LUMO / Publications
In the open

Publications & research.

A standard only works if it is shared. LUMO is presented on the record — at ESA & TU München and Politecnico di Torino — and published openly, so the thinking can be checked, cited and built on.

Talks

On stage, on the record.

Two invited talks lay out the full argument for a modular, hexagonal habitat standard. Watch them, or read the summary below each.

5th SSEA · ESA & TU München · 2026

Modular hexagonal habitat architecture

Hard engineering, not science fiction. The usual flow is reversed: instead of bringing space technology down to Earth, take proven Earth engineering up to the Moon. The guiding principle is to extend life beyond Earth with infrastructure that survives not years but hundreds of thousands of years — which demands true modularity (one structure, repeated) and the real mass and volume of Starship, where three habitats would fit, rather than CubeSat-scale concepts.

The model is Antarctica's Neumayer Station: standardized cargo containers plus a protective hull. On a surface you need a shape that tessellates — only the triangle and the hexagon do — so HEX is hexagonal. Build in phases (power and rovers first, then a pressurized module, then full life support), shield with regolith rather than lead, and you have a habitat buildable with today's technology. China or SpaceX could build it now — which is exactly why the standard has to be set now.

Watch the talk →
IAA Symposium · Politecnico di Torino

Reaching the stars — keep Earth a garden

Keep Earth as a garden; expand consciousness into space — using existing knowledge to build infrastructure for all life, starting in our solar system. Today's one-off habitat concepts aren't designed for the test of time, have no build phases, and carry an ISS-style disposal problem. We already know how to build in extreme environments: the Neumayer Station's shipping containers plus shielding. Space needs a self-repeating pattern, and only triangles and hexagons tessellate — so HEX is hexagonal, sized for Starship's ~150 t to the lunar surface.

The deeper point is interoperability: different countries and companies build different specialized HEX modules that connect into one large habitat. Drawing on ESA's MELiSSA closed-loop life-support training, the talk argues for real infrastructure — solar farms, tank farms, heavy machinery, safe landing distances — and regolith shielding against dangerous secondary-neutron radiation. The vision reaches to Enceladus and beyond.

Watch the talk →
Research Papers

A growing body of work.

The HEX concept is documented in peer-reviewed and symposium proceedings — a foundation we keep building on as the standard matures.

RG

Modular hexagonal habitat architecture — proceedings & papers

Published work on the HEX approach, presented at international space-education and exploration symposia. Full list and downloads on ResearchGate.
More to come.  As the standard is filed with ESA/ISO bodies and the first prototypes are tested, new papers and technical notes will be published here — this is a category we are actively building.

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