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Later, up at the bridge, some of the representatives are crowded round. The gravity is much like it was back on Luna, which has an advantage when it comes to seating arrangements. To make use of limited space on the ship, some of the assembled are perched on special ridges along the wall. Virginia Rein is pacing, while Kosmo and Sungura Kikwete lean over a tablet table, moving images of colony plans around.

"We're in a deep hole on the wrong side of the moon, our Talos satellite isn't doing jack," says Virginia, stopping her pacing. "We're going to have to hook up relay beacons if we want proper communication with Earth."

Kosmo raises the volume on his vocoder as he addresses the room. "It will be more efficient if we collect the vehicles from the Laelaps supply drop first," says Kosmo. "Once we have those manned rovers, we can use them to do whatever else we want on the surface."

You know that eventually you'll do both, but there's only one ground rover with a limited capacity and it'll take months for it to drive over to the other side of the moon and back. Even the satellite beacons will need to be placed thousands of miles away.