The startup looking to build a Moon habitat in Hungary

In your presentation yesterday, you strongly criticized the European Union, saying it should do more in the space industry than it is currently investing. Why do you think so?

There are several reasons. I don't understand how we can be so passive. We are in the middle of a space race, whether we put it diplomatically or not. This time it is a race between the United States and China. I do not think this is a negative thing by the way, because it’s stimulating development, and I am a big fan of space.

For a long time, there were two groups of scientists. One group wanted to go to the Moon first, while the other wanted to start with Mars. Which group are you in?

Yeah, it's always a big debate: which one should we spend money and time on. But I don’t think the question is about whether we should go to the Moon or to Mars, because the Moon is a step towards Mars. If we aren’t going to the Moon, we won’t be going to Mars. We don't have the technology, we don't have the solutions, operation-wise, we can't do it. We'd be just killing people, so we can't do it tomorrow.

The Moon is quite a particular place because it's very close and everybody is talking about going to the lunar South Pole. And that is quite interesting because people think they might have in mind something like the South Pole on Earth where you say, okay, you give a large section to Norway and a large section to Great Britain, but things simply won’t work that way on the Moon. Countries that have a serious space presence are all trying to be there now – because, although under space law no one can own the Moon, if you land on it you can designate a safety zone that no one else can enter and you have to give advance notice if you want to approach it. Remember, we're talking about an area the size of Paris, and all the essential resources you need to continue your work are found there. The Moon is a strategically very important place.

So if the United States lands on the Moon during the Artemis mission and establishes a habitat, they can essentially seize all the important raw materials and water that they can use to build on later and can even launch rockets?

Yeah, yes, yes. And we performed analyses, there are several strategic places. And it's not only the US, it's the Chinese too. I mean, everybody's going there. And if I might be a little bit provocative... where is Europe in all this? What are the Europeans doing?

Don’t we have a plan to go to the lunar south pole?

No, we don’t. The European Space Agency (ESA) is involved in Gateway, that's already very good, but it is not dealing with the surface. As far as I know, we aren’t planning on going to the Moon. There's this development of the Argonaut mission, but for me, that is just the baseline. If you don't have that, you can forget about the Moon, then Europe has no access to the lunar surface. And we will always be passengers sitting on someone else’s ship.

In your opinion, what is the reason for this? Why isn’t the Moon a priority for Europe?

I don't know. I find it actually quite absurd that Europe is so shy, especially in the space sector. It's always lagging behind somebody. I mean, there are now private companies trying to go to the Moon, and even Japan and Israel are working on it. And Europe, the whole continent, which I think is the richest continent on the planet and maybe one with some of the most developed technology is not advancing in this. As for me, this drives me super mad because we see that every time, I mean in France, I'm not sure if it’s the same in Hungary, but in France right now, we have this big discussion about medication. We have to get medication from China and elsewhere. Yeah. And this is the problem of Europe. We look at everyone from these ivory towers, and the politicians don’t understand why it would be important to go to the Moon.

In 20 years we will all be whining that we missed this opportunity. For me, on one hand, this is a super interesting period we're living in because I see business now, humanity is really going further away from Earth. On the other hand, I'm super worried about Europe just standing by and watching. In three or four years, the Americans are planning to walk on the moon. And there is no discussion about whether they’ll do it or not. They’ll be there 100%. And the Chinese will follow. But as of now, there will be no European on the Moon’s surface.

Our company is working with lunar habitats, which is super funny because you're running around in Europe and telling people you want to build houses on the moon's surface, and people take you for crazy. It's not so crazy. And that’s also a mistake in Europe that they are letting startups do this kind of thing. Like SpaceX, for example. Except, people don’t know that it’s a creation of the American government.

What do you mean? Not Elon Musk’s?

They have really strong government backing. It was a government decision and then it was implemented through NASA. If we don’t have the same thing in Europe, the startup method isn’t going to work.

Do you think that one of the reasons Europe is lagging behind is that Europeans are not so supportive of space exploration, while NASA has a decades-long head start in this field?

Yes, I think so. On the other hand, every time I do a presentation somewhere on Space exploration, everybody is super enthusiastic about it. But for some reason, people think of the Americans when they think of space exploration. So I think we have to do something about that. Europe is a continent of explorers, so we have an obligation to do something. If we miss this race now, then we’ll be out. We will simply become a second class continent and in 50 years we’ll be at the mercy of others.

But on the other hand, there's a real opportunity today because we have this space race with the Americans. They want to get to the moon before the Chinese get there. The Chinese are running behind, maybe they’re ahead, I don't know.

But this space race is not what Europe should be involved in. We should provide infrastructure. NASA is now focused on putting a man on the Moon, but they don't have all the technology or the capability to provide everything that is needed in the long term. They need habitats, communication systems, surface mobility. Europe can provide all of that. If we don't do it, someone else will. Within the next seven years, the United States wants a sustainable presence on the Moon. But for now they don't have habitats, they will just go there with Artemis, collect samples and come back. And this is actually where Europe can come in as an equal partner and say okay, we are providing these kinds of elements to you, you can use it, it's our development, and then it becomes sustainable.

And that's what your company is developing. You are building habitats on earth where astronauts and robots can be trained. What kind of habitats are these exactly?

We are working on several habitat projects. We are working on Gateway, so that's one thing. But we are also working on a habitat we are calling Eurohub, which is our secondary habitat. You can land it robotically on the Moon’s surface, and you can use it as a base camp to go further. They will need a basic base camp that's like a starting point. The Americans can currently go 10 kilometers away from the landing spot. If they go on foot, it’s two kilometers.This is basically calculated to make sure that if there's a problem they can get back to base camp. If you look at these 10 kilometers of the lunar surface on the map, you’ll see that it’s very flat.

They will land on very flat areas because they don't want the astronauts to land in a dangerous area. But these flat areas are not the ones that are of interest.

The areas of interest are typically the ones where the craters are, because there’s probably water inside. And water is a super important resource. And around their edges, on the hills, you permanently have light and that's even more important because permanent light means solar energy. But these locations are not where you want to go with astronauts on board. It's too dangerous. And so if you look at the lunar surface, you see that there’s actually a gap between the safe landing sites and these sites of interest. And this gap is much more than 10 kilometers. So the only way to go there is with a secondary habitat.

So if we take the Eurohub there, instead of 10 kilometers, an astronaut can go 20 or 30 kilometers, because if he has a problem there, he can still return safely. And the Americans are already asking about this.

So there is less need for European astronauts and we should concentrate on complementary services instead?

The issue they talk a lot about nowadays, at least in France, but I think a little bit everywhere in Europe, is sovereignty. They talk about the capacity to launch astronauts. I'm very much for that. I mean, as I said before, it's totally strange that a continent like Europe is unable to launch its own astronauts. The Russians have done it, just like the Americans and the Chinese, and soon the Indians will also do it, while Europe still hasn’t been able to send an astronaut into orbit. But that’s not what we should be chasing now. We need to go further, and what we need to do is propose something for the lunar surface that will complement the existing technologies. If it doesn’t complement what’s already there, then nobody will be interested in it.

I think it’s very clear that Europe should cooperate with the US because we all know what's going on in the world right now and I think a strong partner like that is always good to have.

I think Europe should stop trying to be friends with everybody. And I'm very open when I talk about this, I think we shouldn’t work with the Chinese. I wish we were living in a world where everything is pink and nice, but that is not what is happening – everyone has this romantic idea about space exploration. They think you just go there, you start to carve some rocks and then come back. But people need to realize that it's a political race, it’s a competition.

When it was first announced that Hungary would appoint a ministerial commissioner for space research and that there should be Hungarian astronauts going to the ISS, everyone was wondering what the point was, why we were spending the little bit of money we have on this. Do you think this is really a bad decision for a country like Hungary?

Actually, I find what's happening in Hungary interesting. Number one, building up a particular national astronaut team is always a good thing in my opinion. Nowadays you have millionaires going to space, you have a lot of initiatives that are running alongside the big agencies. And so I think this is a good development because for me, the more people go to space, the better. What Hungary is doing now should be done by other countries too, because the more people do it, the more infrastructure will be up there, and national space agencies can cooperate with each other.

As for the money: if millionaires are flying into space, why shouldn't a country like Hungary be able to do something like that? It’s not about the money, it’s about how we spend it. The problem is that when we think of space exploration and space travel, the first thing that always comes to mind is the way the US does it. That is a problem. A new company can come along at any time and say it is going to do it differently, because if you look at NASA, the way we have been doing it for the last 30 years, it is expensive and it’s very slow. There were a lot of ESA programmes that were started years ago and a lot of money was spent on them before they finally said they weren't going to do it after all.

How exactly are you working with the Hungarian team? How is your startup working with us?

We started working with Semmelweis University soon after we started our company. We have a very particular expertise in space mission training, space mission simulation, and in particular, underwater simulation. There are lots of similarities between the two. There are very nice things that you can simulate underwater for space missions. We are involved in this project as a subcontractor, in the beginning we had lots of ideas about where to create a habitat, and in the last few months there have been many more ideas. We have now selected ten different sites, but we are still waiting for ideas. The key is to be able to simulate the lunar environment to some extent. It could be a mine, because of the properties of the soil, or an underwater site, or an underground site where we can train for confinement. Once we have found the location, the next step is to propose a specific activity. We have worked on a similar project with ESA before, so we know exactly what the gaps that Hungary can fill are.

What is missing, what is something you don't have at the ESA at all?

There are several such things, for example we are thinking about habitat systems, but the idea has changed several times in recent months. We also need habitat systems under extreme conditions, which could be underground or even underwater. In Florida, for example, there is a very famous underwater training facility, which is about to close and there is no site to replace it. So these are the kind of things that we could do in Hungary in the future.

What is the process for choosing a place?

Our best option so far was to ask Semmelweis University for help, where Dr. Renáta Papp is the project manager. They are currently preparing a catalogue of the sites. We are looking at the infrastructure in the area, how far it is from the airport, how safe the area is, whether we can leave our equipment there safely or not. Some of these locations are in national parks, which raises complex questions. We are trying to consider all the different aspects. I am sure that by the end of the year we will be able to narrow the list down to two or four sites and propose a particular activity for each.

Will the training of Hungarian astronauts also be carried out on site?

I hope so. It depends on what activity we end up doing. We're not necessarily just setting up for human spaceflight, we are also working on robotics. But it would be fantastic if the team could participate in simulations in the future, or at least use them and give us feedback so we can improve. What's also very important is that we want to build something sustainable, not just a one-shot thing. The basic idea is to build something that will last for years.

Do you have a timeline of how long you want this habitat to stay there?

This collaboration will end at the end of the year. I think we will publish our results soon after that, and then the question that remains will be whether to go ahead with European or national funding, or both. There may also be interest from private investors.

So the site will be picked by the end of the year, and then you'll see what happens. Does this mean that for now it's not sure whether there will be such a habitat in Hungary?

We will outline the options, write proposals, and from there it's up to the government and the ESA to go further. I think it is also important to note that a project doesn't need a big site, often a very small area with a particular morphology or geochemistry is enough. I am sure that there are other sites in Hungary that are not in the catalogue, but are promising.

I would really like for people to think outside the box about space exploration. So don’t just think about going to space or going to the ISS. This is a huge industry. After the Russians left here in '89, people completely abandoned space travel and space. It's like, oh, NASA is doing that, so we won't do it. People have to understand that we have the capacity, we have the sites, we have the brains. And through these, Hungarians can also have a say in the space race.