A 12-wheeled vehicle kicks up a haze of gunpowder-grey dust as it makes tracks across undulating terrain. The “space truck” has a pressurised cabin, allowing the two astronauts inside to breathe without their spacesuits.

They’re tired after a day spent investigating water-ice deposits a few kilometres from their base.

This is the Moon in 2050.

As the rover rounds the imposing sides of a large crater, the astronauts catch the glint of mirrors mounted on its rim. The mirrors beam sunlight into the crater, powering a mining operation to extract water-ice within. On the left, the truck passes a landing pad - flattened out by microwaving the lunar soil - where an ascent vehicle sits waiting to blast into orbit.

The vehicle pulls up by the domes of a base, here at the Moon’s South Pole. The astronauts enter their habitat through an airlock and remove their dusty spacesuits. Inside, a greenhouse that’s growing kale and potatoes emits an unearthly glow under LED lights. The crew members climb the steps to an upper level, where the base commander awaits them for a debrief.

Scenarios like this are fantasy, for now. But it’s one possible way humans could live and work on the Moon.

If we want to establish a long-term base, we’ll have to take what we need from lunar resources.

Hannah Sargeant: "My generation are definitely going to see this through" Hannah Sargeant: "My generation are definitely going to see this through"

In her lab at the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK, PhD student Hannah Sargeant is working on a way to do just this, using a mineral called ilmenite that’s abundant on the Moon.

Inside a bench-top oven, the ilmenite is heated to extract oxygen, which is combined with hydrogen to get water.

“There are 20-plus ways of getting water from rocks on the Moon. Ilmenite was of interest because it’s quite common there and the reaction that you need uses relatively little energy,” she explains.

And she says she’s excited at the prospect of humans returning to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972.

“I feel like my generation are definitely going to see this through. I’m confident that it will happen in my lifetime, that we will have – at least – permanent habitation in orbit around the Moon, and then you have a continued back-and-forth to the surface.”

Apollo 17 - the final mission to the Moon in 1972 Apollo 17 - the final mission to the Moon in 1972

In 2017, Donald Trump signed a space policy directive to return American astronauts to the Moon, and on to “other destinations”. Nasa said it would aim to do this by 2028. But recently the administration directed the space agency to bring that forward to 2024, citing Chinese lunar ambitions. It hasn't gone unnoticed, however, that the date would coincide with the end of Trump's second term, should he be re-elected.

This time round, Nasa wants to do things differently. The Moon is part of a bigger ambition to explore deep space, including Mars, so part of the plan is to establish a lunar outpost.

“We're not going back to the Moon to leave flags and footprints and then not go back for another 50 years,” Nasa’s administrator Jim Bridenstine said earlier this year. “We're going to go sustainably - to stay - with landers and robots and rovers and humans."

But can Nasa safely mount a return mission by the deadline, given that critical hardware has neither been built nor flight-tested?

“It’s going to be risky,” says John Logsdon, professor emeritus of political science and international affairs at George Washington University in DC. But he adds: “If we’re not willing to accept a certain level of risk, then we should stay on the ground. The issue is balancing risk with activity.”