It will be a landmark of cooperation between India and Russia in the area of space exploration, just one more example of the new spirit of openness and interaction between nations in this field. If you go to the website of the Indian Space Research Organization and click on “International Cooperation,” you will find a sentence that sums it all up:

“India has always recognised that space has a dimension beyond national considerations, which can only be addressed by international partners.”

Chandrayaan-2 is an excellent example of this post-Cold War attitude. But it is more than just a symbol; this mission will do good science. It will teach us some things about a body that still has a surprising number of questions associated with it: our own satellite.

Your eyebrows may have risen slightly as you read that last line. “What?” you may ask. “Don’t we already know plenty about it? After all, we’ve actually been there! We have moon rocks! What more do we need?”

Well, let’s put it this way: Imagine an alien civilization that has never visited Earth, and wants to know something about it. After great effort and expense, they finally manage to land an expedition on our planet. They hop out, knock a few golf balls around, and gather up a boxful of rocks. Then they go home, and never come back.

Now, how much do you think our hypothetical aliens could learn about our planet from that? Granted, the analogy has some rather large holes in it, since we really can learn a lot about the moon, or any body, just by observing it from afar. Due to recent technological advances, we can now gather quite a bit of information without actually going there.

But no matter how much we learn from a distance, there will always be questions that can only be answered by going there, and a boxful of rocks is only the beginning. That fundamental fact is the rationale behind further exploration of the moon.

For the time being, that exploration can be conducted by our robot probes, which will learn more about the environments of the moon and other bodies in the solar system. Human beings will follow later.

Some of the specific things that we are trying to learn about the moon relate to the ambition of putting permanent bases there, while other things simply have to do with understanding how the moon formed, and what it can tell us about the early days of the solar system. At the moment, we have some really good theories about how the moon came into being. The bad thing about theories is, they don’t mean diddly without some evidence to back them up. Now that we have the theories, we’re trying to get the evidence.

The leading theory about how the moon came into being is that early in the lifetime of our planet, it was struck by a body roughly the size of Mars. (Luckily, there was nothing living here at the time- this was so long ago, even dinosaurs were science fiction.) The resulting cataclysm was beyond our feeble imagining; the entire planet literally reeled from it, and an enormous amount of material was thrown up. While some of this material fell back to Earth, a large portion of it went into orbit, and eventually coalesced into a single body. That body is the moon.

(This is a great oversimplification of this theory, a full discussion of which would keep you reading for weeks. If you want more info, go to the NASA website and search for “Earth’s moon.”)

The scanty evidence that we have- that box of rocks- seems to bear this out. The moon rocks brought back in 1969 all have a lower percentage of iron than Earth rocks do. This makes sense, if you think about it. Iron is one of the heavier substances that would have been thrown up by that ancient impact. In the impact scenario, you would expect the heavier substances to fall back to Earth, while the relatively light ones would achieve orbit and get incorporated into the moon. The result is a rocky body that has less iron than Earth does.

OK, so we’ve got a nice little theory, and we’ve got some evidence that seems to support it. So far, so good— but the truth is, we’ve only got that one box of rocks, and they were all collected from a single place. How do we know they’re typical? Maybe that area was anomalous, and not representative of the entire moon. Besides, the theory just tells us how the moon got started. After that happened, there was a whole process of evolution that transformed a cloud of loose particles into a spherical body. If we could collect samples from many locations all over the moon, from both the surface and from various depths below the surface, then maybe we could learn something about that process.

That box of rocks is starting to look pretty inadequate now, isn’t it? To understand this body and how it got to be like it is today, we need a whole lot more samples and a lot more work. And this stuff isn’t just abstract science. While we’re going to keep exploring the moon by unmanned means for a while yet, we are aiming for a permanent human presence there eventually. We’re talking colonies, not just outposts.

That dream is now a lot closer to reality than it once was, and part of the reason is the first of these Indian moon probes, Chandrayaan-1. As we saw in our earlier article, that spacecraft participated in observations which have shown the presence of minute amounts of water on the lunar surface. This isn’t just frozen water; the molecules are apparently being made by the action of sunlight bombarding hydrogen-rich rocks. This has enormous implications for future colonizing efforts, and the fact that Chandrayaan-1 took part in the observations that revealed it is certainly a feather in the cap of the ISRO. The second probe, Chandrayaan-2, will expand on this knowledge by putting down a lander and collecting some samples. This will be the beginning of the in-depth investigation into the composition and evolution of the moon.

In discussing this mission, it should be noted that things are still in the planning stage, and details are not firm yet. If you go to the ISRO website, you will find several pages relating to this mission, and they all give different projected launch times, ranging from 2011 to 2013. Besides this, the exact equipment to be included in this mission also seems to be uncertain, with some pages saying that there will be one rover, provided by Roscosmos, and other pages saying that there will also be an Indian mini-rover. In some places, the lander/rover are spoken of as if they will be a single unit, while other places talk of them as separate pieces of equipment. When we start looking at projects that are as much as three years away, it’s not surprising that the details are a bit hazy yet. We’ll have to wait a while to get more definite and specific information.

However, there are a few points that are certain. Chandrayaan-2 will be launched from India’s Sriharikota launch facility aboard a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV). While this is primarily an Indian and Russian collaboration, there will be some instruments provided by NASA and the European Space Agency. Once the orbiter is in orbit around the moon, the lander will detach and land near one of the lunar poles. The rover (at least the larger one) will be designed by Roscosmos, and will be powered by solar panels, possibly augmented by a nuclear power source. The lifetime of this rover will be variable; while some web pages give the projected lifetime as only a month, others say that it may be extended for as much as a year. As with other details of this mission, this one is still uncertain.

Even if the rover is only roving for a short time, it will be able to cover a lot of distance. It has a maximum speed of 360 mph (rough terrain will decrease this, of course) and should be able to visit several different locations, so that a wide variety of dust and rock samples can be collected.

This is a good mission; it will provide us with the kind of basic scientific information that is absolutely necessary for an eventual human presence on the moon. It may also help us to understand how the moon formed in the first place, which relates to the bigger questions of solar research: how did the solar system get here, and what was the process that made it?

The moon landing in 1969 was more a matter of national prestige than a scientific mission: we went to beat the Soviets. This whole mindset, while it may have had some relevance in that long-ago time, seems quaint and silly to us now. When people go to the moon again, it will be for a better reason. That line from the ISRO site said it right- this really is bigger than any single nation. These efforts are for the whole planet, and the whole human race.

Sources:

News October 22, 2008: “Russia and India Start Preparation of the Second Lunar Spacecraft” at the website of Russian Federal Space Agency: federalspace.ru/main.php?id=2&nid=4536&hl=chandrayaan-2

News January 24, 2009: “Exclusive Interview of Anatoly Perminov, Roscosmos Head, for Rossiiskaya Gazeta” at the website of Russian Federal Space Agency: federalspace.ru/main.php?id=2&nid=5263&hl=chandrayaan-2

Press Release November 14, 2007: “India and Russia Sign an Agreement on Chandrayaan-2″ at the website of Indian Space Research Organization: isro.org/pressrelease/scripts/pressreleasein.aspx?Nov14_2007

About ISRO: “Future Programme- Forthcoming Satellites” at the website of Indian Space Research Organization: isro.org/scripts/futureprogramme.aspx?Search=chandrayaan-2

“International Cooperations” at the website of Indian Space Research Organization: isro.org/scripts/internationalcooperations.aspx?Search=chandrayaan-2

Chandrayaan-2 entry at Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-2

“Chandrayaan: Lunar Mission by Indian Space Research Organization:” chandrayaan-i.com/index.php/chandrayaan-2.html

The pictures are in!  The flyby maneuvers of Phobos performed by Mars Express were successful, returning lots of data and some beautiful, clear pictures of the moon.  While details of the radiometric study of Phobos’ density will be coming out later, ESA has already released the pictures showing the proposed landing site for Russia’s Phobos Grunt lander in 2012.  It’s a nice, clear area with a relatively level surface, perfect for a lander.  With this final detail, the Russian mission is set.  Originally scheduled for launch in 2009, the Phobos Grunt mission went through delays and schedule changes, as many space projects do, but now appears to be set for launch next year.  The probe will travel for 11 months, arriving at Phobos in 2012.  When it completes its mission, it will be the longest sample-return mission ever undertaken.

Phobos Grunt is a comprehensive mission to study both Phobos and Mars itself.  It will be conducting studies of Mars, Phobos, and their spatial environment (radiation, plasma, space dust, etc.).  While the return of Phobos surface material will be the tour-de-force, and undoubtedly will be the thing for which the mission is remembered, this is really a larger project regarding Mars and its entire area of space.

The probe will also be carrying a culture of Terrestrial bacteria as a biology experiment.  When the mission successfully returns its samples to Earth, the bacteria will be studied to determine the effects of the long space voyage.

The power for the operation of the probe will be supplied by two rectangular solar panels.  These will be folded down like the eaves of a roof during the voyage to Mars, then deployed in a standard “paddle-wheel” configuration during use.  Between these two panels will be a doughnut-shaped propellant tank, and in the hole of the doughnut will be the rocket that will be used for the return voyage.  This assembly will be connected by eight narrow struts to the ring-shaped landing gear underneath.  Before it is deployed, this entire unit will sit atop a completely separate propulsion system, which will be used for the pre-deployment maneuvers.

Phobos Grunt will go up in the same launcher with Yinghuo-1, China’s first mission to Mars, which will investigate one of the great mysteries of Mars: where did all the water go?  It is now abundantly clear that Mars had much more surface water in its youth than it does today.  The process that deprived Mars of its surface water is still only poorly understood.  Recent findings indicate that some of this water is now locked up in frozen subsurface deposits (see our articles on the Phoenix and Odyssey spacecraft) but exactly how it ended up there, leaving the planet’s seas and river systems dry, is something that will bear much further study.

The origin of Phobos is open to question.  It seems to share surface characteristics with some types of asteroids, which would indicate that it was captured from the nearby asteroid belt.  That scenario is perfectly believable, except for one detail: Phobos orbits Mars in a nearly circular path, exactly on Mars’ equatorial plane.  Now, if this were a random asteroid that had been captured, you would expect its orbit to be random; it probably would not be a perfect circle, and it probably would not be exactly on Mars’ equator.  That kind of symmetry is what we would expect from a body that had been formed along with Mars, in the original planet-forming period of the solar system.  In that case, Mars and its moons could have formed out of one big, spinning glob of dust and gas, and therefore would spin in the same plane.

So with Phobos (and its sister moon, Deimos, too) we see a body that looks like an asteroid, but orbits like something that formed along with Mars.  If it’s an asteroid- or a rubble pile composed of several chunks of asteroidal rock- then it’s hard to explain the orbit.  If it formed along with Mars in the distant birth of the solar system, then it’s hard to explain its surface characteristics.  This is the great enigma that is emerging about the two moons of Mars, and all research regarding them will be aimed at clearing up the question.  We haven’t even looked at Deimos in-depth yet, but when we do, all of the questions that are now being asked about Phobos will also be asked about it.  Where did these moons come from?  Exactly what are they?  In the years to come, we will be trying to find out, and Phobos Grunt will be an attempt to get closer to an answer.

There is also another mystery about Phobos: it just looks funny.  There are long, straight grooves running for many kilometers across its surface, as if it had been sandblasted.  That may be literally what happened: asteroid impacts on Mars in the distant past may have thrown up huge amounts of ejecta, reaching so high that it scored the moon’s surface.  Such asteroid collisions may have happened repeatedly throughout Mars’ early history, and provide us with still another possible origin for the Martian moons: they could be formed out of material thrown up from Mars by early collisions, then scored again and again by the ejecta from later collisions.

Alternatively, it is theorized that these grooves may be long, straight fissures in the underlying rock, into which surface dust has settled.  Phobos Grunt will be taking a closer look at these formations to determine which theory is correct.

Upon arrival in Mars orbit, Phobos Grunt will first study Mars’ magnetosphere and atmosphere, and release the Chinese Yinghuo-1 into Mars orbit.  When these operations are completed, the landing on Phobos will be attempted.  This operation is a bit challenging, simply because of the small size of the target.  Phobos is a rugged little rock about 20 or 30 km. wide (depends on which way you measure it; Phobos isn’t even close to a sphere) and simply hitting it will require some sharpshooting.  Landings on small objects are always a time of uncertainty and anxiety for the crew back on Earth; there are so many things that could go wrong.  If you’re a little off-target, you’ve missed the moon altogether, and if you hit it a bit too hard, you’ve smashed your multi-million-dollar probe.  Assuming that Phobos Grunt can get past this nail-biter, it will arrive on the surface of Phobos and collect its samples.  While the object of the mission is to return the samples to Earth for further study, the probe will be able to do some preliminary work on the spot.

Phobos Grunt will be carrying three instruments contributed by France’s Centre Nationale d’Etudes Spatiale.  One of these is a microscope that can see in visible and infrared wavelengths, which will be used to spot interesting places to collect soil samples.  An identical instrument was used with great success on the Rosetta mission (see article at this site).  The other French instruments are a gas-phase chromatograph and a laser spectrometer, which will be used to determine soil composition.   While the samples returned by Phobos Grunt will undoubtedly be studied for years to come, the preliminary examination by these instruments will give us some idea of what we have, without having to wait for the samples to arrive.

Simply getting the samples is only part of the job; they will then have to be returned to Earth.  The long voyage back will be the easy part.  The real anxiety starts when the ground crew starts to think about reentry.  Getting delicate samples to the ground intact has proven a problem in the past.  For instance, in the return of the samples from the Stardust comet mission (see our article), the sample capsule was damaged during the impact, nearly compromising the samples.  Disaster was narrowly avoided that time, but it’s a safe bet that the Phobos Grunt crew will be thinking about it when they try to bring their probe down.

Hopefully, everything will come out all right, and the Russians will have the world’s first samples of Phobos.  As part of their agreement with France, Roscosmos is sharing the samples with CNES.  Within days or weeks at the most, scientists all over the world will finally be able to learn something about this strange little body.

Even if the sample return is unsuccessful, this mission will give us some data about Mars and its largest satellite that will prove valuable for future researchers.  It’s a neat mission, and the spacecraft is a classy device that will probably be copied for other sample-return missions in the future.

As developments happen, you can read about them here.

India’s space program is not exactly new. For some years now, the ISRO has been launching some outstanding Earth-orbiting satellites, some for astronomy and some for observing the Earth itself. In all of our discussions about the exploration of other bodies in the solar system and beyond, we should never forget the importance of understanding our own world. Study of the mysterious third planet is of vital importance -literally- and those who contribute to it certainly deserve our respect. (More on this in future articles.)

This time, however, we will take a look at India’s Chandrayaan-1 probe, which is in orbit around our own moon, and has helped to provide some amazing information about the presence of water there. The implications of this are obvious: without a local source of water, there will never be a permanent human presence on the moon. The cost of transporting a steady supply of water from Earth to the moon for a long period of time would be astronomical (pun intended) and would make even a small colony prohibitively expensive. But if there’s already water there, it’s a whole new ball game. Suddenly we’re talking about the possibility of permanent colonies, which might eventually become independent political entities. With water, the moon can become a world in itself.

Chandrayaan-1 was launched on October 22, 2008 from Satish Dhawan Space Center, in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. It was carried into Earth orbit onboard India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, and first entered a highly elliptical orbit in which the perigee (nearest point to Earth) was about 255 km. and the apogee (farthest point from Earth) was about 22,860 km. Using its Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM), the probe performed a series of course adjustments, moving into higher and higher orbits, and finally entering a 100-km. orbit around the moon.

The satellite was roughly cuboid in shape, about 1.5 meters on a side. It weighed 1380 kg. at launch and 675 kg. at lunar orbit. (Weight decrease due to fuel expenditure.) Electrical power for all phases of the mission was provided by a single solar panel with a peak output of 750W. This solar array was stowed on the south deck of the spacecraft during the launch phase, and deployed after exit from the atmosphere. During eclipse, the satellite was powered by lithium ion batteries. For orbital maneuvers, it carried a bipropellant integrated propulsion system with enough fuel for a two-year mission, with adequate margin.

It was designed to do high-resolution remote sensing of the moon in visible, near-infrared (NIR) low energy x-rays and high-energy x-ray regions. (with high spatial and altitude resolution of 5-10 m.) of both the near and the far side of the moon.

Chandrayaan-1 also carried a lander, the Moon Impact Probe (MIP), which was deployed when lunar orbit was achieved. The MIP hard landed on the lunar surface and conducted various explorations. In a moment of symbolic significance, the Indian tricolor was planted on the moon: one of Earth’s oldest cultures moving forward into the future.

In a true spirit of international cooperation, Chandrayaan-1 carried 11 scientific instruments contributed by India, the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Sweden and Bulgaria.

The actual mission has now been completed, and Chandrayaan-1 has moved to a 200-km. retirement orbit around the moon- but the fun is just beginning, because the data sent back by the probe and its lander will be analyzed for years to come.

As we said earlier, some of this information has now given strong indication of water on the moon. A few months ago, radar data from Chandrayaan-1 and also from two NASA spacecraft, the Deep Impact probe and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, indicated that there is a thin layer of water, only a few molecules thick, on the lunar surface. Scientists are theorizing that these meager traces of water may be evaporating and re-condensing in a “hop-scotching” pattern that causes them to move toward the lunar poles, becoming more concentrated as they go. There are craters at the poles that are permanently shaded, and have not felt sunlight for eons. Here, it is thought, the water may be concentrating and freezing.

You are probably shaking your head with disbelief as you read these words. We have been taught for so long that the moon is a dry, inactive world, that we now find it hard to believe that there is an ongoing process of water movement there. Granted, these water molecules are so few and scattered that you wouldn’t even be aware of them if you standing on the lunar surface, but if this process is happening all over the lunar surface, and if the water really is collecting in those polar craters, the amounts could be very significant, indeed.

But where is this water coming from? Is it seeping up from underground deposits? No, while underground deposits of water may also exist on the moon, the layer of molecules that we’re talking about now is apparently being made in an ongoing natural process. Carl Pieters of Brown University has suggested that it may be caused by the solar wind, which is constantly slamming hydrogen ions into the oxygen-rich rocks.

Think of the implications; water is actually being made on the moon. That means there will always be more of it. It’s not like a mineral, which exists in a finite amount and can eventually be exhausted. It’s a renewable resource.

The evidence for lunar water continues to mount. A news release at the NASA website dated March 1, 2010, says that analysis of data from a radar device which was designed by NASA and carried aboard Chandrayaan-1 has revealed more than 40 permanently-shaded craters near the lunar north pole which exhibit reflective qualities consistent with water ice. While the amount of water depends on how thick it is, scientists are estimating that there could be at least 1.3 trillion pounds of water in those craters.

The release quotes Paul Spudis, principal investigator of the Mini-SAR experiment at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston: “The emerging picture from the multiple measurements and resulting data of the instruments on lunar missions indicates that water creation, migration, deposition and retention are occurring on the moon. The new discoveries show the moon is an even more interesting and attractive scientific, exploration and operational destination than people had previously thought.”

This is exciting stuff, and there is much more to be learned. India is moving onto the stage of planetary exploration, and will do much more in the years to come. Chandrayaan-1 is just the beginning- but a very good one. Thanks to the groundwork that was laid by Chandrayaans and the other lunar probes, it now appears certain that in time, permanent settlements, possibly of considerable size, will exist on the moon.

In connection with this, there is a small but significant political note that should be made. Only last week, President Obama announced that putting humans on the moon in the near future should no longer be a priority for our nation. He is absolutely right. Exploration and settlement should be our long-term goal, but not our short-term goal. In the short-term, there is much more to be learned from unmanned space probes, on the moon and various other locations in the solar system, and a human moon expedition would be a waste of money that could be spent doing more valuable research. We will go back to the moon, and eventually our descendants will live there, but before we get to that point, there is much to be learned from great unmanned projects such as Chandrayaan-1.

Sources:
“NASA Radar Finds Ice Deposits at Moon’s North Pole; Additional Evidence of Water activity on Moon” at NASA website: nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/mar/HQ_10-055_moon_ice.html

“Chandrayaan-1, India’s First Scientific Mission to the Moon” (mission webpage) at website of Indian Space Research Organization: isro.org/Chandrayaan/htmls/home.htm

“Chandrayaan-1, India’s First Scientific Mission to the Moon- Mission Sequence” at website of the Indian Space Research Organization: isro.org/Chandrayaan/htmls/mission_sequence.htm

Partain, Gary: “The Moon May Be Wetter Than We Thought” at Associated Content: associatedcontent.com/article/2232581/unexpected_water_on_the_moon_results_pg3.html?cat=15

The New Frontiers program came about following a study in 2001 which was conducted to look at the state of solar system exploration at that time and identify priorities for continued exploration during the 10 year period 2003 to 2013. The study identified five medium class missions that were considered of importance and the New Frontiers program was set up to examine and implement these.

The first mission launched was named New Horizons and its goal is to visit and explore Pluto. It will also visit one or more Kuiper Belt objects during the mission. New Horizons was launched in January 2006 and is scheduled to reach its destination by July 2015. The second New Frontiers mission is named Juno and has been designed to conduct an in-depth study of Jupiter. It is currently scheduled for launch in August 2011. At the end of December 2009 NASA announced that three candidates had been chosen for the third New Frontiers program and these include some exciting possibilities for solar system exploration.

The first potential candidate is named the Sunrise and Atmosphere Geochemical Explorer (SAGE) and would comprise a mission to Venus. On arrival it would release a probe into the atmosphere of the planet which would undertake extensive measurements as it descended to the surface of Venus. Upon landing the probe would conduct studies to assess the composition and mineralogy of the surface material.

The second candidate is called the Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer or Osiris-Rex for short. This mission would be designed to travel to and orbit an asteroid. Extensive measurements of the asteroid would be taken while the spacecraft was in orbit around it. Samples would then be collected from the surface of the asteroid and these would be returned to Earth. These samples would be used to assist in the study of the formation of the solar system and the origins of the molecules necessary for life.

The third candidate would send a spacecraft to land in an area near the south pole of the moon which would collect lunar material and return it to Earth. This mission is known as Moonrise: Lunar South Pole – Aitken Basin Sample Return Mission. The returned lunar sample would be used to help gain an insight into the early history of the Earth-moon system.

Each of the candidates will now have around a year to complete a detailed concept study which is required to consider the feasibility of implementation, the costs involved and technical plans for carrying out and completing the mission. The teams will receive approximately $3.3 million to undertake the concept study and it is currently proposed that selection of the winning candidate will be made in mid 2011. Planning and preparation for the chosen mission would then take around seven years and the spacecraft has to be ready for launch by no later than the end of December 2018.

Each of the missions represents an opportunity for further study of a celestial body and the winning candidate is sure to advance our knowledge of the solar system. All three are potentially exciting opportunities to learn something new and any one of them would provide scientists with a rich source of data. Only time will tell which of the candidates will be successful and for now the three teams have a year of hard work ahead of them.

Space policy experts say that having an abundance of water for future exploration would provide drinking water and a key ingredient for rocket fuel. Water on the moon changes everything in regard to future space exploration. The ecstatic LCROSS mission team led by NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California said they had hints water existed on the lunar surface. Micahel Wargo, chief lunar scientist at NASA in Washington said, “The moon harbors many secrets, and LCROSS has added a new layer to our understanding.”

LCROSS Mission

The LCROSS mission was launched from Kennedy Space Center on June 18th as a companion mission to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Just after 7:31 a.m. EST on October 9th, NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) slammed an empty rocket into the surface of the moon at a speed of 5,400 miles per hour. Another spacecraft followed about four minutes behind and recorded the event before crashing into the same spot in the Cabeus crater. The part of the crater where the impact occurred has apparently not seen sunlight for billions of years. Previous unmanned missions to the moon had detected hydrogen in soil near the lunar poles. The LCROSS team, as well as other scientists, had suspected the possibility of water in the forms of ice and ice vapor on the moon.

Space junkies who stayed up late to see the promised impact plumes from the spacecraft were sorely disappointed as a one-mile plume showed the only evidence of both impacts. NASA scientists had predicted a six-mile high plume of moon dust and debris shooting into space.  The event was covered live on BAC’s Good Morning America but turned out to be a public relations disaster when the highly anticipated impact turned out to be a “no-show.” Despite the absence of a live impact on morning television, the stunning news that water is evident in the debris plume was indeed spectacular news. The prospect of water would mean a great deal to the future colonization of Mars, discoveries on other planets, and the exploration of the universe.

Possible Lunar Water Rush?

While it’s not likely that water found on the lunar surface will be bottled and sold at your local market, it might be possible the ice discovered can be melted and put to some use for future space explorers based on the moon. LCROSS mission lead scientist Anthony Colaprete stated at a recent press conference that if the water contained elements such as methanol then it would not be drinkable. Apparently the data from spectrometers is still being assessed as to the exact composition of the ice churned up by the LCROSS impact. The data indicates other emission lines in the spectrographic data that haven’t completely been identified. The LCROSS probe only impacted one small area of the moon so it’s unclear if water exists anywhere else on the surface.

To analyze, understand, and decipher all of the massive amounts of rich data collected by LCROSS will take some time. The data shows traces of other substances as well as providing additional insight into the mechanics of lunar impacts and the resulting craters. The LRO remains in Lunar orbit and moves over the impact site providing more and more data with each pass. In order to gain the most data and understanding from the impact, LCROSS scientists continue to work with LRO scientists. The long-term implications of this discovery will certainly change what we know about Earth’s nearest celestial neighbor.

This is considered a minor partial umbral lunar eclipse. The duration of the umbral eclipse is almost 60 minutes. The greatest eclipse occurs at 19:23 UT time. The penumbral magnitude will be 1.0556 and the umbral magnitude is estimated to be .0763. These magnitudes are the fraction of the diameter of the moon that is within the shadows during the greatest eclipse.

Lunar eclipses occur when the moon moves into the earth’s shadows. The earth has two kinds of shadows which are known as the penumbra and the umbra. Lunar eclipses can only occur during a full moon as the moon opposes the sun in the sky. During a partial lunar eclipse a small portion of the moon passes through the umbral shadow. This will block out a chunk of the moon.

No special equipment is needed to view umbral lunar eclipses. It is readily seen with the unaided eye. Why not take a little night stroll on New Year’s Eve and glance up at the moon? Wondering when the next lunar eclipse will be? The chart below lists lunar eclipses that will occur for the next two years.

Did We Really Walk On The Moon?

What would you say if I told you World War II never happened? Or that George Bush is really an alien impostor? You’d probably call me crazy, and you’d probably be right. But what if I told you mankind have never even been close to the moon; let alone walked on it? I’d probably get the same response. However you’d be surprised at the number of people who believe that mankind’s greatest achievement was actually the biggest hoax of all time.

According to historical truth, twelve men walked on the moon between the years of 1969 and 1972. The most famous of these trips was Apollo 11, which launched on July 16^th 1969. According to this particular history, man’s first steps on the moon were taken on July 20^th 1969.

“It’s one small step for man !”

The first man on the moon is one of the most well-known men in the world. Neil Armstrong. As the 38 year-old American took his first steps onto the lunar surface, millions of people across the globe held their breath in anticipation. This very moment was broadcast live into living rooms across the globe; truly uniting mankind as a whole. So how is it possible that anyone could claim such an achievement was a hoax cooked up by the American government?

“One giant leap for deception?”

Almost 40 years on from those first steps, more and more people are buying into the theory that man has never visited its closest astronomical neighbour. In an attempt to understand people’s thinking, I asked a few folks what they thought. In the poll of 125 people, 73% of them believed the landings took place; whilst 27% believed the opposite ”“ that it was all an elaborate deception.

So, if the lunar landings were nothing more than some clever governmental hocus pocus, what evidence is there? The ”˜evidence’ provided by conspiracy theory nuts ranges from photographic problems to radiation issues. I’ll list a few here; however these are only a cross-section, there are far more.

Waving Flags, Strange Shadows and Crosshairs?

Out of all of the evidence against the moon landings, the most controversial has to be the photo evidence. It seems the conspiracy theorists have been through every photo with a fine-tooth comb. According to these theorists, several of the photos have shadows which are technically impossible. Let me explain. When the astronauts were on the moon, their only source of light was the sun; they took no artificial lights.

Strange, then, that in more than one photo the shadows of equipment and astronauts appear to be pointing in more than one direction. One light source means one shadow direction, right? Not in these photos it doesn’t.

Another interesting aspect of these photos is the crosshairs. In a nutshell, a crosshair is a mark on the film of the camera to help NASA work out distances between objects. The fact that they’re on the film means they can never be behind an object. Or can they? Again, in these photos, it seems so. One final piece of photographic ”˜evidence’ is the United States flag. A symbol of freedom. A symbol of liberty. A symbol which should be completely still in the airless vacuum of space. Once more these photos would seem to disagree. Theorists claim it’s clear that the flag changes its shape from one photo to the next. There’s no wind in space so how can this be?

Killer Space Doughnuts?

Science books tell us that one day we’ll be able to travel beyond our own galaxy and out into the vast reaches of the universe. If we are to believe conspiracy theorists ”“ there’s no way that’s ever going to happen. Why not? The Van Allen Belt. Imagine a huge ring doughnut of radiation surrounding the earth and you’ll have a pretty good picture of what this belt is. A common conspiracy theory is that this belt would kill anyone who tried to pass through it. The huge amounts of radiation would, well, fry them. There is, of course, no proof that this is the case, but as with many conspiracy theories, it wouldn’t seem there needs to be.

The Truth (?)

I spoke to leading space scientist and former NASA employee Tania Burchell from the National Space Centre to find out just what she thought of all of this.

“There is no way on Earth !that the US government could have faked the Moon landings” she told me “they would have needed a completely airless sound stage a couple of hundred miles across with a one-sixth gravity generator to achieve the same !effects we see in the images and video from the Moon. No one on planet Earth has such technology – not even Steven Spielberg.”

I wondered if Tania thought we’d ever revisit our closest cosmic neighbour:

“I have every confidence that humans will be back on the Moon in twenty years’ time – and in a big way that will delight us all.”

Tania also had a convincing explanation for the photography problems that seem to be on the front line of this argument.

“Have you ever taken a truly flawless image? I’ve not! The images and video are from the Moon’s difficult-to-photograph surface conditions. Any flaws in them are a result of those conditions.”

So, it would seem that the experts on science fact think the hoax claims are nothing more than science fiction.

So is it Really Made of Cheese?

There are times in life when we have to take things at face value. Whether or not the moon landings were smoke and mirrors or cold hard fact; the only person you’ll believe is you. So, do some research; watch the moon landing videos, take a look at the pictures, visit the National Space Centre, and decide for yourself where the truth lies. It’s out there somewhere!

Oh, and if you feel like spending millions of pounds building a rocket to the moon to see for yourself, be sure to send me a postcard.

I can’t promise I’ll believe you though.

Rob Taylor