 | ||
| Luna | ||
|---|---|---|
| System | Sol | |
| Type | Moon | |
| Astronomical Classification Index | FOSLC-1L | |
| Habitable | No | |
| Affiliation | United Nations | |
| Location | Sol System | |
| Artificial Satellites | Numerous satellites | |
| Discovery Date | Prehistoric | |
| Population | 340,229 (2114) | |
| Equatorial Radius | 1,737 km | |
| Gravity | 1.62 m/s | |
| Axial Tilt | 1.54° | |
| Mass | 7.35 x 10^22 kg | |
| Tidally Locked | Yes | |
| Orbital Period | 27.3 days | |
| Orbital Radius | 384,400 km | |
| Orbital Eccentricity | 0.0549006 | |
| Aphelion | 405,400 km | |
| Perihelion | 363,300 km | |
| Inclination | 5.14° | |
As Luna lacks an atmosphere and has very little gravity, starships of most sizes can land on its surface with minimal effort. Coupled with its proximity to Earth, Luna grew into a bustling trade hub acting as an intermediary between interplanetary transport vessels and Earth's trade, collectively giving Luna's economy more than ₵200 billion annually. Its largest city is Port Tranquility, responsible for over 70% of Luna's shipping traffic.
Planetary Information
Luna is a relatively barren world with next to no atmosphere and a seemingly unremarkable surface composition. However, it's far from featureless -- millions of craters pockmark the moon's surface, roughening the landscape and, in the past, triggering volcanic activity and lava formations on the moon which gave rise to several beds and formations resembling those of former liquid bodies, including canyons resembling rivers, and "seas", or maria. One of the most famous seas, the Sea of Tranquility, is the basis of several historic moon landing missions and forms the home and namesake of Port Tranquility. Within these mares, signs of ancient volcanic activity have been found, which are packed with valuable resources which are frequently mined.
Lunar regolith, the fine dust that makes up most of Luna's surface, is composed of silicate rocks and dust ground up into microscopic particles by billions of years of meteorite impacts and electrically charged by solar winds. As a result, dust accumulated on suits, equipment, and structures outside of pressurized habitats can easily accumulate and contaminate the environment. The dust is extremely damaging to the lungs when inhaled, and precautions must be taken to ensure as much dust is cleaned from items as they enter habitats. This same dust is also used in resource extraction, atmospheric systems and some forms of construction. At Luna's poles, temperatures drop so low to the point where small but significant reserves of water ice can be found. These are regularly mined by Lunar colonies and used for providing liquid water to the moon's populace.
A major threat to Lunar settlements are moonquakes, which are seismic tremors caused by the gravitational influence of Earth on Luna. Though the large cities such as Port Tranquility and Tycho have countermeasures in place, these violent moonquakes can cause regular, expensive damages to infrastructure and equipment within cities, leading to the popular migration of Lunarians to the mare urban congregation.
Infrastructure
Alongside Earth and Mars, Luna is one of the only planetary bodies in the Sol system to have city lights - though being that all residential areas on Luna are underneath the surface, the city lights are minor and dispersed, being comprised primarily of surface refineries, factories and ports, though congregate heavily around ports like Tranquility and Artemis, being the most major of the city lights. The city lights of Luna can be seen with the naked eye from the surface of Earth. The vast majority, roughly 96% of populated settlements on Luna, are located below the surface as to protect the residents from constant solar radiation.
With many Lunar settlements being as old as the 2020s, many of them are built within the shell of older cities, replacing and supplementing old habitation technology with new ones without much expansion to account for growing populations outside of residential sectors, leading to Lunar cities being renowned for being incredibly cramped. However, larger cities such as Port Tranquility, Tycho and Copernicus have undergone extensive urban developments, becoming huge, enclosed geofront cities, which had led to many Lunar residents moving into the major cities of the mare region of Luna.
Luna sports a self-sustainable atmospheric system with little-to-no dependence on Earth despite the moon having no atmosphere to draw chemical resources from - instead, the cities of Luna draw their chemical resources directly from the lunar regolith and crust of the planet, with Luna's surface being comprised of 48% oxygen. Powerful atmospheric facilities extract this oxygen from the surface and turn it into breathable oxygen, then feeding it to the various facilities and cities of Luna, which sustain the oxygen loop by utilising trees and plants, algae recyclers and carbon dioxide scrubbers. These same facilities also extract iron, silicon and magnesium, which similarly contribute to the Lunar resource economy. In the near proximity of the mare region, large underground transit tunnels allow for quick transit between cities, while inside of geofront cities, railways make up all forms of transit. Residents of cities outside of the main urban congregations typically plan for surface rover transits between cities or use short-distance ferries.
Demographics
A majority of Luna's population are workers who are there by profession, hired by logistics and transportation companies and placed in employee housing. However, that's not to say that there aren't civilians living on the moon; thousands of families working in unrelated fields (or even unemployed or retirees) reside in apartments on Luna. While living conditions are unconventional, with the Lunarian Ports being far more cramped than the domed cities of Mars or the suburban landscapes of Earth, the civilian establishments remain quite luxurious and well-accommodated, and have family-oriented facilities such as schools and indoor parks. It even has colleges; Artemis University is the largest, although not the only, higher-education institution on the planet and specializes in operations, hospitality, and physics majors. AU has a low-gravity research lab providing invaluable data to student researchers while not being nearly as costly or space-constricted as stations.
Besides the permanent population, millions more tourists visit Luna from Earth each month. Hundreds of resorts across the planet accommodate tourists and take care to particularly emphasize the primary selling point of Luna: the view of Earth. Hotel rooms are typically laid out in such a fashion that the non-budget rooms unconditionally have some kind of direct view to Earth, leading to unusual hotel layouts. To say it pays well is an understatement; Lunarian tourism brings in billions of credits annually and forms the third largest moon-wide source of income after logistics and transportation.