Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) has signed a Memorandum of Collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) in order to further develop their existing research for Moon Village. Signed in Paris, by Colin Koop, Design Partner at SOM, and Johann-Dietrich Wörner, Director General of ESA, the announcement was made earlier this month. The Memorandum of Collaboration will build on the existing work between SOM, ESA, and MIT. In fact, the two-year partnership, focused on developing “the concept for Moon Village, as a framework for the first permanent settlement on the lunar surface […] with large habitation modules with inflatable structural shell technology emplaced on the rim of Shackleton Crater”. The teamwork imagined the large-scale development near the Moon’s South Pole. The cooperation between ESA and a global company such as SOM is a very good example of the spirit of the Moon Village concept: an alliance between private and public, space and non-space entities that will enable going forward to the Moon in an inclusive and sustainable manner. -- Johann-Dietrich Wörner, Director General of ESA.
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