Moonbase One — Raymond F. Jones

Moonbase One is in trouble. The first colony on the moon has only a thirty-day emergency food supply now that their hydroponic farm and its valuable store of water has been destroyed. Unless something can be done quickly, the moonbase will fail and the space settlers will have to be returned to Earth.

Like all pioneering colonies, Moonbase One includes families with children. Three space-age teenagers -- Tom Wood, Benny Howard and Dave Mason -- participate as much in the daily routine of the colony as their parents do.

In the struggle to save the moon colony and find ways of replacing the water supply, the three boys and their misfit companion, George Garrison, learn what kind of courage and skill it takes to colonize a new world. They learn how meaningless the technical skills of scientists are if the necessary human qualities are not also present. When the success of the moon colony is finally assured, the teenagers set their eyes on the distant goal of Mars.

Raymond F. Jones based Moonbase One on serious proposals that some lunar rocks are probably hydrous, or water-bearing, and that this water can be extracted. Proof will have to wait for future exploration of the moon, but lunar samples from the Apollo flights contain minerals similar to hydrous minerals on earth.