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| Science & Technology |
| The moon beckons again - for U.S., 8 other nations |
| 2008-07-27 |
| The U.S. will team up with eight other nations in a new effort to explore the lunar surface In hopes of discovering clues to the origin of life on Earth, the United States and eight other nations signed a landmark agreement at NASA's Ames Research Center this week that scientists hope will lay the groundwork for a new generation of lunar exploration and science. Unlike the all-American Apollo program, the new agreement sees a multinational fleet of robot spacecraft returning to the moon in coming years, with the maturing space programs of countries like India, Germany and South Korea playing key roles in an effort that ultimately would lead to the return of astronauts. "It's sort of like the beginning of a beautiful friendship, like at the end of 'Casablanca,' " James Green, director of NASA's planetary science division, said at Moffett Field this week. "Many of these countries are quite interested in the manned program. They want to provide astronauts to be the first Canadian or the first Italian or the first French man or French woman on the moon." NASA and the eight other countries - Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Britain and France - plan to formally announce the agreement Tuesday. The multinational agreement capped a momentous week at Ames, including the largest NASA science conference purely devoted to the moon since the 1970s. A multinational moon effort would allow NASA to share costs. The United States budgeted money for four landers, but scientists want up to eight spacecraft on the surface. Representatives of the space and science agencies of the nine countries spent Thursday at Moffett Field working on a plan to launch lunar landers and orbiters, establishing a network to monitor the moon's seismic activity that would stretch from the poles to the far side. "The exploration of the moon in the next decade will not be human, it will be this international flotilla," said David Morrison, interim director of the newly created Lunar Science Institute at Ames. "Ultimately, I think we will send people to the moon, but we don't have to wait for that." Nearly ignored since the last Apollo landing in 1972, the moon is a unique place for scientists to perhaps answer one of the most basic questions of science: When did life originate on Earth? Apollo moon rocks in recent years have yielded the surprising suggestion that the early solar system was more like a game of cosmic billiards than a placid hierarchy of planets. That planetary havoc may have indirectly sparked life on Earth, one reason scientists say it is so important to return to the moon. "What's happening right now is that a revolution in planetary science is going on," Green said. "We are taking these small pieces and we are starting to put together the puzzle, and we are surprised by what we find." Because the moon has not been resurfaced by plate tectonics, volcanoes or erosion, it is the only body in the solar system where scientists might still read that most ancient of histories, a report by National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences concluded last year. What some scientists call the "terminal cataclysm hypothesis" suggests that Uranus and Neptune were once inside the orbit of Jupiter, until the powerful gravitational field of the largest planet cast them toward the outer regions of the solar system. That epic migration of planets may have triggered a bombardment of Earth and the moon by asteroids and icy comets. The strikes could have been the source for 65 percent to 85 percent of the water in the oceans, Green said. Lunar scientists believe the record of a "late heavy bombardment" between 3.8 billion and 4 billion years ago - just before life may have first emerged on Earth - can be studied on the moon. "How much of the oceans would have been brought to Earth by that bombardment? We don't know," Green said. "But we can go back to the moon to find out." The wave of scientific interest in the moon is coupled with the fact that space capability is no longer an exclusive club. For countries with emerging space capabilities, going to the moon "is the next logical step," Green said. Already, India hopes to send its Chandrayaan-1 probe to orbit the moon this year. China's Chang'e probe and Japan's Selene are already there. One sentiment at the conference was that moon exploration should be an international effort. President Bush said in 2004 that the United States should return to the moon, as a stepping stone toward the human exploration of Mars. A generation of robotic explorers will lead the way. Ames is directing one of those first crucial missions, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), which will crash a rocket booster into the moon in 2009 to see if ice might exist in a perpetually shadowed crater. This week's lunar conference brought together Apollo-era veterans with younger researchers who hope to take part in a new multinational generation of lunar exploration. "It really marked a new era," Morrison said. In sessions ranging from the toxicity of lunar dust to the implications of lunar exploration to human society, scientists grappled with issues as far ranging as the need for environmental protection on the moon. One session asked: If NASA strip-mined the moon, would it provoke environmental opposition? And what about preserving the Apollo landing sites? "A leg of the Apollo 11 LEM - the lander?" Green said. "Can you imagine what that would fetch on eBay?" |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #2 HAARP + HADRON COLLIDER > HADRON PRE-TEST? > "BABY" OR MINI WORM/BLACK HOLES = PROTO-HOLES HAVE APPEARED ABOVE GUAM-WESTPAC, ala STAR TREK:DS9. IMO "GLOBAL WARMING" GUISE > THE USG may had covertly = accidentally? discovered the beginnings of poten TIME-SPACE TRAVEL CAN SCIENCE EFFEC DEV AND, MORE IMPORTANTLY, LARGER AND MORE POWERFUL "HOLES" AS EMPLACED NEAR EARTH - AND, ALSO VERY IMPORTANTLY, WIDOUT DESTROYING TERRA FIRMA IN THE PROCESS??? Lest we fergit, Milyuhns and Zilyuhns of US HIgh School and University Instructors have taught that ANY WORM-BLACK HOLES OCCURRING NEAR BIOTIC PLANETS SUCH AS EARTH RISKS UTTERLY DESTROYING SAME, INCLUD BUT NOT LIMITED TO SUCKING IN AND TRAPPING EARTH IN INTER-DIMENSIONAL, INESCAPABLE, TIME-SPACE VOIDS. THE "SUCTION" EVENT ALONE MAY CATASTROPHICALLY DESTROY EARTH LONG BEFORE THE PLANET PER SE EVEN ENTERS THE HOLE. Again, iff Mankind truly desires and is ready for OWG-NWO = "GLOBALISM/UTOPIANISM", then Mankind must be willing to face the challenges and travails that arise from same. D *** NG IT, HOW CAN MY FUTURE GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-.............@ GREAT TIMES TEN **26 MAGN NEPHEWS-NIECES, ETC. TRAVEL BACK IN TIME TO VISIT THEIR CRAZY UNCLE FROM GUAM BACK ON OLD EARTH WIDOUT A DAGNABIT WORMHOLE [shaking ancient fists angrily]! |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-07-27 20:56 |
| #1 "Fly me to the Moon and let me play among the stars." Frank Sinatra. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2008-07-27 18:34 |