The Last Habitat Module - The Shackleton Base Story

By Shaun Smit

Eleven-year-old Mira Okafor trusts numbers more than anything else. Living at Shackleton Base, tucked into a crater at the Moon's south pole, numbers are how she makes sense of the world - how much air is left, how far to the nearest airlock, how many days until the next supply ship.

Then the supply ship crashes, and the numbers turn against her.

Eleven days of clean water. Nineteen days until rescue. That's eight days short.

Mira has an idea: water, frozen in permanent shadow at the bottom of an ancient crater, close enough to reach - if anyone would just listen. But the adults are consumed with their own plan, her idea is dangerous to attempt alone, and one wrong move could cost the whole base more than time.

With her friends Dae-Jung, Priya, and Anil, Mira learns the hardest lesson of all: being right about an idea isn't the same as being ready to carry it alone.

Grounded in real lunar science - the same water ice and crater conditions NASA is studying today for future Moon bases - The Last Habitat Module is a survival story about trust, mistakes, and the kind of help that has to be asked for, not just offered. Each chapter closes with a short science note connecting the story to real space exploration research.

Book One in the Shackleton Base series.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HFW6TPL1
• ISBN13: 9798235857421
• Release Date: August 2026
• Publisher: Shaun Smit
• Length: 70 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.5" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 9 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 7