COLOGNE: The closest thing to walking on the moon without traveling off Earth is a huge, unremarkable-looking warehouse in the German city of Cologne.
The European Space Agency (ESA) claims that the LUNA facility, which was formally inaugurated on Wednesday, is the most accurate simulation of the lunar surface in the world.
European astronauts will receive training in the special simulator and test equipment that may be used on future Moon missions, maybe as part of NASA’s Artemis program, which would launch humans there in a few years.
It appears to be a massive white hangar from the outside, tucked away in a corner of the German Aerospace Center outside of Cologne. Beneath the walls and ceiling of the nine-meter (30-foot) high structure, however, is a mannequin that mimics the dirt found on the moon.
Under the harsh light of a single lamp at one end of the 700 square meter space, which is larger than three tennis courts, craters and lumps flow in and out of darkness. There are rocks all over the place, and the dust is an odd shade of grey.
Matthias Maurer, an astronaut with ESA, gave a description of moving around in a space suit.
Maurer told reporters during a recent tour of the facility that it can be challenging to find your way around “when you’re entering the black area and you have the sunlight in front of you.”
