SPACE.com -- Europe Leads the Way in Lunar Exploration

Lunar Mission Provokes Mystery

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Japan Prepares Lunar Mission

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	Europe Leads the Way in Lunar Exploration By Leonard David Senior Space Writer posted: 05:00 pm ET 10 July 2000

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WASHINGTON -- The moon can be seen as an escaped continent of Earth.

The question now facing the world is how best to transform that barren landmass into a thriving hub of scientific research and industrialization.

Increasingly, many nations are taking a longing look at Earth's celestial next-door neighbor. To prove the point, you don't have to look much farther than the Fourth International Conference on Exploration and Utilization of the Moon. Set for July 10-15, the lunar conference will be held in Noordwijk, with the city heralded as the "Capital of the Moon."

Under the SELENE Project from 2004, Japan will start to develop the technology needed to explore the Moon.

"The moon is a continent of Earth, formed when a Mars-size impactor stripped off some of the Earth's mantle 4.55 billion years ago," said Bernard Foing, a space scientist at the European Space Agency's organization, the European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk, Netherlands.

"All space agencies can now start a precursor and robotic lunar program in coordination. Competition will come from the challenge to do it efficiently, creatively and with public and commercial support," Foing told SPACE.com.

Next steps on the moon

Plotting the next steps on the moon is already on Europe's space agenda. Similarly, Japan is readying its Lunar A mission in 2003, and the Selene moon lander for a 2004 touchdown.

All manner of ideas are to be discussed, Foing said, be they lunar astronomical observatories; cost issues for a human return to the moon; even the economic and legal aspects of setting up a commercial business on Luna.

The International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG) is organizing the multinational conference. Foing is chairman of the group.

"I am interested in all aspects of lunar exploration, from science, technology and robotics to outposts and lunar bases in which to live, as well as growing new societies on the moon," Foing said.

During the conference, a "Lunar Declaration" is to be drafted. The document serves as a plan of action for international lunar explorers and space agencies keen on 21st-century exploration and use of the moon, Foing said.

Mars myopia

Michael Duke, co-chairman of ILEWG, said that interest in the moon appears higher in Europe than in the United States.

Duke is also a research scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas.

"The upcoming conference can serve to promote an international lunar program. However, there is no sign of U.S. leadership in this area, as NASA appears to be placing all of its attention on Martian exploration," Duke said.

"Lunar exploration really is international. I just see it as a continuum. Ultimately, we do want to go there with humans again, utilizing resources to support stations there," said James Head, space geologist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

"An outstanding lunar program can be done, including sample returns from key areas, for a fraction of the cost of the Mars program. Such an endeavor could make a splendid area for international collaboration. The moon is the only really accessible place for humans beyond low Earth orbit in the next decade or so, because it can be done with existing launch vehicles," Duke said.

The moon can act as a window in piecing together the first half of solar-system history, said James Head, space geologist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. "That record is largely missing on Earth, and incomplete on other terrestrial planetary bodies," he said.

"Lunar exploration really is international," Head said. "I just see it as a continuum. Ultimately, we do want to go there with humans again, utilizing resources to support stations there," he said.

Could lunar science be literally left in the moon dust as commercial interests take root on our natural satellite?

"I think it's unrealistic to declare the solar system as a national park, then think that we're going to have complete access to it with no national commercial interests," Head said. "On the other hand, I hope it can be done in an effective partnership," he said.

Smart move

Europe's blossoming interest in the moon is evidenced by real hardware.

The European Space Agency's Small Mission for Advanced Research in Technology, better known as SMART 1, is headed for an Ariane 5 send-off in October 2002. The probe will tote into lunar orbit instrumentation capable of mapping what's lurking inside permanently shadowed craters near the moon's poles.

NASA's Lunar Prospector and the U.S. Defense Department's Clementine spacecraft both relayed tantalizing evidence that huge quantities of water ice may be buried inside these polar features.

Such a resource, if present, could be converted into oxygen and water for supporting a range of tasks, including commercial enterprises.

Europe's SMART 1 will have other duties too, such as helping decipher the origin of the Earth-moon system, said Foing, who is also project scientist for the mission.

Traveling to the Moon is a short rocket ride away.

Return to stay

But as the first European satellite to be launched towards the moon, SMART 1 is seen by Foing as an opening volley tantamount to a technological "phasing of the moon".

That phased approach starts by launching a series of orbiters and small landers. A second step is establishing a permanent robotic presence on the moon, followed by the use of lunar resources. A fourth phase is building the first human outpost, Foing said.

Foing said that the Apollo lunar landings were akin to the brief visits of the Vikings who set foot on the American continent several centuries ago.

"We need the next phase in which some people, like Columbus did, will be staying there. They will start colonizing, exploring and exploiting permanently this outer-space continent of the Earth -- this new frontier."