Mission to Mars (12 page)

Thanks to a fleet of robotic probes recently sent to the moon by several countries, there’s verification that the moon is a mother lode of useful materials. Furthermore, the moon appears to be chemically active and has a full-fledged water cycle. Simply put, it’s a wet moon.

New data on our old, time-weathered moon points to water there in the form of mostly pure ice crystals in some places. For example, sunlight-starved craters at the poles of the moon—called “cold traps”—have a unique environment that can harbor water ice deposits. Gaining access to this resource of water is a step toward using it for life support to sustain human explorers. Similarly, the moon is rife with hydrogen gas, ammonia, and methane, all of which can be converted to rocket propellant.

Fresh findings about the moon from spacecraft have revealed the lunar poles to be lively, exciting places filled with complex volatiles, unique physics, and odd chemistry, all available at supercold
temperatures. Recently, the first Lunar Superconductor Applications Workshop was held that brought together expert groups in high-temperature superconductors, low-temperature electronics, cryogenic engineering, and lunar science. The upshot was that even dealing with below 100 kelvin temperatures on the moon, there are several high-temperature superconductors to select from; substances like sapphire and beryllium become thermal superconductors. Digital and analog circuits can operate at very low power and very high speeds, with very low noise and very high fidelity.

It is this kind of harnessing of the exotic that sparks innovation and creativity. What kind of power generation and storage systems can operate for long periods of time that take advantage of the wild swing of lunar temperatures that are available? There’s already discussion of lightweight, modular, and expandable superconducting magnets that could provide space radiation shielding on the moon. Those permanently shadowed, incredibly frigid areas at the moon’s poles might also be ideally suited for infrared telescope observations.

In short, our celestial neighbor in gravitational lock, the moon, can be tapped to help create a sustainable, economic, industrial, and science-generating expansion into space.

The question is, What should America’s role be in replanting footprints on the moon?

Standing on the talcumlike lunar dust just a few feet from the
Eagle
, the lunar module that transported Neil Armstrong and
me to the bleak lunar terrain, I labeled the landscape we stood upon “magnificent desolation.”

There were six Apollo lunar landing missions from 1969 to the close of 1972, and just 12 of us were fortunate to kick up dust on the moon. Somebody tagged us the “dusty dozen.” The accumulated moonwalking time was limited: From Apollo 11’s modest 2.5 hours to Apollo 17’s campaign of forays, it added up to a little over 22 hours. Quite literally, exploration of the moon—both robotic and human—has barely scratched the surface in terms of gathering knowledge about that crater-pocked globe.

There’s a campaign under way to designate the Tranquillity Base site where Neil and I landed as a national historic landmark. NASA itself has put together recommended guidelines on how to protect and preserve the historic and scientific value of U.S. government lunar artifacts. The field of space heritage preservation is gaining traction.

I’m an advocate for preserving all six Apollo landing sites. By expending the effort to safeguard Apollo 11’s Tranquillity Base location, we will learn how best to preserve the other five Apollo landing spots.

I have several ideas on how to proceed. The historic Tranquillity Base landing location could be isolated, encircled by a track system on which movable cameras would be trained on the spot. The lighting conditions would change, given the 14 days of sunlight and 14 days of darkness. Operated by a commercial company with a little creative thinking, it could create an amazing virtual reality experience.

I have looked over the superb forget-me-not images taken from moon orbit, by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, that clearly show
Eagle
’s Tranquillity Base landing site. The sharpshooting camera specialist is Mark Robinson at Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration in Tempe. He is principal investigator for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera.

The Apollo 11 plaque, now on the moon

(
Illustration Credit 4.4
)

You can make out the remnants of our first steps as dark regions around the lunar module and in dark tracks that lead to the scientific experiments that Neil and I set up on the surface. There’s another trail that leads toward Little West crater, around
to the east of our
Eagle
lander. Neil took this jaunt near the end of the two and a half hours we spent moonwalking to steal a look inside the crater. This was the farthest either of us ventured from the landing site. Overall, our tracks in kicking up the lunar dust cover less area than a typical city block.

Robinson observes that hardware launched from Earth and sitting on the moon has been resting there for 40 to 50 years now. Talk about a long-duration-exposure material-sciences
experiment, he explains, given radiation, vacuum, temperature cycling, and micrometeorite bombardment.

Apollo 11 lunar module landing site (LM), including the Lunar Ranging Retro Reflector (LRRR) and Passive Seismic Experiment Package (PSEP)

(
Illustration Credit 4.5
)

How have electronics fared? Optics? Paint? Coatings? Metals? Synthetics? In future years, on-the-spot observations and recovery of a modest amount of these materials would be a boon to engineers building lunar hardware, Robinson says. He points out that waste bags tossed out by Apollo crews might make for an interesting biology experiment. Are any microbes still alive among the garbage and human waste left on the moon? If so, can we see evidence of adaptation to the harsh lunar environment?

In May 2012 NASA and the X Prize Foundation of Playa Vista, California, announced that the Google Lunar X Prize, a $30 million competition for the first privately funded team to send a robot to the moon, is also recognizing NASA guidelines to guard lunar historic sites and preserve ongoing and future science on the moon.

I’ve been wondering if one of those teams might have their robot recover Alan Shepard’s golf balls that he hit during his Apollo 14 moon landing mission.

Maybe with all the craters he managed to get a hole in one?

In January 2004 President George W. Bush put NASA in high gear, heading back to the moon with a space vision that was to have set in motion future exploration of Mars and other
destinations. The Bush space policy focused on U.S. astronauts first returning to the moon as early as 2015 and no later than 2020.

Portraying the moon as home to abundant resources, President Bush did underscore the availability of raw materials that might be harvested and processed into rocket fuel or breathable air. “We can use our time on the moon to develop and test new approaches and technologies and systems that will allow us to function in other, more challenging, environments. The moon is a logical step toward further progress and achievement,” he remarked in rolling out his space policy.

To fulfill the Bush space agenda required expensive new rockets—the Ares I launcher and the large, unfunded Ares V booster—plus a new lunar module, all elements of the so-called Constellation Program.

The Bush plan forced retirement of the space shuttle in 2010 to pay for the return to the moon, but there were other ramifications as well. Putting the shuttle out to pasture created a large human spaceflight gap in reaching the International Space Station. The price tag for building the station is roughly $100 billion, and without the space shuttle, there’s no way to reach it without Russian assistance.

In the end, the stars of the Constellation Program were out of financial alignment. It was an impossible policy to implement given limited NASA money.

Today, pushing the calendar nearly 45 years later, I see the moon in a different light from that of the space race days of 1969. I envision a 21st-century moon, one that can be transformed into an International Lunar Development Authority.
This entity would set the stage for establishment of infrastructure that not only taps the resource-rich moon by commercial, private-sector groups, but also spurs international partnerships between nations.

America can lead the way in creating a lunar consortium of robotic base building that embraces the talents of China, Europe, Russia, India, Japan, and others to establish a firm—this time permanent—foothold on the moon. Moreover, in doing so, the United States can sharpen its own technological know-how that’s needed to eventually homestead the red planet.

For several years I have been working shoulder to shoulder with a group of engineers and scientists who are engaged in a vital initiative: an International Lunar Research Base. This base will first be anchored in Hawaii and later evolve to a base on the moon. The project is being carried out under the wing of the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems, or PISCES for short. Its purpose is straightforward. PISCES would
drive the development of surface systems and other hardware for the moon, be it for energy production and storage, recycling, construction, or mining, and spark a host of resource utilization technologies and techniques. Those working on this base have coined a phrase: “Dust to Thrust.”

Building up an international lunar encampment

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Illustration Credit 4.6
)

Hawaii and the moon, the coupling of the two brings back memories. In the 1960s, prior to my Apollo 11 flight, NASA made use of the lower slopes of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. It was a training ground for Apollo astronauts, to help us experience what the surface of the moon would be like, and how best to work there. In fact, of all the places on Earth where we trained, the Big Island most felt like the moon.

The proposed International Lunar Research Base can become a unique multinational facility, a test site first on Earth, later to be replicated on the moon. A central goal of this venture is for the United States to acquire the skills for remotely operating robotic systems, knowledge useful to connect habitats, perform habitat-maintenance tasks, set up scientific experiments, and run mobile prospecting gear capable of mining the moon.

Decades ago, there was only one way to put human cognition on the moon. That was the expensive proposition of hurling people and their brainpower there. Today it’s no longer the only choice.

Advances in telerobotics can plant human cognition and dexterity on the moon. Telerobotics is an explosive growth industry here on Earth. We plunge to great ocean depths using human-controlled automatons. Robotic equipment extracts resources from perilous mines. Our skies are increasingly dotted with
craft that are winging their way under telecontrol. Even high-precision surgery is being done via telerobotics, carried out by a doctor distant from the patient.