Lunar mission deep in Zermatt's ice

On 17 June, students from EPFL and 12 other European universities headed to Zermatt as part of the IGLUNA project. Their mission? To build and demonstrate a prototype lunar habitat in the ice that could one day support human life on the Moon. Mankind first set foot on the Moon on 20 July 1969. Five decades on, thoughts have turned to establishing a permanent settlement there. Over 150 students have descended on the mountain village of Zermatt as part of IGLUNA, a project coordinated by EPFL's Swiss Space Center under the European Space Agency's [email protected] initiative. The multidisciplinary teams will all be working toward the same goal: building a "habitat in the ice" that might one day be deployed on the Moon. Supporting human life in an extreme environment is no easy task.