TURIN — Let's project ourselves into the future, leaping forward, say 10 years, to the year 2033. While we’re at it, let's also leap the 384,400 kilometers separating us from the Moon, setting course for our natural satellite's South Pole.

This is where NASA and its longstanding partners — the European Space Agency (ESA), the Canadian Space Agency and the Japanese Space Agency — have chosen to set up the Artemis Base Camp, to take advantage of the ice lying at the bottom of the craters and the "peaks of eternal light" provided at this latitude by a Sun that never dips below the horizon.

This base camp has already been inhabited for several years: crews of two to four astronauts take turns there at regular intervals for missions lasting 30 to 60 Earth days — but it is still spartan.

Perched on the structure of the lunar lander, and itself topped by large solar panels rising vertically to capture the grazing light of the Sun, the Lunar Surface Habitat, with its 7.8-meter height and 4.4-meter diameter, offers our intrepid "moonwalkers" merely a cramped interior space and minimal comfort. The important thing is that its inflatable envelope protects them from micrometeorites and cosmic rays.