Capping a Lunar Crater with Regolith-derived Material for an Instant Habitat

A recent study published in Scientific Reports, proposed a new method for creating a lunar habitat that involves capping a crater with regolith-derived material.

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00:00 Intro
01:42 Types of Lunar Habitats
03:40 Example Crater in the Sea of Tranquillity
04:19 Advantages of a Lunar Crater Habitat
05:10 Disadvantages of a Lunar Crater Habitat
05:51 Geopolymer Material Proposed for Crater Cap
07:57 Building the Cap
09:00 Concave Domes (Curved inwards, like the inside of a Bowl)
09:43 Convex Domes (Curved outwards, like a Hill)
10:21 Outfitting the Capped Crater
11:29 Lunar Challenges: How well does the Capped Crater Rank?
11:45 Solar Wind and Galactic Cosmic Rays
12:01 Micrometeorite Impacts
12:25 Maintaining Habitable Conditions
12:52 Final Thoughts
14:08 Outro

Sources:

A lunar base could start with a dome over a crater made of regolith: https://phys.org/news/2025-07-lunar-base-dome-crater-regolith.html

Concept and preliminary structural analysis of a crater-covering dome for future lunar habitats: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-07901-x