Nasa to put man on far side of moon

Nasa to put man on far side of moon Jonathan Leake , Science Editor NASA, the American space agency, has unveiled plans for one of the largest rockets ever built to take a manned mission to the far side of the moon.

It will ferry a mother ship and lunar lander into Earth orbit to link up with a smaller rocket carrying the crew. Once united they will head for the moon where the larger ship will remain in orbit after launching the lunar lander and crew.

The design emerged during a space science conference in Houston, Texas, last week. The plan is part of Nasa’s “Return to the Moon” programme set in motion by President George W Bush two years ago.

Under the project, up to four astronauts at a time will land on the far side of the moon to collect rock samples and carry out research, including looking for water that might one day support a lunar base.

The scale of the missions is much larger than the earlier Apollo programme, which is why Nasa will need two separate rockets to take the mother ship and crew into space.

Some missions will also see manned spacecraft landing in unexplored areas such as the lunar mountains and on the moon’s south and north poles.

John Connolly, manager of Nasa’s lunar lander project, said the system was designed to carry crews to almost every part of the moon’s surface.

“The samples they collect and the research they carry out will help solve many mysteries about the origins and composition of the moon and its suitability as a base,” he said.

The Apollo programme carried out six lunar landings between 1969 and 1972. The feat was a triumph, but the technical limitations of the Apollo craft, plus ignorance of lunar terrain, meant all six missions had to be sent to the moon’s plains.

These regions, all on the near side of the moon, were the only areas known to be flat enough for a safe landing. This has frustrated scientists because the samples collected by the six missions are all similar. They are also thought to be younger than lunar mountain rocks.

The far side — so called because it always faces away from the Earth — was first photographed in 1959 by a Russian probe. In 1968 the astronauts of Apollo 8 became the first to view it directly.

The evidence gathered by such missions was enough to deter any attempt to land because most of the far side appeared to be covered in large craters. Additionally, any craft landing there would be cut off from radio contact with Earth.

Connolly believes, however, that Nasa will be able to overcome such problems by sending a series of robotic probes ahead of the manned missions.

The first of these, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, to be launched in 2008, will map the moon’s surface in detail.

Cameras will photograph the surface, backed by a laser altimeter to create a three-dimensional relief map from which Nasa can identify landing sites.

Then, from 2010, a series of “companion lander” missions will carry out test landings on selected sites to see if they are worth a visit by humans.

The final element will be a system of communications satellites, dubbed the “lunar internet”, so astronauts will be able to relay signals to Earth from any part of the moon.

Connolly said the first humans could arrive as early as 2015, although 2018 was more likely. The agency would then aim to send two crews to the moon each year for up to five years. The programme will cost around £56 billion and may also be used to test technology for any future mission to Mars.

Some have questioned whether the programme will produce enough good science to justify the costs.

Manuel Grande, head of the planetary science group at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, dismissed such fears. “Finding out more about the moon will help us understand where the Earth and moon came from,” he said. “There do not have to be good scientific reasons . . . It’s like going up Everest; we want to go to places like the moon and Mars just because they are there.”

Pre-emptive strike on the NASA is a waste of money, robots are the only solution, private industry is the only, etc, crowd.........

Astronauts bring back the visions of space, they bring back what its like to see our earth as an outsider. They bring back what its like to be a child of earth. To see our world as it truly is, an oasis in a vast black expanse.

They take human presence beyond our world. No machine can do this.

They teach us that the sky is not the limit, that there ARE no limits.

They keep an AMERICAN presense in space. If we dont. Someone else will certainly take the lead. China is seeking the high ground now.

There are reasons why this nation is where it is today.
Reasons why any of us are here at all. Brave people took the risks and went beyond the horizon. They did so on ships they knew may not return and on imperfect wings.

Astronaut Story Musgrave.....

"We have been a frontier culture. We were born out of exploration, we were born out of adventure. We were born out of the plains and the mountains. We've been a very physical kind of culture. And so, if you look at adventure, if you look at exploration, if you look at immersion in nature, a physical culture, and all those things, you can see directly how space flight relates to the way America has been born and how it evolved."

"You have to keep pushing the frontier not
just because it's there, but because that's how we find things that end up changing humanity," -Paul Hill, Mission Control

Why Space, Why Explore?

Astronaut Story Musgrave...........

We have no choice, Sir. It is the Nature of Humanity, it is the Nature of Life

The Globe was created and Life Evolved, and you look at every single cubic millimeter on this Earth, You can go 30,000 feet down below the Earth surface, You can go 40,000 feet up in the air and Life is There. When you look at the globe down there, you see Teeming Life Everywhere

It is the Power of Life, And maybe I am not just a Human up here, you know. Now Life is Leaping off the Planet. It is heading to other parts of the Solar System, other parts of the Universe

There are those kinds of Pressures. It isn't simply politics, it is not simply technology, it is really not just the essence of humanity, but it is sort of also, you could look at it as maybe the Essence of Life. I think Teilhard de Chardin, in Phenomenon of Man, I believe he put that incredibly well. So those kind of Forces are at Work. It is the nature of humans to be exploratory and to Push On

Yes, it costs resources and it does cost a lot, and there is a risk, there is a penalty, there is a down side, but Exploration and Pioneering, I think those are the critical things, it is the Essence of what Human Beings are, and that is to try to understand their Universe and to try to participate in the entire Universe and not just their little Neighborhood -Story Musgrave

One of my most convincing arguments for space exploration is the
analogy that Earth itself is a spacecraft. Everything we learn about
how to function and live in space applies directly to our spacehip
Earth. How to recycle air, water, how to generate and use power
efficiently, how to grow food in closed ecosystems. All of it is
important. All of this can benefit mankind in a world with a fast
growing population. Understanding other worlds is
how we understand OUR world better, to understand
how it formed and where it is going. Its our only home for now.

"We must not cease from exploration, and at the end of all our
exploring will be to arrive where we began, and to know it for the
first time."
T.S. Eliot

President Bush at the Columbia memorial at JSC................

"The cause of exploration and discovery is not an option we choose, It
is a desire written in the human heart."

And at the announcement of new American space policy...........

"Mankind is drawn to the heavens for the same reason we were once
drawn into unknown lands and across the open sea. We choose to explore
space because doing so improves our lives, and lifts our national
spirit."

Gallup survey.....

"More than three-fourths (77%) of the American public say they support a newplan for space exploration that would include a stepping-stone approach to returnthe space shuttle to flight, complete assembly of the space station, build areplacement for the shuttle, go back to the Moon and then on to Mars and beyond"

"You have to keep pushing the frontier not
just because it's there, but because that's how we find things that end up
changing humanity," -Paul Hill, Mission Control

Excerpted from Silver Linings : Triumph of the Challenger 7. by June Scobee

A note in a Challenger astronauts briefcase found after the loss.....

"We have whole planets to explore, we have new worlds to build. We have a solar system to roam in. And if only a tiny fraction of the human race reaches out toward space, the work they do there will totally change the lives of all the billions of humans who remain on earth, just as the strivings of a handful of colonists in the new world totally changed the lives of everyone in Europe, Asia & Africa."

Had Dick left the note in his briefcase for us to find if something happened? Did he write it on scratch paper to use to quote in a speech? All we'll ever know is that when we most needed a message, it was there. He left for us his dream for the world, his vision for space exploration.

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