A sheep’s eye on the Moon 

The specially trained astronaut Shaun the Sheep has been assigned a seat on the Artemis I mission to the Moon. This series of ESA blog posts covers Shaun’s training and preparations leading up to launch.

The Moon is an inhospitable, unknown world. There is no atmosphere, nor anything alive on its surface. 

At the same time, our satellite remains a pristine record of the last four billion years of our Solar System, an open book for the trained eye. The geological history of the Moon can give us unprecedented insight into the history of our own planet.

Shaun the Sheep will be the first woolly specialist to go around the Moon and back, and as such he has learned to identify the geological features he might see carved on the surface during the lunar flyby.

European planetary scientists have given Shaun the Sheep lessons to equip him with a geologist’s eye on the Moon. Shaun was praised as a quick learner, absorbing in a few days an enormous amount of geological information, from identifying lunar rocks to guess their origin. 

If Shaun were to land on the Moon, he would be able to know just by looking at the rocks whether he was in a volcanic area or in the middle of a gigantic impact crater, and most importantly, which rocks to collect.

Lunar fuel and bricks for future habitats

Preparing space farers for lunar exploration also involves looking for local resources. After all, Shaun the Sheep and the rest of the farmyard inhabitants need a sustainable access to space. 

Shaun the Sheep will see with his own eyes how the Moon is covered in grey, fine, rough dust. This powdery soil is is everywhere – an indigenous source that could become the ideal material for brickwork.

Engineers from Shaun’s homeland are already working on a process that could be used to extract oxygen from lunar dust, leaving behind metal powders that could be 3D printed into construction materials for a Moon base. 

The extracted oxygen could be used as rocket fuel. And the lunar regolith – the dust, soil and rock on the Moon’s surface – could be useful for heat storage and electricity generation. 

Shaun the Sheep will keep an eye on how the lunar regolith could be used to build future habitats on the Moon, for both astronauts and lambs.