As
the world economic competition intensifies in relation to new
space projects, so does the desire of different nations for further
exploration of the Moon. With the news popping up recently from
various parts of the world about plans for coming lunar missions,
NASA should be preparing for a serious international competition
to its scientific and utilitarian projects connected with the
Moon. Even some privately owned organizations, such as Google,
are airing their plans to take part in the lunar race.
On
September 13, Google together with X Prize Foundation, has announced
that it is financing a $30 million Moon project, namely, a race
for lunar rovers that will be privately funded). The Google Lunar
X PRIZE, the richest contest for innovations in the fields of
space technologies, aims to establish a global private lunar race
for facilitating space exploration and benefiting the entire humanity.
The main emphasis of this project is a bigger public involvement
into further missions to the Moon.
The
contest calls upon private teams from any country to participate
with their automatically-operating lunar rovers, which would be
able to work on the surface of the
Moon, travel around, and transmit various data and video images
back to Earth. The first team that succeeds before the end of
2014 will be rewarded with a $20 million prize. Also, substantial
monetary prizes are reserved for other lucky teams, as well as
for bonus tasks, such as travelling longer distances or finding
traces of water on the lunar surface. All images and data received
from those private lunar missions, will be published for everybody
to see, explore, and comment at the Google
Lunar X Prize's Web site.
This
idea is not new. Plans to launch private space flights and expeditions
to land onto the Moon have been around since the end of the 1990s.
Among private investors working on such lunar missions, we can
mention those hosted by BlastOff.com and LunaCorp.
Unfortunately, none of those ides have been fulfilled. In the
past few years, the Ansari X Prize, the DARPA Grand Challenge,
and the Centennial Challenges program (the latter funded by NASA)
have also been announced. In 2004, "America's Space Prize"
in the amount of $50 million was offered by tycoon Robert Bigelow
from Nevada to those who will launch the first privately-financed
flight around the Earth before the year 2010.
Creators
of the new Google project say that their plans do not come in
conflict with those of NASA. As is known, NASA is preparing to
launch next year an orbiter to spin around the Moon and, by the
year 2018, is planning to send to the Moon robotic missions with
subsequent manned landing. The estimated price of NASA return
to the Moon will be about $104 billion, which is roughly half
of what was spent on the Apollo program. The new manned lunar
mission will include a crew up to four astronauts equipped with
an improved version of an Apollo-like moon rover, called CEV (the
Crew Exploration Vehicle). It is planned that the astronauts will
spend seven days on the surface of the Moon. At the meanwhile,
the space shuttle program of NASA is scheduled to end in 2010.
The first launch of CEV in 2012 with lunar landing in 2018 will
be in complete sync with the President Bush space vision to return
to the Moon by the year 2020.
NASA's
new plans for lunar exploration require the development of a capsule
with the diameter of 5.5 meters to host up to six astronauts.
The capsule should be reusable and has to be equipped with an
escape tower. It is estimated that the innovative design of CUV
will make the new spacecraft many times safer than the shuttle
launch system of NASA. In fact, that CEV capsule is planned to
be a shuttle successor capable of going to the Earth orbit. Since
2005, two great aerospace teams, Lockheed Martin and Northrop
Grumman / Boeing, have been competing for the CEV contract of
NASA.
It
is planned that, after landing on the Moon, the CEV capsule will
remain under automatic control. To descend to the lunar surface,
astronauts will leave the capsule in the lander, and, at the end
of the mission, will blast off homeward in the upper segment of
the lander. The CEV landing platform will be left on the Moon
keeping supplies for other manned lunar missions. Just like in
the Apollo program, the capsule will land onto the Earth with
the help of parachutes, but new equipment, such as rockets and
airbag cushions, will help to make the landing targeted. While
astronauts of the Apollo missions landed at sea, the future lunar
explorers will hit the mother ground somewhere at the West Coast.
Further
lunar plans of NASA are even more daring. After the initial manned
lunar landing in 2018, NASA is projecting to continue with at
least two annual missions to the Moon, and some of them will remain
on the lunar surface for up to six months, which would probably
require building of a human camp, or a base, on the Moon. Another
point is that CEV would be able to reach any lunar location so
that no part of the Moon remains unexplored. NASA researchers
have already offered the perfect location to establish a lunar
base, a crater rim close to the North Pole, as it is almost constantly
illuminated by the sunlight and is situated near the suspected
stores of frozen water. If the presence of ice on the Moon is
confirmed, its supplies would provide future astronauts with vital
drinking water and, possibly, even breathable air and rocket fuel
to launch further missions to the Mars. Actually, the current
lunar vision of the White House is closely related to the US plans
to turn the Moon into the launch ground for future exploration
of the Mars.
However,
NASA is not the only publicly funded space agency on earth with
far-reaching plans for lunar exploration and colonization. The
European Space Agency already started its own lunar mission back
in 2003, when they launched to the lunar orbit SMART-1 probe,
equipped with a high-technological ion engine. The spacecraft
of the first European lunar mission is still orbiting the Moon
with the purpose of collecting valuable scientific data. It has
special sensors to explore the bottom of shadowed lunar polar
craters, which would reveal hidden areas of lunar topography.
SMART-1's SIR (Infrared Spectrometer) and micro-cameras with advanced
characteristics are designed to map the insides of those "sun-shy"
craters. Another side of the European mission is to search for
frozen water and traces of possible historic organics on the Moon.
The spacecraft is not planned to land, but its purpose is to collect
as much lunar information as possible for the success of future
manned lunar missions.
Other
countries, such as Russia, India, China, and Japan, have their
own plans in relation to the Moon. One of the top NASA officials
has recently commented that he believes that China will be back
to the Moon with its manned mission sooner than the USA, and that
the American people will probably not like that. Indeed, on September
17 Beijing confirmed its daring intentions to go to the Moon.
And if similar plans from the side of the leading "Moon players"
USA and Russia do not cause any surprising reaction but actually
even expected, the international attitude to the ambitious Chinese
lunar project is filled with wonder. However, Beijing has already
scheduled to send its spacecraft Chang'e I into the orbit of the
Moon until the end of the year 2007, which was recently confirmed
by a top Chinese official representing China's Commission of Science,
Technology and Industry for National Defence. The spacecraft,
which is already on a launch site, is designed to survey the surface
of the Moon and collect scientific data. The second phase of the
Chinese lunar program will be to land a rover on the surface of
the Moon in 2012 and bring back samples of lunar material collected
by a robotic vehicle. Interestingly enough, China links its lunar
dreams to cooperation with Russia. Roskosmos, the Russian Space
Agency, conducted its third meeting on deep-space exploration,
including lunar plans and the issues of the Russian-Chinese space
cooperation, in June this year. In accordance with Roskosmos reports,
there were numerous discussions of various aspects of joint Russian-Chinese
Moon studies.
Apart
from China, Russia has its on prospects about the Moon. Its planned
lunar program, called Luna-Globe, is scheduled to start in 2012
with unmanned exploration of mineral deposits, remote sensing,
and inner structure of the Moon. After that, the Russians plan
to land onto the Moon an advanced heavy rover of the new generation.
Surprisingly, those missions will be linked to space cooperation
with India, which will provide scientific equipment, the rover,
a transfer rocket, and even a launching site for the Russian lunar
flights. As to the manned lunar mission, Russia plans to launch
it in 2025 with a subsequent establishing of a permanent lunar
base within the years 2027 - 2032.
Meanwhile,
Japan has taken its part in the lunar marathon by launching a
lunar probe, Selen, together with two smaller satellites, to fly
towards the Moon earlier this month. It is expected that Selen
will reach the orbit of the Moon by the end of October.
All
those hot lunar plans of the humankind will eventually bring up
a serious question about the ownership of the Moon. Would the
USA, Russia, and already also China, Japan, India, and the European
Union have a right to claim the ownership of the Moon's parts
just because they have landed there and planted a flag of their
countries on the lunar surface? The international community still
has to arrive to a decision about the law of ownership on the
Moon and other distant planetary bodies. But it seems like the
colonial history of the earth will soon repeat itself in space.
©
2007 Lunacorp.com
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