A moonbase is a facility on or below the surface of the Moon, enabling human activity on the Moon. As such, it is different from a lunar space station in orbit around the Moon, like the planned Lunar Gateway of the Artemis program. Moonbases can be for robotic or human use, in both cases not necessarily including lunar habitation facilities.
Missions to the Moon have so far realized only temporary single-mission bases, (Tranquility Base being the first), as well as some small permanent installations. Plans for establishing facilities on the Moon that could enable sustained human activity on the Moon and even longterm lunar habitation have been proposed and are actively pursued nationally and increasingly internationally by space agencies, though outright lunar colonization, as in creating territorial exclaves is prohibited by international space law.
Moon Village concept
The Moon Village concept was presented in 2015. "Village" in this context refers to international public and private investors, scientists, engineers, universities, and businessmen coming together to discuss interests and capabilities to build and share infrastructure on the Moon and in cislunar space for a variety of purposes. It is neither an ESA project nor a program, but being organized, loosely, by a nonprofit organization seeking to give a platform for an open international architecture and collaboration. In other words, Moon Village seeks to create a vision where both international cooperation and the commercialization of space can thrive.
The open nature of the concept would encompass any kind of lunar activities, whether robotic or astronauts, 3D printed habitats, refueling stations, relay orbiters, astronomy, exploiting resources, or even tourism. The idea is to achieve at least some degree of coordination and exploitation of potential synergies and to create a permanent sustainable presence on the surface of the Moon, whether robotic or crewed. Jan Wörner, ESA Director General until 2021, described in 2017 the Village simply as "an understanding, not a single facility". This initiative is meant as the first step in coming together as a species and developing the partnerships and "know how" before attempting to do the same on Mars. The Director General of ESA, Jan Wörner, states that this vision of synergy can be as inspiring as the International Space Station but on a truly global, international-cooperation basis, and he proposes this approach as a replacement for the orbiting International Space Station, which is due to be decommissioned in 2024.
China has expressed interest, and NASA has also expressed interest in the potential synergy it offers to the proposed Lunar Gateway. The private aerospace company Blue Origin has also expressed early interest and offered to develop a cargo lander with a capacity of usable payload. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin has long urged his fellow Americans to cooperate with international partners to reach the Moon. The State Space Agency of Ukraine has agreed to uphold MVA principles and cooperate with the MVA to develop "sustainable habitation" of the Moon.
While Woerner is the most famous advocate for Moon Village, it is not an ESA program. Instead, the concept is being organized, loosely, by a nonprofit organization established in November 2017 called the Moon Village Association. It is a non-profit organization, registered in Vienna, with the mission to create a global forum for the development of the Moon Village, and to potentially implement a permanent human settlement near the lunar south pole, taking advantage of near-continuous sunlight and nearby deposits of ice and other useful volatiles. In 2018, the Vienna University of Technology got sponsorship from ESA for a design workshop on the topic of the Moon Village. 35 master students have developed hypothetical scenarios for a future Moon village. Interestingly the cooperative concept of the workshop led to a number of new themes, such as multipurpose mobile infrastructure, an astro-scientist training campus on the Moon, an experimental research food lab up to a lunar recycling facility.