NASA Wants Students to Solve Its Toughest Lunar Base Problems for Cash

NASA is crowdsourcing the future of lunar habitation by turning to classrooms across the country. The agency just launched a multi-phase competition backed by $1 million in prize money, asking students to tackle the massive hurdles of building a permanent outpost on the moon. High school and post-secondary teams can enter concepts across six technical areas, ranging from power generation during the punishing lunar night to astronaut safety and life support.

This format is designed to mirror actual aerospace development rather than a standard science fair. Teams submit initial ideas before refining them, and finalists get the rare chance to present their solutions directly to NASA leadership. Our read: this setup lets the agency test early-stage concepts without committing massive internal resources, while giving students a direct pipeline to agency stakeholders years before they finish their degrees.

Yet the timeline for a functional moon base remains distant. NASA's immediate priority sits with the Artemis III mission in mid-2027, where four astronauts will practice rendezvous maneuvers with lunar landers. That flight precedes Artemis IV, which aims to return humans to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972.

Registration for the student challenge stays open until January 25, 2027.

Watch to see if these student designs can overcome the severe environmental challenges that still stand between humanity and a permanent world outside Earth.