Could the moon be the next big housing trend?

These days, it’s not a controversial (or even unpopular) opinion that maybe we’d be better off just leaving Earth alone and moving to a new planet. At this point, our future doesn’t look too different from the beginning of Wall-E, and many people have thrown around the idea of finding new planets to inhabit before we wreck this one beyond repair. 

According to this New York Times article (helpfully summarized by ApartmentTherapy.com for those behind a paywall), that planetary migration may be happening much sooner than we think - potentially by 2040! Government agencies are currently looking into using 3-D printing with moon-based materials to build inexpensive but durable homes and infrastructure that could withstand the radiation and extreme temperatures of moon living. In fact, Architectural Digest reported last year that a company named Orbital Assembly hopes to open the first-ever commercial “space hotels” on the moon within the next 3 years! 

Would you consider living on the moon? The views would be unbeatable, but it’s hard to imagine it’d be much fun for the first few years - likely isolating, even*. But who knows, maybe with space hotels and space houses, we’ll get space malls and space theaters in no time! In the meantime, I’m sure some TV execs out there are pushing hard to get The Real Housewives of Lunar Landing approved.

*If you’re interested in a depiction of what moon living would look like, I highly recommend Duncan Jones’ gorgeous movie Moon, in which an astronaut is wrapping up his last few days on the moon following a lonely 3-year stint overseeing the mining colony.