Temple for the moon

The ESA invited Jorge Mañes Rubio to design a temple for the moon

Article

No. 4 • December 2016

'The moon is so pure, so unexplored. An ideal place for man to make a fresh, new start,' says Jorge Mañes Rubio.

text: Hans den Hartog Jager

Fig 1. Jorge Mañes Rubio, photo Sanja Marušić

Living on the moon, working on the moon, living and dying on the moon. And all in darkness, floating, at a temperature of between 120 and -150 degrees. It seems far away, very far away, but in Jorge Mañes Rubio’s Amsterdam living room, this life suddenly becomes confrontationally close. On Rubio’s kitchen table is a large, transparent jar with a blue lid; inside is a substance that most closely resembles iron filings, or very fine silver sand. ‘If we are going to build on the moon,’ Rubio says, ‘we will undoubtedly use regolith, the material the lunar surface is full of. Only, on Earth very little of such regolith is available, so when the ESA, the European Space Agency, tries to think about building on the moon, it usually uses this material: it’s called DNA-1 and is extracted from a volcano in Italy.’ I stick my hand in the jar and let the substance flow past my fingers. So this is what it feels like, when you stick your hand into the ground on the moon: cold, soft, a touch tingly. I can already see myself sitting there, in the darkness, in the cold – remarkably still, all of a sudden.

But that is the power of suggestion: it will almost certainly remain forever impossible to wiggle your hand into the lunar surface: due to the extreme conditions, visitors will always have to wear gloves. Still, that kind of fantasy has an enormous appeal: we see the moon every day, yet it is so far away, so pure, so unexplored, that it is very tempting to develop a host of heaven-defying plans for the celestial body that will never be realizable on earth. This scenario drive is fueled by the fact that the moon seems to be becoming increasingly accessible. Not only because technical developments are moving very fast, but also because it is widely believed in space circles that a new phase for the exploitation of the moon will begin in 2024. For then the International Space Station will be dismantled, the enormous floating spacecraft that orbits the Earth and for all the major powers (Europe, Russia, Japan) is currently the “benchmark” in space. What happens next is uncertain. But precisely this uncertainty, or better: this openness, is already prompting very different people and agencies to devise ambitious space plans. Last year, for example, the U.S. Congress already approved a law that already allows companies to extract material on the moon, Norman Foster’s architecture firm is investigating the extent to which it will be possible to build on the moon using 3D printers, and Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and billionaire, is busy setting up a regular shuttle service. Bezos wants this to eventually enable “millions of people” to settle on the moon.

Fig 2. The temple to the moon on the rim of Shackleton Crater | Jorge Mañes Rubio. Design and visualization Javier Martínez (DITISHOE).

Eternal and always light

Spectacular new plans for the moon are also being developed at the ESA. The most imaginative of these is the plan of director Johann-Dietrich Wörner, who last year proposed building a “moon village”. That won’t be a concrete village with a school, a cigar store and a church, but what it will be is open to speculation – and that’s where Jorge Mañes Rubio comes in.

Rubio has advertised himself as an artistic explorer throughout his artistic life. For his work, for example, he searched China for what remained of the villages flooded during the construction of the Three Gorges Dam on the Jangtse River. He also did a large art project about the (fictional) Japanese engineer Akito- shi Fujiyama. He is infected by the “moon virus” after the discovery of a chunk of meteorite and begins making plans to travel to the moon on his own, collect moon rock and sell it on earth. This latter project, for which- for Rubio built an elaborate installation, including photographs of the meteorite’s discovery site and models of Fujiyama’s space shuttle, piqued Rubio’s interest in life on the moon, or rather its consequences. And yes, when Rubio contacted the ESA, his ideas turned out to fit in beautifully with Wörner’s Moon Village plan. Almost immediately, he was given a temporary contract as Artist in Residence with ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team.

But what to do, in space, as an artist?

“What fascinated me so much,” Rubio says, “is that the moon has no cultural history. On the moon, there are no borders yet, no countries, there are no restrictions, the moon is a perfect symbol of freedom and possible unity – the last symbol of that, perhaps. My dream is to hold that idea and make a fresh start to our civilization on the moon. So I quickly decided that I wanted to build a temple, not to celebrate a specific religion, but rather a symbol that can connect all races and cultures.’ Rubio decided that the temple should be located on the rim of Shackleton’s lunar crater. That is not only where Wörner’s Moon Village should take shape, it is also a place of great symbolic power. The Shackleton is as much as 4.2 kilometers deep, and astronomers assume that the interior of the crater is the coldest and darkest place in our entire solar system.

A circular opening in the temple will offer a view of the earth. The temple will also have windows in the roof of the dome: a telescope will allow the study of the universe. The temple will have a common forum with different levels for cultural and ritual activities. | Jorge Mañes Rubio. Design and visualization Javier Martínez (DITISHOE)

Fig 3. A circular opening in the temple will offer a view of the earth. The temple will also have windows in the roof of the dome: a telescope will allow the study of the universe. The temple will have a common forum with different levels for cultural and ritual activities. | Jorge Mañes Rubio. Design and visualization Javier Martínez (DITISHOE)

Jorge Mañes Rubio

'Through the moon we can see our life on earth in a new light'

At the same time, the edge of the crater is a so-called Peak of Eternal Light: one of the few places where the sun permanently touches the lunar surface. That makes the crater rim the perfect location for Rubio’s temple: the building itself will stand on the rim and extend into a “catwalk” that rises above the crater, thus offering visitors a view into the deepest caverns of eternity. ‘The extraordinary thing is,’ Rubio says, ‘that scientists think there might be some there at the bottom of the crater.’ And water will undoubtedly have the status of gold on the moon, but more importantly, because water is a basic human necessity of life and will be very difficult to obtain on the moon: a lot of it is needed and it is very expensive to bring it in from Earth. So water from the moon itself will become very important.’

The Shackleton is as much as 4.2 kilometers deep, and astronomers assume that the interior of the crater is the coldest and darkest place in our entire solar system. The tiny white dot at the front left is the temple Rubio wants to build there.

Fig 4. The Shackleton is as much as 4.2 kilometers deep, and astronomers assume that the interior of the crater is the coldest and darkest place in our entire solar system. The tiny white dot at the front left is the temple Rubio wants to build there.

Rituals that give hold

For the design of his temple, Rubio did extensive research into the tradition of spiritual and symbolic buildings in various cultures. This led him further and further back into history: via James Turrell’ s Roden Crater and the work of 18th-century utopian architects such as Boullée and Ledoux, Rubio finally arrived at the foundations of world culture: pre-Columbian cultures such as those of the Maya and the Aztecs and also the Inuit. “They all use the dome as a kind of primal form,” Rubio says, “You can see it in Boullée, in the Pantheon in Rome, but also in the Inuit igloos. Apparently the dome shape universally works best as an elemental representation of the need for culture. So, too, the lunar temple will be a hal- ve sphere, with several holes in it, including for a telescope. Such a construction can be carried out much more easily than on earth because on the moon there is only one-sixth the force of gravity. As a result, we can build much lighter, much more ambitiously, although that construction will probably be printing, in 3D, with lunar regolith – which is suddenly strikingly similar to building with mud brick, a technique used centuries ago in countries such as Ghana and Iran.’

Rubio is well aware that the chances are slim that his temple will actually ever be implemented, but that doesn’t matter – what fascinates him is that his presence as an artist in a project organization like ESA allows people to think beyond practical limitations. ‘On Earth we hardly realize how different the conditions are on the moon. There are three major dangers there: radioactive radiation, micrometeorites, which constantly bombard the lunar surface, and the huge difference in temperature, which can exceed 250°C. Scientists are constantly grappling with such practical problems, which makes it all the more special the ESA gives me the opportunity to think further about cultural and philosophical implications of life on the moon. For example, how does someone born on the moon function, for whom Earth is only a distant point of reference? What happens when someone dies? How do we create rituals that give people there something to hold on to? It all seems so far away, but it can be done, our humanity has never been so close to a completely new start, no matter how complex life on the moon will be. That is precisely why I find it so special that the ESA also enables me to reflect on life on earth in a new, unusual way – via the moon we can hopefully see our life on earth in a new light. That alone makes this project more than worthwhile for me.