|
Capital (and largest city) |
"Tranquility City" |
|
Armstrong Base Commander | Peggy Whitson |
|
Hillary Research Chief | Piers Sellers, EU | Area | 5 km² | Population | 5,902 | Admission | Territorial Status |
|
Growing by only 1,000 people a year, Tranquillitatis is currently nothing more than two bases on the Moon: Tranquility City (est. 2006), a US mining and research colony near the Apollo 11 landing site, and the home of NASA's Bill Nelson Space Center at Armstrong Base, home of NASA's Astronaut Corps, and Hillary Research Town (est. 2008, after the recently-dead explorer Sir Edmund Hillary), a joint venture at the lunar South Pole between the United States, Russia, Japan, the European Union, and Space Adventures. A large population boom is expected by 2010, when the first Mars ships begin construction on the Lunar surface. President Obama has committed NASA to develop Tranquillatis into a hub of manufacturing and economic growth by building new bases near the rest of the Apollo landing sites in reverse order of landing date. They are to be called, in order of planned completion, Cernan (designated commander: Michael Fincke), Young, Scott, Shepard-Gagarin (with Russia's planned Alexei Leonov Training Center), and Conrad. The UN has expressed an interest in placing the new headquarters on Hillary.