Target Moon: World Space Agencies Detail Lunar Plans

NASA may be left in the lunar dust as other nations launch their own Moon plans.

There is growing Moon fever in China, Japan, India, and Europe as lunar orbiters and robot lander missions are plotted out. The global attraction to the Moon is stirring up the prospect that expeditions from various countries are keen to plant flag and footprint on the barren and foreboding world.

There are rumblings that a new vision for NASA is in the making at the White House, one that embraces a human return to the Moon as a stepping stone to eventually dispatch a crew to Mars. How a souped-up Apollo-like replay from the 1960s is greeted by the U.S. Congress and in the minds of American taxpayers remains to be seen.

At the moment, under the rubric of NASA's New Frontiers class of spacecraft missions, the United States is now thinking about a robotic lunar grab, stash and dash return sample mission at the South Pole-Aitken Basin. If given a go-ahead, that American probe would head moonward in the 2009-2010 time

But the United States will be far from alone in chalking up lunar mileage. Over the next decade, the Moon will act as a magnet, tugging on the talents of lunar explorers from multiple space agencies.

The international character of 21st century lunar exploration was in evidence at a seminal meeting last month of the International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG). Held November 16-22 on Hawai`i Island, Hawaii, the gathering brought together experts from the major spacefaring powers around the globe, as well as other nations and private groups honing their space research skills.

"I think the Moon is going to get interesting again, and if not crowded, at least noisy," said Geoffrey Little, author of the forthcoming book: Apollo: The Legacy of the Moon Landings.

For example, Japan is now readying its Luna-A spacecraft for launch in 2004. That craft is to hurl missile-like impactors down onto the Moon's near side and far side. These instrumented penetrators are equipped to study the size and composition of the Moon's inner makeup, reported Hitoshi Mizutani, Lunar-A project manager of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) at last month's ILEWG meeting.

Japan's SELenological and ENgineering Explorer (SELENE) is also being prepped for a 2005 liftoff. It is billed by JAXA as the largest lunar mission since the Apollo program, hauling into Moon orbit a bevy of experiments to catalog lunar minerals for eventual resource utilization. SELENE will carry high-definition television equipment to view Earthrise from the Moon for public outreach education purposes.

A SELENE-B mission is on the books too for the 2009-2010 time frame, involving a lunar rover, telescope, and putting down on the surface a network of scientific devices.

Then there is India's Chandrayaan-1, on tap for flight to the Moon in 2008. It would inspect the lunar landscape from pole-to-pole for a projected two years. Indian space officials are also discussing follow-on plans for landing robots on the Moon.

The building of China's first Moon-exploration satellite -- the "Chang'e I" -- appears on schedule.

During a phone hook-up between China and the ILEWG meeting, Ou'yang Ziyuan, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China's chief scientist on lunar projects, detailed a three-phase effort spanning the years 2006 through 2015. That multi-part agenda consists of orbiting around, landing on, and then rocketing back to Earth samples from the Moon.

China's first lunar mission is to occur around 2006, Ou'yang said. As for a human mission to the Moon, the Chinese scientist stated "at least 15 or 20 years after" the third phase of robotic exploration, he told the ILEWG.

Ou'yang said, at present, China does not have any plans to rocket a person to the Moon. However, Luan Enjie, Administrator of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), has suggested a 2020 target date for Chinese taikonauts to set foot on the Moon, according to a recent report on China State Television.

SMART-1 was launched September 27 by the European Space Agency (ESA). It is to enter lunar orbit following 15 months of cruise through space. Loaded down with an array of technology, SMART-1 is being nudged outward by ion engine.

That propulsion unit, however, has experienced several "flame-outs". Ground controllers have been busily working on solutions to solve SMART-1's engine on/off problems.

Once in orbit around the Moon, SMART-1's array of instruments includes an infrared spectrometer. That device can look for the infrared signature of purported water ice and perhaps of frozen carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. By definition, no direct light falls in the darkened craters thought to contain water ice. However, rays from nearby crater rims, catching the sunshine, may light the ice sufficiently for infrared spectrometer to detect it, once data from many passes has been collected.

As currently envisaged, one of the main milestones of the ESA Aurora program is a possible human mission to the Moon in 2020-2025. "If space is an ocean then the Moon is our nearest island," notes ESA's Franco Ongaro, who heads the Aurora effort.

The issue of cold caches of water ice at the Moon's lunar poles remains a hotly debated topic.

Such a resource, if stashed away in darkened craters that never see warming rays of sunlight, would be heralded as lunar treasure. Both the Pentagon's Clementine spacecraft and NASA's Lunar Prospector yielded data suggestive to some scientists that deposits of water ice are resident at the Moon's poles. If so, that material could be changed into propellant, oxygen, and water to help sustain a human expedition on the Moon.

Interpretation of the Lunar Prospector and Clementine measurements, however, continues to stir up more argument than agreement.

As to actual verification lunar water ice, there is a straightforward answer, said Wendell Mendell, Manager of the Office for Human Exploration Science at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Landing a spacecraft to verify that water is indeed present should be on the agenda, he said.

"The issue of what's at the lunar poles and what its physical state is…that's critical to long-term, permanent presence on the Moon," observes Paul Spudis, a senior scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. "We need to know the answer, one way or the other," he told SPACE.com.

Another way to resolve the water ice matter, Spudis suggested, is a lunar orbiter equipped with powerful radar. That equipment could peer down into dark craters and assess the situation, he said.

"The November ILEWG meeting showed that the Moon is now considered a prime objective for future space exploration. The long post-Apollo hiatus is over," said Paul Lowman, a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

"Although I would not call this a 'race to the Moon,' the fact is that Europe, Japan, India, and China have formal commitments to lunar missions," Lowman said. He added that attention has become firmly focussed on the Moon's South Pole region as an objective.

"The now confirmed discovery of large hydrogen deposits in the polar regions has changed the Moon from a scientifically interesting body to territory of strategic value, comparable to the Persian Gulf oil fields," Lowman said.

Douglas O'Handley, faculty member in the Physics Department of Santa Clara University in California, said that a general feeling stemming from ILEWG was that no one saw the Moon competing with Mars. "But there was clear unanimity that the Moon comes before Mars," he added.

"In general there was a gloom about America's leadership or even treading water. Between the Japanese penetrator and the SELENE missions, it is clear they are headed to the Moon. The same thing is true of the Chinese," O'Handley said. He is a former NASA manager once involved in shaping the space agency's long-term human space exploration goals.

At the recent ILEWG program, a few observers flagged a clear problem - one that's part identity crisis, part political tide of the Moon.

"My main impression is that everyone is going to the Moon and everyone is doing the same thing," said APL's Paul Spudis. One critical piece of hardware that nobody seems willing to fly moonward is imaging radar. "It's an obvious experiment with all the debate about the ice at the poles," he said.

Getting detailed information about the polar deposits, not just from lunar orbit, but also utilizing on-the-spot looks by Moon landers, is a must, Spudis said. "This is a key thing we don't know. Somebody ought to do it."

In the grand scheme of things, Spudis added, it would be useful if the new spate of Moon missions gathered new kinds of data rather than repeating orbital measurements already done or being planned. Moreover, coordination between nations regarding data exchanges, as well as use of common formats of information collected is desirable.

But as one lunar exploration expert told SPACE.com: "The missions are designed around political considerations rather than science from the ground up."

Author's note: Special thanks to Geoffrey Little for sharing his observations of the ILEWG meeting.

The thing to do is not compete with these countries head-on but to out-think them. For example, why is a Lunar Base superior to an L5 orbital station? Is it just PR, or are there real advantages to being on the moon?

At the south pole there are peaks in constant sunlight. With the water-ice at the same location, you have the prime real estate everyone is now in a "gold rush" to claim.

The pity is if we would have taken all the money spent on the shuttles / space station projects since the end of the apollo programs and gradually expanded our lunar presence we would in all likelyhood have a rather large and vibrant lunar colony today.

These countries are not a threat to our space exploration now or within the next 20 years. Come 2025 and things may change, come 2050 and things are definitely going to be different (for instance, compare the time NOW to how things were in say 1930. Folks would've thought that the Brits would remain a superpower along with the French)

Good point.

Prime real estate is important and hotels on the moon would be a truly wonderful thing.

But in the meantime, its the military high-ground that's most important and that's not on the moon, but at the L5s.

Yes the military consideration is very impt. By utilizing the material on the Moon, we can service and protect our military and commercial satellites.

Here is an animation of the light and the dark. The Moon's Dark, Icy Poles

Extreme Lighting Conditions at the South Pole

Don't get me wrong. I would love to see us go to the moon. I would love to go there myself. I just refuse to get excited over the fact that other countries want to go there too. Let's see them actually do something, then I'm sure we can catch up. In the meantime: more weapons in space, please.

I never saw much advantage in going to the moon under Kennedy and I still don't. The argument is always made that we reaped new products and knowledge. I'm not sure that we wouldn't have made those new products without investing billions of tax payer dollars into the space program. And while I find pictures of galaxies billions of miles away interesting I hardly think its worth the expediture.

Once again we'll end up paying billions of dollars to be the first to go to the moon but does anyone really believe that it will be claimed for the US? If we're the first others will only want to use our knowledge and equipment in "fairness". I say let them go and we'll tag along.

The fuel on the Moon makes space defense easier and cheaper. Don't count on playing catch-up. The high ground is costly to claim once it is given up.

We went to the Moon to show we were technically more advanced and superior to the USSR. It lead to their eventual collapse. I'd say that was worth the investment. Now we go back to stay and utilize the resouces that will keep us ahead of other nations, in technology and at the forefront of national security technology.

What fuel on the moon?

And catch-up will be easy. What do you think the first act of one of these countries is going to be, building a full-fledged base? If they successfully orbit the moon, with a live pilot, I'll be impressed. Until then, it's all hype.

And again I say, the moon is not the military high-ground.

"We went to the Moon to show we were technically more advanced and superior to the USSR. It lead to their eventual collapse."

Sorry, I respectfully disagree. Our showing we were technically more advanced and superior had nothing at all to do with the collapse of the USSR. IMO our free market economy versus their socialist economy made it impossible for them to compete. This may be a little off topic but once we move towards a socialist economy (and were heading there) we will face the same fate.

What fuel on the moon?

The water-ice becomes hydrogen and oxygen. The regolith is imbedded with hydrogen and the sun provides solar energy. Some speak of Helium 3 but I'm reserving judgment on that.

Our showing we were technically more advanced and superior had nothing at all to do with the collapse of the USSR.

I beg to differ. We showed the Soviets we could put a man on the Moon and return him safely in 10 years, which gave us the right to command their respect. When we stated our intention to build a space shield they went bankrupt trying to compete. That, timed with a Polish pope and low oil prices, were the three nails in their coffin.

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