HOW TO SURVIVE ON THE MOON

Advice and background for early lunar settlers from a certified rocket scientist.

The narrative opens with an illustration of the brown-skinned author reading from a book titled Tip-Top Moon Tips. Morancy then invites all “adventurers and cosmic thrill-seekers” to take a near-future flight powered by NASA’s Space Launch System to our neighbor the moon. “Surviving an environment that is actively trying to kill you is a challenging feat,” the author goes on, but by carefully heeding the book’s warnings about hazards ranging from radiation to deadly, insidious dust, new arrivals may live long enough not only to explore the surface, but also to build flourishing colonies in subsurface lava tubes and to gear up for an expedition to Mars. In a utopian vein, Morancy also extrapolates (though not in specifics) the eventual growth of a lunar government, economy, and “the kind of society we wish to see on Earth.” Cushley illustrates these visions with detail-crammed scenes of small, racially and culturally diverse figures—starting off with Morancy and a gallery of other contemporary space experts, then going on to depict workers either in vacuum suits or indoor garb engaged in tasks ranging from gardening and governing to shooting Earth-bound cargoes out into orbit using a giant catapult or a futuristic space elevator.

A lively mix of facts and informed speculation.