As NASA prepares for humanity’s return to the Moon, researchers at Texas A&M University are exploring how the same material could become a key building block for the first permanent settlements beyond Earth.

The Moon’s surface is surprisingly unlike anything we would consider soil on Earth. Instead, it is covered by a fine powder of pulverized rock and jagged glass that slips into every gap, grinds through seals and gaskets, and exists in a vacuum exposed to intense radiation and extreme temperature swings capable of bending steel. Yet researchers at Texas A&M University see opportunity rather than obstacles in this harsh environment.

Scientists refer to this material as lunar regolith, and it is considered one of the greatest challenges to long-term human habitation beyond Earth.

As NASA advances plans for a permanent human presence on the Moon through its Lunar Innovation Park initiative, Texas A&M researchers are developing technologies designed to transform the lunar surface into a foundation for future settlements.

“We are moving past the era of ‘flags and footprints,’” said Dr. Patrick Suermann, professor of construction science and retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel in a statement. “We have to stop thinking like explorers and start thinking like settlers.”

Money as a Hurdle 

Arguably, the greatest challenge facing lunar construction may not be engineering, but cost. Transporting materials from Earth remains extraordinarily expensive, with estimates ranging from roughly $1 million to $1.3 million per kilogram delivered to the Moon. As a result, researchers are increasingly focused on utilizing resources already available on the lunar surface rather than transporting materials from Earth.

“The future depends on building infrastructure from resources already on the moon,” explained Suermann.

“The high cost of shipping to the moon is the million-dollar problem,” Suermann said. “Every time you can cut the mass of a payload, you save a fortune. That’s why the future depends on building infrastructure from resources already on the moon.”

Helping advance that vision is Dr. Robert Ambrose of the Texas A&M Space Institute, located near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The institute has received $200 million in support from the Texas Legislature.

“One of the most exciting features of the 240-acre facility is it’s two-and-a-half acre testing areas: one replicating the surface of the moon, the other Mars,” says Suermann.

These facilities allow researchers to evaluate robotic systems, autonomous vehicles, and construction technologies under conditions similar to those expected during future lunar and Martian missions.

Meanwhile, the university’s Construction Automation, Safety and Education (CASE) Lab is exploring how humans and machines can collaborate in extreme environments. Led by Dr. Gilles Albeaino, the lab focuses on mixed-reality technologies and semi-autonomous robotic systems capable of performing construction tasks on the Moon.

“On the moon, construction operations will depend on semi-autonomous robotic systems,” Suermann said. “The CASE lab is leading research into how humans and machines can work together in environments where humans can’t safely do everything themselves.”

“Every tool matters. Every ounce of material you ship matters,” added Suermann. “So, the question becomes: how do you use the environment itself as your supply chain, and how can you augment machines to become your partner in austere environments?”

Arctic to Afghanistan

Suermann’s experience combines two worlds: military service and construction science. Before joining Texas A&M in 2017, he served in the U.S. Air Force, deploying to remote locations that included Afghanistan, Guam, and Greenland.

Those experiences operating in challenging and isolated environments continue to inform his thinking about future lunar settlements.

“My experiences in serving the U.S. Air Force were formative and transformative,” Suermann said. “It taught me a great deal about construction, and that what can go wrong will go wrong.”

It shows, to me, that lunar regolith isn’t too dissimilar from the terrain we have here on Earth,” Suermann adds. “At the end of the day, construction is construction.”

Should We Develop on the Moon?

The broader question remains whether humanity should be expanding its footprint beyond Earth at all. While plans for lunar settlements continue to advance, critics point out that many environmental, political, and social challenges remain unresolved here at home.

As governments and private companies invest billions into space infrastructure, some argue that humanity must carefully consider how development beyond Earth aligns with priorities on our own planet. Others contend that technologies developed for lunar habitation could ultimately provide benefits back on Earth, helping address challenges ranging from resource management to sustainability.

Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and founder of VOCAB Communications. She hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on The Debrief’s YouTube Channel. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton and at chrissynewton.com.

Early in the 11th century, a young Benedictine monk named Eilmer jumped from the 150-foot tower of his abbey in the small English town of Malmesbury, wearing a pair of crude wings he’d fashioned from willow wood and cloth. Eilmer managed to glide a good 600 feet, passing over the city wall before crash-landing in a small valley near the river Avon. The fall broke both his legs, crippling him. Malmesbury Abbey still boasts a stained-glass window in honor of Brother Eilmer.

This legendary experiment in medieval aviation comes to us via 12th-century historian William of Malmesbury in an account written circa 1125, although William neglected to provide future historians with an exact date for the feat. But William does mention another key episode in Eilmer's life when the monk was "advanced in years": Eilmer witnessed Halley's comet in 1066, commenting, "It is long since I saw you." Some historians have interpreted this to mean that Eilmer saw Halley's comet on an earlier fly-by in 989, when he would have been a young boy.

Assuming Eilmer was at least 5 years old in 989, he would have been born no later than 984. This would make Eilmer in his 80s in 1066, with his attempt at flight—which occurred when he was "in his first youth"—likely falling between 1000 and 1010. However, it's an estimate that is based on a lot of assumptions, according to James Aitcheson of the University of Leicester, who argues in a paper published in the journal Notes and Queries that Eilmer may have seen a different comet altogether in his youth—the comet of 1018. If so, he would have been born much later, and the date of his flight would have occurred between the 1020s and 1040s.

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On June 14, 1949, a rhesus monkey named Albert II was launched into space aboard a V-2 rocket from White Sands, New Mexico. Prior to Albert II, animals including fruit flies, mice, and another monkey (Albert I) had been launched in rocket and balloon flights as part of American space biology research, but Albert II’sContinue reading "June 14, 1949: The first mammal in space"

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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revealed a cosmic catastrophe, as winds extinguished a star-forming galaxy in the early universe, offering new insight into earlier strange observations.

Cosmic winds may destroy entire galaxies, according to new JWST research exploring the lingering mystery of why certain parts of the universe are unexpectedly devoid of growth.

The findings were published in a recent paper in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, revealing galactic-scale death in a universe just one billion years old, and potentially answering questions about previous troubling JWST observations.

James Webb Space Telescope Observation

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Explaining Galaxy Death

As researchers began considering various explanations for the phenomenon, they initially settled on dark energy, essentially explaining one unknown with another. Dark energy is a theoretical substance that scientists believe drives the expansion of the universe and was once a stronger force than it is now. While the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument survey revealed last year that dark energy appears to be weakening over time, an exotic galaxy-killer is not required, according to this latest research.

Instead, researchers offer a much simpler explanation of powerful cosmic winds in the remote past. Conventional thinking has it that such powerful winds could only be generated by a supermassive black hole, yet these new observations challenge that assumption.

JWST Reveals the Culprit

CRISTAL-02 is a galaxy still in the making, composed of several smaller galaxies in the final stages of merging into a single system. Because the early universe was far denser than it is today, such collisions were much more common. During these mergers, gravitational forces funnel vast amounts of gas toward the galactic centers, triggering intense bursts of star formation.

Observations of CRISTAL-02 by the James Webb Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) revealed a star formation rate roughly twice that of similar galaxies. Ironically, this extraordinary burst of stellar activity is also generating a powerful cosmic wind that is stripping away the very gas needed to form new stars.

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Together, these processes appear capable of shutting down star formation far more quickly than astronomers previously believed possible. Going forward, ongoing JWST observations are likely to continue challenging astronomers’ assumptions, as more evidence indicates that nearly half of the early universe’s massive galaxies were interacting—a finding which also suggests early “galactic deaths” like these may not be all that rare, after all.

The paper, “Multiphase Images of a Powerful Supernova-Driven Wind in the Early Universe,” appeared in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on June 10, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

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