by Playfuls Staff |
5th December 2006
The famous trip to the Moon will not be a singular event in the future, as NASA plans to return there and build a camp. And then gradually colonize it.[more]
The famous lyrics from REM will soon find a sense of reality which I’m sure even the components of the band didn’t think of when they composed the song. NASA recently announced that they will send a new team to the Moon, but not just for visiting and planting US flags. The astronauts (or Moonauts, if you prefer…) will actually begin camping there, in what the Agency calls the most important space initiative of the this century… That’s a fancy name for something that will not happen sooner than 2024…
NASA officials have been preoccupied with answering this profound and intriguing question: Why the Moon? So, over the past year, NASA posed this question to more than 1,000 from around the world. Scientists, engineers, commercial entrepreneurs, space advocates, and the general public all provided answers to this intriguing question.
Starting with just their responses, NASA worked with 13 of the world's space agencies to develop a Global Exploration Strategy. The strategy explains why the global community believes humans should explore space, how space exploration can benefit life on Earth, and how the Moon can play a critical role in our exploration of the solar system. One of the primary activities the global space community pursued in 2006 was to answer the questions, "Why should we return to the Moon?" and "What do we hope to accomplish through lunar exploration?"
Six lunar exploration themes evolved from the recent Global Exploration Strategy discussions. NASA engaged the global space community to develop the themes by asking the question, "Why should we return to the Moon?"
From the answers emerged six common areas of interest – six areas of pursuit which, seen through the eyes of the world, define the value of going to the moon. NASA took these six ideas and worked with other space agencies to develop the following lunar exploration themes.
Almost 200 lunar exploration objectives resulted from the Global Exploration Strategy process. NASA engaged the global space community to develop the objectives by asking the question, "What do we hope to accomplish through lunar exploration?"
NASA took the many answers to this question and compiled them into a comprehensive database of almost 200 different things we could do on the moon! The lunar exploration objectives are meant to capture the entire set of activities that anyone involved in lunar exploration may want to pursue. These activities could be carried out by NASA, another space agency, a private company, a university, or anyone else who invests in space exploration.
Most importantly, each lunar exploration objective can help achieve the broad goals defined by at least one of the lunar exploration themes. For example, the objective "studying craters on the moon" is linked to the "Scientific Knowledge" theme, since studying craters will help us learn more about the moon and the solar system. By linking the objectives to the themes, organizations such as NASA can better understand the specific activities necessary to accomplish the goals.
NASA will take ideas from the lunar exploration themes and objectives and begin to lay out a timeline for what NASA plans to do on the moon.
To develop the lunar exploration themes and lunar exploration objectives, NASA initiated and coordinated an international effort to gain input from many different stakeholder groups. This process began in April 2006 with the Global Exploration Strategy workshop held at the Ronald Reagan Center in Washington, D.C., and the simultaneous release of an associated Request for Information (RFI). The workshop proceedings and RFI response were used to generate a first draft of the themes and objectives.
After it completed the first set of themes and objectives, NASA pursued input from 13 of the world's space agencies on these draft products. The agencies involved were those that expressed early interest in participating in lunar exploration. In addition to NASA, representatives from the British National Space Centre, Canadian Space Agency, Chinese National Space Agency, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Organization, European Space Agency, French National Space Agency, German Aerospace Agency, Indian Space Research Organization, Italian Space Agency, Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, Korean Aerospace Research Institute, National Space Agency of Ukraine, and Roscosmos contributed in varying degrees to this process.
Each agency was encouraged to coordinate individual national reviews of the themes and objectives. NASA Headquarters coordinated a review by interested U.S. stakeholders, including all ten NASA Centers, the NASA Advisory Council, the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group, the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group, the Space Commerce Roundtable, the NewSpace2006 Conference participants, the Next Generation Exploration Conference participants, and other experts.
NASA has consolidated all of the international and U.S. inputs into the lunar exploration themes and objectives, without identifying the source of each input and without editing to reflect NASA’s policies or plans. NASA will continue to seek input from members of the global space community as it moves forward with the Global Exploration Strategy.
The themes and objectives are meant to capture the entire set of activities that anyone involved in lunar exploration (a space agency, private firm, university, or other) may want to pursue, as developed by the process described previously. The themes and objectives do not set forth U.S. government or NASA policy. They do not establish a set of activities that NASA or any member of the global space community intends to pursue. The themes and objectives do not reflect whether domestic legislation, international agreements, or both would be necessary to carry them out.
NASA merely facilitated development of these themes and objectives, which are simply one data set to consider as the United States and its potential international partners begin to define lunar exploration architectures.
These objectives are classified according to their importance for science. Astronomy and physics are dominating:
-perform radio astronomy to map the cosmic web and observe other astronomical objects (Radio astronomy is enabled by being on the far side of the Moon. Low frequencies can not be observed from the Earth because they are absorbed by the atmosphere. High frequencies can not be observed from the Earth because the radio environment on Earth is too noisy. The far side of the Moon, lacking an atmosphere and shielded from the Earth's radio noise, is ideal).
-perform interferometry on the lunar surface to observe the universe at UV, optical, and infrared wavelengths ( interferometry on the Moon is enabled because the Moon is a dark site without an atmosphere. Locating a telescope in the bottom of a crater could have additional advantages for IR observations because of the cold temperature there. However, the Moon offers a harsher environment for interferometry in the UV, optical, and NIR than does deep space. Large thermal variations, mechanical distortions due to lunar gravity, dust, and seismic noise are all absent in deep space).
-detect and monitor exoplanets to gain perspective on the uniqueness of the Earth and our solar system
-search for exotic states of nuclear matter to understand the composition of the universe.
-make precise measurements of the Moon's position to test Einstein's theory of general relativity (laser ranging measurements of the Moon’s position have given us some of our most accurate tests of Einstein’s theory of gravity- which has so far passed all its tests). Placing laser transponders on the Moon would significantly enhance the power of these tests).
-detect and monitor Near Earth Objects (NEO) to discover threats to the Earth and Moon.
-Evaluate the Moon's potential as an observation platform to maximize investments in
astronomy and astrophysics.
To get to the moon, NASA envisions an all-purpose lunar lander that could touch down anywhere and be the first part of a base camp, said exploration chief Scott Horowitz.
"The nickname I use for the lander is ... a pickup truck," Horowitz said in a Monday news conference from Houston. "You can put whatever you want in the back. You can take it to wherever you want. So you can deliver cargo, crew, do it robotically, do it with humans on board. These are the types of things we're looking for in this system."
The first flight with astronauts onboard is planned for 2014, with the first flight to the moon no later than 2020, almost 48 years since the last manned Apollo mission.
The most likely of the two lunar destinations is the moon's south pole because it's sunlit for three-quarters of the time. That offers a better locale for solar power, plus the site has possible resources to mine nearby, said associate deputy administrator Doug Cooke.
"This is not your father's Apollo," said John Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. "I think it's the only way to sustain something like this over decades. This is not a flag-and-footprints. This is the idea of starting an outward movement that includes long stays on the moon."
Although ambitious, these projects require money. Lots of money. Last year, NASA said it would cost $104 billion just to get back to the moon for its first trip, but on Monday NASA officials declined to estimate the larger costs of a permanent lunar program. They just said it would stay within NASA's budget.
