Daniel Pope

Six of the Apollo missions led to a dozen men walking on our Moon between July 20, 1969 and Dec. 14, 1972.  The 121 were Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, Charles Conrad, Alan Bean, Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, David Scott, James Irwin, John Young, Charles Duke, Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. But that was many ‘moons’ ago. That was part of the ‘space race’ and the Cold War, a bygone era. The world has changed.

In 2005 NASA announced plans to return to our Moon and to establish a human outpost there before 2020. If we had continued with periodic missions to our Moon we might very well have had a human habitat there by now but we didn’t and so we don’t. The technology and requirements have changed so much from the ’60s and 70s that we have had to start designing from ‘scratch’ again.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) are scheduled to launch on June 17 and that will herald our return to our Moon. This time we plan to stay.

To the greatest extent possible our astronauts will ‘live off the land’ on our Moon. With that in mind, the most critical or most fundamental needed resource is water. The LRO and the LCROSS have multiple sensors and multiple experiments for the purpose of determining if there are significant amounts water or water ice in the permanently shadowed craters at the North and/or the South Poles of our Moon. Our Earth’s atmosphere blocks the cosmic radiation that is harmful to our bodies but our Moon does not have such an atmosphere. The LRO will collect and analyze the cosmic radiation to determine the extent of the hazard it poses to our astronauts. The LRO will map our Moon in great detail and identify safe landing zones. It will locate whatever natural resources are there that our astronauts could use as part of their living off the land.

The LRO and LCROSS will be launched on the same rocket and they will arrive near our Moon in about four days. The LRO will enter a low orbit about our Moon that will last one year while the LCROSS will guide itself and the spent upper stage of the launch rocket into an elongated orbit about Earth. After about 100 days (early October) the LCROSS will separate from the spent launch rocket and send it crashing into our Moon. That will cause a few tons of dust, gas, and vapor to rise a few miles above the lunar surface. The LCROSS will be following the spent rocket a few minutes behind. It has many instruments on board to collect and analyze the data as it flies through the plume of debris caused by the first crash. Several land based and space based telescopes will be pointed at the impact site as well as the LRO. The data will reveal a great deal of information about the makeup of our Moon. The LCROSS itself will crash into our Moon – just a few minutes behind the spent rocket and kick up more of the lunar surface to be analyzed. The LRO will orbit just 30 miles above the surface of our Moon and it will take about 2 hours to complete each orbit. For comparison: the International Space Station is about 210 miles above Earth and takes about 1 1/2 hours to complete an orbit. The LRO’s year long mission with all of its instruments will collect and analyze a great deal of data and that will prepare the way for a later human voyage back to our Moon.

Rather than a ‘race’ to our Moon this time maybe it could be a combined or collaborative effort. It would spread the cost around the world and everyone would share in the credit. Perhaps it would lead to exploring the rest of our Solar System and beyond as ‘Earthlings’ rather than as members of separate nations.  It is an opportunity for the world to work together.

It feels like our Moon is getting closer!

Next week’s column will be about a project I am working on.

Clear skies.