA's interest focuses on scientific exploration and international collaboration, with tube habitats viewed as enabling longer-duration research missions. The DAEDALUS and RoboCrane concepts exemplify ESA's emphasis on robotic precursors before human presence.
Japan (JAXA): Japan's Kaguya spacecraft discovered the first confirmed lunar skylight, and JAXA maintains interest in subsurface exploration. JAXA's collaboration with NASA (Gateway lunar station, Artemis program) positions Japan as a key partner in eventual tube utilization, likely focusing on technology development and scientific payloads.
Private Sector: Companies like SpaceX envision lava tubes as way stations for Mars-bound missions, offering radiation protection during lunar stopovers. Asteroid mining advocates see tubes as processing facilities where regolith could be refined away from delicate surface operations. Tourism companies (admittedly still speculative) imagine luxury underground resorts with Earth views piped in via surface cameras.
The geopolitical subtext is unmistakable. Lava tubes are finite resources—only a few dozen may prove suitable for habitation. Whoever maps, claims, and develops them first gains strategic advantage. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibits national appropriation but allows use. As with Antarctic research stations, "use" could easily become de facto control. This dynamic is already driving faster timelines: no nation wants rivals establishing presence first.
Lunar lava tubes are a proving ground for techniques applicable across the solar system:
Mars: Martian lava tubes may be even larger than lunar ones, given Mars' intermediate gravity. Olympus Mons and other shield volcanoes likely harbor extensive tube networks. Unlike the Moon, Mars has a thin atmosphere offering some radiation protection—but not enough. Combining atmospheric shielding with tens of meters of basaltic rock could bring Martian surface radiation down to near-Earth levels. The principles learned on the Moon—access, structural reinforcement, life support integration—transfer directly.
Asteroids: Some asteroids likely contain voids from past volcanic activity (in the case of differentiated asteroids) or impact fracturing. These natural shelters could house mining operations or serve as logistics hubs for deep-space missions. The microgravity environment complicates some aspects (no "down" for debris to settle) but simplifies others (no structural loads from gravity).
Outer Solar System Moons: Europa, Enceladus, Titan, and other icy moons may have subsurface oceans beneath kilometers of ice. While different from lava tubes, the concept is similar: use natural structures for protection rather than building from scratch. Techniques for sealing, pressurizing, and powering underground habitats on the Moon inform how we might establish bases in these alien environments.
The philosophical shift is profound. For decades, space settlement concepts assumed heroic engineering: geodesic domes, spinning cylinders, terraforming entire planets. Lava tubes suggest a humbler path: find what nature provides, adapt it to human needs, and expand gradually. This approach is faster, cheaper, and lower-risk—critical factors when every kilogram launched costs a fortune and every mistake can kill.
If lava tube habitats become reality within the next two decades—a timeline NASA and China both consider feasible—what does that mean for society?
New Professions: Lunar tube construction requires specialists in extreme-environment engineering, vacuum welding, regolith processing, autonomous robotics, and space medicine. Universities are already developing curricula; by 2030, "lunar civil engineering" may be a standard degree path. Trade skills—welding, electrical, plumbing—will need space-certified variants, creating demand for technical training programs.
Legal and Ethical Frameworks: Who owns a lava tube? Can a nation or corporation claim exclusive use? The Outer Space Treaty's prohibition on national appropriation clashes with practical reality: building a billion-dollar habitat requires secure tenure. Expect pressure for new international agreements similar to Antarctic Treaty protocols, balancing open access with use rights. Ethical questions also arise: Should habitats prioritize science, commerce, or settlement? Who decides?
Social Adaptation: Early tube inhabitants will be highly trained scientists and engineers. But if settlements grow, they'll include families, artists, teachers, and service workers—people with no special training for underground life. Designing habitats that feel like homes rather than labs becomes critical. Architectural psychology, honed in submarine and Antarctic contexts, will shape livable spaces. Virtual reality might simulate outdoor environments, offering psychological escape.
Economic Implications: Lava tube habitats drastically reduce lunar settlement costs, potentially accelerating timelines by a decade or more. This opens markets: space tourism, research stations, manufacturing leveraging low gravity and vacuum, and eventually, lunar resources feeding Earth's economy (helium-3 for fusion, rare earths, solar power satellites). The economic center of gravity could shift as space industries mature—less focused on launch providers, more on in-space operations.
Environmental Responsibility: Even the Moon has an environment worth protecting. Tire tracks from Apollo rovers remain undisturbed after 50 years; lava tubes are geologically pristine. Should we preserve some tubes as scientific reserves, untouched for future study? Balancing utilization with conservation is a debate humanity must have before, not after, large-scale settlement begins.
The roadmap to lava tube habitats is surprisingly clear:
Phase 1 (2025-2028): Robotic Exploration
Missions like CADRE, DAEDALUS, and Chinese robotic dogs map candidate tubes, measure dimensions, assess structural stability, and identify hazards. Orbital radar creates a global tube inventory. By 2028, scientists will have high-resolution maps of 5-10 high-priority sites.
Phase 2 (2028-2032): Site Selection and Preparation
Based on robotic data, space agencies select 2-3 prime sites. Follow-up missions emplace infrastructure: tethered descent systems, communication relays, power generation (solar arrays near skylights), and initial life support caches. Uncrewed demonstrations test sealing techniques, structural reinforcement, and equipment deployment.
Phase 3 (2032-2035): First Human Occupation
Artemis or equivalent missions deliver small crews for short stays (days to weeks). Early habitats will be inflatable modules inside tubes, offering radiation protection during surface sortie downtime. Crews assess livability, refine life support, and conduct scientific studies impossible on the surface.
Phase 4 (2035-2040): Permanent Settlement
Longer-duration missions (months to a year) establish continuously occupied bases. ISRU systems come online, reducing dependence on Earth. Habitats expand from single modules to interconnected complexes, with workshops, labs, greenhouses, and eventually, recreation facilities. Population grows from 4-6 to perhaps 20-30.
Phase 5 (2040+): Expansion and Independence
Multiple tubes host specialized facilities: research stations, manufacturing centers, transportation hubs for Mars missions. Populations reach hundreds, with some permanent residents. Economic activity becomes self-sustaining, with lunar products exported to Earth orbit and beyond. The Moon transitions from frontier outpost to established settlement.
This timeline is ambitious but not fantastical. It assumes steady funding, no major disasters, and international cooperation—all uncertain. But the technological barriers are surmountable with existing or near-term capabilities. The real question is political will.
Standing on the Moon's surface, an astronaut sees a harsh, airless desert—a place that seems to reject life at every turn. But beneath that surface lies a hidden world, carved by ancient fires, waiting to become humanity's first true home beyond Earth. Lava tubes represent a gift from the Moon's volcanic past: ready-made sanctuaries that solve our most difficult survival problems through sheer geological fortune.
The next decade will determine whether we accept that gift. If we do, 2035 might see families living under the lunar surface, children born off-world attending schools in caverns a billion years old, engineers designing the next generation of habitats for Mars. If we hesitate, the opportunity may pass to others—or disappear into the slow grinding of political indifference.
The caves are there. The technology is emerging. The benefits—scientific, economic, strategic—are clear. What happens next depends on whether humanity chooses to embrace the underground, to trade open skies for protection, to become a civilization not just exploring space but inhabiting it. The Moon's lava tubes don't just offer shelter from radiation. They offer a path to permanence, a foundation for a multi-world future built on ancient rock and modern ambition.
The decision facing this generation is simple: Will we step into the caves, or will we remain forever on the surface, exposed and vulnerable, dreaming of the shelter waiting just beneath our feet?
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