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Scientists Beg NASA To Reconsider Luna
By
Senior Space Writer
posted: 07:00 am ET
30 March 2001
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www WASHINGTON Earths celestial next-door neighbor needs a house call. Angered by NASAs seeming lack of interest in anything lunar, scientists are petitioning the space agency to put the Moon back on the exploration agenda.Leading scientists argue that the Moon remains a harsh mistress of mystery. Recent robotic probes that have gone the lunar distance the U.S. Pentagons Clementine spacecraft in 1994 and NASAs Lunar Prospector in 1998 have both sent back data showing the Moon to be a world of vacuum-sealed secrets. Moonstruck scientists One way to reestablish scientific contact with the Moon is via robotic return to Earth of select lunar samples. A petition was circulated among some 1,200 space scientists at the recent 32nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), held March 12-16 at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The open letter was addressed to NASAs head of space science, Edward Weiler. It urged the space agency "to consider lunar sample-return missions as a very high priority and an essential element in the future scientific exploration of the solar system." The letter proposes lunar sample missions to such sites as Oceanus Procellarum; the craters Giordano Bruno, Copernicus and Tsiolkovsky; and the floor of the Moons south pole-Aitken basin. Hauling back the goods from these spots can help unravel the chronology of lunar volcanism, thickness of the lunar crust, as well as how much a beating the Moon took by impacts during the last third of the solar system's history.James Head, a planetary geologist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, helped draft the back-to-the-Moon petition. "There is a critical need to understand better the Moon as a cornerstone in the evolution of the planets," Head told SPACE.com. "There are a lot of things that are unusual and missing in our knowledge about the Moon," he said. Well-placed lunar sampling missions would help discern what has happened on Mars too, along with plotting out the impact-cratering record throughout the inner solar system, Head said. The Apollo program to put humans on the Moon was of great benefit to lunar scientists, Head said. By hurling to the Moon robotic sample-return missions, "well be cashing in on the Apollo investment, a return on the dollar that also spreads out to the rest of the planets as well," he said.~ Ice chest No need to go back in geologic time to realize the covert nature of the Moon. On Dec. 3, 1996, the Pentagon announced that its high-tech Clementine spacecraft in lunar orbit found ice at the Moon's south pole. This deposit was discovered by Clementines radar, showing the ice chest to be within an area hidden from the Suns warming rays. The military reconnaissance orbiter also returned over 1.5 million images of the lunar terrain. 
The Moon is the logical destination for NASA... Its doable from a budgetary and political sense. Within five to six years, we could be back on the Moon.
NASAs Lunar Prospector later found evidence for water ice near both lunar poles. That craft circuited the Moon for some 19 months, snagging a bountiful data set that is still being sifted through. It found relatively few permanently shaded craters that were large enough at the lunar north pole to harbor temperatures low enough to trap water ice indefinitely. But at the lunar south pole, its a different story. There, within the bottoms of several large, permanently shaded craters, predicted temperatures fall well below climes needed to stabilize water ice, said William Feldman, a Lunar Prospector scientist working at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. 
NASA's Lunar Prospector relayed surprising data about the moon. Lunar Prospector data "rule in favor of the existence of significant water-ice deposits at both lunar poles," Feldman reported at the recently held LPSC gathering earlier this month. "There are two different arguments for going back to the Moon," said Ben Bussey, a planetary scientist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. "One is for the Moon itself. Apollo was a good start, but there is much to do and learn. The recent discovery of ice at the poles, together with the possibility of highly illuminated areas near the poles, make those interesting regions to visit," he said. A core sample of ice might reveal the comet impact record on the Moon, Bussey said. Furthermore, that resource of ice is ideal to crank out rocket fuel and help maintain a future Moon base for astronauts, he said. "While I think the Moon is interesting enough in its own right to be explored, there is another reason. It is close and, therefore, the Moon makes a good testing ground for equipment relating to a human Mars mission," Bussey said. Been there done that Wendell Mendell, a lunar expert at NASAs Johnson Space Center, said that theres new life in studying the Moon. "Everybody just seemed to assume that after Apollo we knew everything that there was to know about the Moonso why bother with it? That was the attitude," Mendell said. However, courtesy of Clementine and Lunar Prospector, as well as the Apollo project, the true picture of the Moon is still emerging, Mendell said. "New kinds of information are forcing us to rethink the Moon. It still has things to tell us. As the keystone to our understanding of the solar system, I dont think its fair to characterize the Moon as scientifically uninteresting," Mendell said. The detail churned out by Lunar Prospector "is just fantastic and getting better and better," said Alan Binder, head of the Lunar Research Institute in Tucson, Arizona. As principal investigator for the robotic Moon mission, he is impatient waiting for any NASA return to the Moon. "The academic community is sort of waiting for NASA to lead the way instead of pushing the envelope," Binder said. ~ A commercial break Binder contends that commercial space exploration is a route back to the Moon. Binder wants to see broad, global exploration of the Moon. Along with lunar-sample spacecraft, he sees a systematic set of Moon orbiter missions, each outfitted with instruments to better chart Lunas entire surface. "You want to get all that data in your pocket as you start surface exploration. That way youre not poking around in the dark," he said. 
Luna assets: Money to be made at commercial lunar base. "The commercial world can do the detailed exploration. Thats the way it went on Earth," Binder said. Having private funds support a return-to-the-Moon campaign is no easy go. Ask Bill Gross, founder and CEO of Idealab, based in Pasadena, California. He formed Blastoff, a heavy-hitting and top-drawer corps of space engineers tasked to build a low-cost Moon lander. Their private lunar effort was eclipsed earlier this year by a shortfall of space funding to fuel the enterprise. "Thinking that you can fund missions on pure entertainment value is naïve. My reading is that the only product is science data. And the only customer is NASA, or the European Space Agency (ESA), or other countries that are interested. They are used to dealing with data," Binder said.International interest Several nations are hungry for a chance to shoot for the Moon. The European Space Agencys Small Missions for Advanced Research and Technology ( SMART 1) is to orbit the Moon for a nominal period of six months. The spacecraft is to be ready toward the end of 2002, then launched as an auxiliary payload atop an Ariane 5 booster. It will be the first time that Europe sends a spacecraft to the Moon. Japans Lunar A is now targeted for a 2003 liftoff and is to conduct the first surface science measurements since the days of Apollo Moonwalkers and Russian robotic landers. Another ambitious Japanese Moon mission is Selene A, an orbiter to be dispatched from Earth in 2004."We have de facto a new international lunar exploration program," said Bernard Foing, an ESA project scientist for the SMART 1 mission. "The Moon has and will be used as a test bed for solar system exploration. We can test the Moon instruments, robotic outposts, techniques of telepresence and virtual reality -- and the deployment of large infrastructures," he said. Foing said that he envisions a mix of international cooperation and competition in a 21st-century return to the Moon. As chairman of European-based Young Lunar Explorers, he said there is no doubt that, ultimately, the scientific return to the Moon will lead towards a permanent human presence there. Mars Mafia "The Moon is the logical destination for NASA," said Paul Spudis, staff scientist and deputy director of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas. "Its doable from a budgetary and political sense. Within five to six years, we could be back on the Moon," he said. Spudis is blunt about his feelings that Mars has hijacked NASA's exploration thinking. "If you want to make a case for lunar return, it helps to have somebody listen to what you say. NASAs antipathy to the Moon is almost completely due to [NASA chief] Daniel Goldin, who thinks a lunar return would kill his Mars program," Spudis told SPACE.com. The Moon is a valuable and nearby resource node -- ideal for carrying out astronomy; for evaluating the "best of" skills of robots and humans; as well as to ready crews and equipment for long-distance expeditions to Mars, Spudis said. "Weve been to the Moon, which is a world with a land area the size of Africa. But weve only visited six spots, and the farthest weve roamed was maybe 3 or 4 miles (5 or 6 kilometers)," Spudis said. "Theres a whole world to explore there and a lot we dont know."
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