Moon
The Moon (known as Luna to the Soviets) is Earth's only natural satellite, and the namesake for the term moon. It is tidally locked with its planet, meaning it always faces the planet with the same side. It is the first extraterrestrial body to be walked on by man, in September 1969 by the Soviet Union. This piece of history makes the Moon the biggest offworld Soviet settlement.
Geography
The Moon has largely the same chemical makeup as the Earth, as it was likely formed when a planet known as Theia collided with the Earth, breaking off debris that would eventually condense and collect into the Moon. The main surface features visible from Earth are the darker-colored featureless lunar plains known as maria, Latin for "seas" as they were once believed to be filled with water. These maria are actually solidifed pools of basaltic lava, with almost all of them on the near side of the moon.
The lighter portions on the moon are called terrae by the scientific community, but colloquially known as highlands. These highlands are typically richer in useful materials, which is exactly why the Soviet Union used it as their main area of construction, specifically, within craters at the Moon's south pole.
The Moon is also covered in impact craters, as the Moon has no atmosphere to burn up asteroids in comets. There are around 300,000 craters wider than a kilometer on the Moon's near side, with even more on the far side. Specifically on the south pole, some of these craters contain large amounts of water ice, which made it an ideal spot for colonization efforts like Barmingrad, the Soviet Union's first and biggest lunar city that started as a lunar base.
Climate
The Moon has such a thin atmosphere that it is effectively a vacuum, with surface pressures at about 0.3 nanopascals. As such, the Moon has no climatic features. The footprints left by the cosmonauts the first walked the Moon remain more than a century later, as do impact craters from millions of years ago.
History
The first men to walk on the Moon were cosmonauts from the Soviet Union, on September 11th, 1969. The United States landed just months later with Apollo 12, on November 19th, 1969. The United States then quickly expedited their efforts to continue frequent moon landings, enough to establish a lunar base capable of getting them to Mars by the 1980s, which they would succeed at in 1982. The Soviet Union also continued their lunar expeditions into the 1970s, mostly working to establish a base officially known as Zvezda. This base began as a 20-cosmonaut base, which then expanded into a 200-cosmonaut base, until becoming a true city in the early 2000s. Zvezda, now a city, was founded in 2010 as the very first offworld city.
Throughout the 21st century, lunar expansion continued, as the U.S. government incentivized corporations to bring in the Great Solar Migration, moving mankind to offworld residence, largely in response to the founding of Zvezda. Despite their efforts, the USSR's decades-long lunar lead was too powerful, and in 2101, the Moon remains a predominantly Soviet stronghold. About 78 million people currently live on the Moon, with only 16% of them under UNF jurisdiction.
Included Organizations
Designations
| Classification | Moon |
| Type | Terrestrial |
| Alternative names | Luna, Selene |
| Adjective | Lunar |
Location Data
| Planet | Earth |
| Submoons | None |
| Star system | Solar System |
| Spiral arm | Orion Arm |
| Galaxy | Milky Way |
Orbit & Rotation
| Rotation period |
29.53 standard days
29d 12h 44m 2.9s |
| Orbital period |
27.32 standard days
27d 07h 43m 11.5s |
Surface Characteristics
| Surface gravity |
0.1654 g |
| Surface temperature |
-10 °F
(-280 °F to 250 °F) -23 °C (-173 °C to 120 °C) |
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