More than 50 years ago, Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon. Since then, 11 other people have joined him and became moonwalkers. What comes next, though?Recently, it has become apparent that the next step for lunar progress will be a global positioning system (GPS) on the moon.

NASA, in cooperation with companies and agencies in Europe and Japan, has already begun developing this technology. Developers in China have recently unveiled their decision to start working on a similar project.China’s National Space Administration wants to build a series of 21e satellites that will cover the moon’s south pole by the end of the decade.

But why are experts talking about putting a GPS system around the moon? It’s not like Google Maps is going to find any new Wawa joints  in outer space. As it turns out, there are many reasons for this development.

First, GPS is not only used for transportation. It has a variety of different uses between the industries of agriculture, finance, search and rescue and many others.

One of NASA’s goals in the long term is to build a colony on the moon. For this to be successful, the astronauts have to be able to sustain themselves. A colony’s self-sustainability depends on the colonists having a system that helps them grow food and to find lost colonists on the lunar wasteland. If tomorrow’s moon society does not require constant deliveries of food and supplies, then that society could come sooner than we think. It costs billions of dollars to send rockets into space, so saving a few trips could possibly save an unthinkable amount of money.

For a self-sustaining moon colony to someday be possible, there has to be a way to get people to the moon in a relatively safe and efficient manner. GPS could help make that happen. Moon landings require efficient communication and a safe and calculated landing, both of which a global positioning system can supply. 

There are some obstacles that scientists have to overcome before they can develop this new lunar GPS. For example, time works a bit differently on the moon than it does on Earth. Because of the lower gravitational forces working on atoms on the moon compared to those on the Earth, time is a bit faster on the moon than on our home planet. In other words, because the moon has less mass than the Earth, time moves more quickly on the moon than on the Earth.

This is a problem because a working moon GPS would need to sync up perfectly to the Earth clocks to be accurate in terms of position. A difference of a nanosecond could mean several centimeters of distance error.

Astrophysicists are pushing past this problem. By calculating a lunar timescale, they can create timestamps that help to provide the level of precision needed for linking the positioning data from satellites to computers down on Earth.