A Moon Spelunking Robot May Help Us Learn to Live on Other Planets

Spelunking is finally going out of this world. Once we send astronauts back to the moon this decade, there will be an enormous interest to explore lunar caverns and uncover the mysteries they bear. But it’s also paramount we make these journeys safe for any human brave enough to plunge into these deep, dark depths.

Thanks to satellite imagery, scientists intimately know where every nook and cranny on the moon’s surface is located. Our understanding of the interiority of those spaces is much murkier. What we do know is that there are “pits” or “skylights” that lead to ancient lava tubes leftover from when the moon used to boast volcanic activity billions of years ago. It’s believed these lava tubes may form a vast lattice of caverns and tunnels unexplored by previous space missions.

To uncover these subterranean tunnels, the European Space Agency may have just the tools: deploy two robots named RoboCrane and DAEDALUS. If greenlighted, the combination of these two bots could help comprise the first extraterrestrial spelunking mission in history.

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