Lunar real estate rights

"Lunar property rights"

Hard cheese

by

K.R.

February 16th, 2014

The Economist

WHO owns the Moon? According to the United Nations Outer Space Treaty, signed by every space-faring country, no nation can claim sovereignty over Earth’s lunar satellite. 102 countries have entered into to the 1967 accord; China joined in 1983. But space law scholars debate whether the Treaty actually implicitly prohibits, or allows, private ownership on celestial bodies.

Some commercial companies, such as Bigelow Aerospace, are hoping to use the ambiguity of the treaty’s language to their advantage. Founded in 1999 and based in Las Vegas, the firm aims to manufacture inflatable space habitats. It already has an agreement with NASA to expand the International Space Station in 2015 using its flexible modules, and also to devise a plan for a privately developed, NASA financed, lunar base architecture.

The firm’s chief executive Robert Bigelow, a billionaire hotel owner, wants to establish private property rights on the Moon in a bid to tackle Chinese lunar dominance. He believes “the final nail in America’s 21st century coffin is likely to be China’s takeover of the Moon.”

Bigelow Aerospace’s case rests on careful consideration of the Outer Space Treaty’s article II and VI. The first’s explicit ban on national appropriation may leave the door open for non-national moon ownership. The second decrees that countries bear “international responsibility” for activities in outer space—even if carried out by non-government groups.

For schemes in space (such as mining fusion fuel from the moon, a perennial favourite of wild-eyed space cadets) to be worthwhile commercially, Bigelow Aerospace says a legal framework for private lunar property is needed, and reckons the American government should be involved in creating one.

Consequently, two months ago Bigelow Aerospace formally submitted a related request to the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Transportation (FAA AST). The case is now being vetted by agencies including the State Department, Department of Defence, NASA and the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) as part of a standard review for any proposed private space “launch”, “re-entry” or “payload” activity.

The application is not directly seeking private property rights or exclusive ownership of lunar resources; the company is requesting government, and by extension, Outer Space Treaty, assurance that its private spacecraft can run without interference or possible collisions with licensed vessels already in operation. In other words, Bigelow Aerospace is asking for the ability to use the moon and its resources in order to shore up its capital investments.

Whether such usage equates to property rights or ownership is an international legal debate. Bigelow Aerospace lawyers point out that an effective national and international licensing system has meant that satellite companies operate successfully and peacefully without actually owning the space they occupy.

The company also contends that FAA AST commercial licensing requires a 200km (124 mile) buffer zone of operation for each spacecraft. This means the government is obliged already to maintain safe operations in space, limit liability and prevent crashes between private entities that could cause damage on and around the Moon.

The company believes it is entitled to similar treatment. “Failing to approve the payload review request would in many ways represent an abdication of US obligations under the treaty,” Michael Gold, Bigelow Aerospace’s chief counsel, tells this Babbage correspondent.

In addition, the lawyers say an international custom has been established giving private entities the right to use and explore space as long as states authorize them to do so, and continuously supervise their workings.

The space firm hits back at claims that it is flouting Article II of the Outer Space Treaty precisely because “Bigelow Aerospace is a company, not a country” and so “cannot engage in national appropriation,” according to Mr Gold. He argues that as FAA AST licensing only pertains to commercial activities, its regulatory decisions could not be in violation of Article II.

A decision regarding Bigelow Aerospace’s request is expected by the Summer.

The Outer Space Treaty was not signed, however, by countries wishing to replace national lunar colonization with commercial colonization. But the time for pragmatic policies in the face of Beijing’s blooming space programme may be at hand. Building on the success of the Chang’e-3 mission with the Yutu rover (currently rolling on the lunar surface), China expects to put a base architecture and crew on the Moon within the next ten years.

The optimistic scenario for Bigelow Aerospace and American lunar ownership advocates is a new space rights pact within a decade—before China’s dominating presence on the Moon makes such agreements moot, and territorial disputes, akin to ancient wars fought over empires, begin anew in space.

Premature death notice...Jade Rabbit lives

"China's Jade Rabbit rover comes 'back to life': Xinhua"
 
February 13th, 2014

SPACE DAILY

 China's troubled Jade Rabbit lunar rover has survived a bitterly cold 14-day lunar night, officials said Thursday, prompting hopes it can be repaired after suffering a malfunction last month.

The problem was a setback for Beijing's ambitious military-run space programme, which includes plans for a permanent orbiting station by 2020 and eventually sending a human to the moon.

"The rover stands a chance of being saved as it is still alive," Pei Zhaoyu, spokesman for China's lunar probe programme told the official news agency Xinhua.

An earlier report by the semi-official China News Service said an attempt to restore the vehicle to full functionality on Monday had been unsuccessful.

The rover, named Yutu or Jade Rabbit after the pet of Chang'e, the goddess of the moon in Chinese mythology, experienced a "mechanical control abnormality" as the lunar night fell on January 25, provoking an outpouring of sympathy from Chinese Internet users.

But Pei said: "Yutu has come back to life!", adding that the rover "went into sleep under an abnormal status".

Scientists had been concerned it might not be able to survive the extremely low temperatures of the lunar night, when it was supposed to remain dormant, but it was now receiving signals normally, Xinhua cited him as saying.

But experts were still working to establish the causes of its mechanical control abnormality, the agency reported, without giving details.

Australia-based independent space expert Morris Jones told AFP that the problem involved a solar panel on the rover failing to close.

"This allowed heat to escape from the rover in the cold lunar night. The cold has probably damaged some parts of the rover permanently, but it seems that some parts are still working," he said.

Beijing sees the space programme as a symbol of China's rising global stature and technological advancement, as well as the Communist Party's success in reversing the fortunes of the once-impoverished nation.

The Jade Rabbit was deployed on the moon's surface on December 15, several hours after the Chang'e-3 probe landed.

The landing -- the third such soft-landing in history, and the first of its kind since the Soviet Union's mission nearly four decades ago -- was a huge source of pride in China, where millions across the country charted the rover's accomplishments.

An unverified Weibo user "Jade Rabbit Lunar Rover", which has posted first-person accounts in the voice of the probe, on Thursday made its first update since January.

"Hi, anybody there?" it said, prompting thousands of comments within minutes.

Xinhua has said the account is "believed to belong to space enthusiasts who have been following Yutu's journey to the moon".

In a previous online posting following the "abnormality", it said: "The sun here has fallen, and the temperature is dropping fast. I've said a lot today, but I still feel it's not enough.

"I'll tell everyone a little secret. I'm actually not that sad. I'm just in my own adventure story, and like any protagonist, I encountered a bit of a problem. Goodnight, Earth. Goodnight, humans."
More than 6,000 Internet users wrote messages in response, many of them expressing hope that the rover has not seen its last day.

"We'll always remember that you're watching us on the moon," wrote one Web user. "One day, we'll bring you home."

China first sent an astronaut into space a decade ago and is the third country to carry out a lunar rover mission after the United States and the former Soviet Union.

The central government has said the latest mission was "a milestone in the development of China's aerospace industry under the leadership of... Comrade Xi Jinping".

Deceased--Yutu

Deceased--Yutu

"Farewell to Yutu"

by

Morris Jones

February 12th, 2014

SPACE DAILY

 By now, it seems almost certain that China's Yutu Moon rover has died a premature death in the cold lunar night. The rover has been exposed to sunlight for a few days, and there has been no word of it waking up.

Yutu was carried to the Moon aboard China's Chang'e-3 Moon lander, a boxy structure reminiscent of the base of an Apollo lunar lander from the 1960s. Chang'e-3 made history by becoming China's first mission to land on the Moon, and the first object to softly land there in more than three decades.

Yutu's problems began roughly three weeks ago when a solar panel failed to fold inwards over the rover's body, just before night fell at the rover's landing site. The folding panel was designed to protect the rover's interior during the two-week lunar night, by trapping heat from a radioisotope source. Without this protection, the rover's electronics have apparently frozen.

China had originally expected Yutu to function for roughly three months. The failure of Yutu after less than a month of nominal surface operations is a disappointment.

Apart from mourning its loss, the major priority for China's space program will be conducting a post-mortem for Yutu. It is vital to know how it malfunctioned. Fortunately, there seems to be a lot of data that was obtained before night fell.

We know that the solar panel did not close. We can easily deduce how this affected the thermal protection for the rover. Much work will need to be performed to work out exactly why this mechanical failure occurred in the first place.

Moving parts are always tricky for spacecraft. Getting them to work on the Moon is even more difficult. Apart from the vicious cycles of heat and cold, there is the ever present problem of dust. We do not know if the hinges were jammed by dust, or if there was a failure of the motors or mechanisms designed to close the panel for some other reason. Lubricant could have been worn away from some part, causing friction or even a "cold welding" of metal surfaces in a vacuum. China will probably be conducting simulations to determine the most likely cause.

With Yutu's case file certain to close in the near future, it will be time to consider the fate of China's next Moon mission. China has already built a back-up lander, dubbed Chang'e-4, which it planned to launch in a few years. This is a typical strategy of China's lunar exploration program: Two identical spacecraft are built in case one fails.

China's first lunar mission, Chang'e-1, was launched to orbit the Moon in 2007. The mission was a complete success. Thus, China decided that its back-up spacecraft, Chang'e-2, would not precisely repeat its predecessor's mission. It was launched in 2010 with a more powerful rocket that helped the spacecraft to save its fuel reserves. Chang'e-2 was sent on a shorter mission to the Moon and then flown into deep space to fly past the asteroid Toutatis.

This time, China will probably need to use the back-up lander to repeat the tasks that Chang'e-3 failed to complete. There will probably be an overview of the design of some of its most critical components, to strengthen them against failure.

This analyst expects that China will want to land a second rover with this mission, but we can expect that it will be thoroughly overhauled. China will want to ensure that the solar panel will not fail again, and will probably look for other potential problems. The next rover will probably look the same as Yutu but it will be improved.

Exactly when Chang'e-4 will launch is unclear. The problems experienced by this latest mission suggest that China will want to take a fair amount of time for troubleshooting, redesign and testing. Any previous speculation on the approximate launch time is probably no longer reliable.

We will need to wait for China to advertise a new launch timetable. In turn, this could affect the fate of the two lunar landers that are expected to come after Chang'e-4. These missions, dubbed Chang'e-5 and 6, are sample-return missions. It could take longer to launch them, and their design could be revised in the wake of the Yutu investigations.

Whatever China does with its second rover, one change should be suggested. The rover needs a new name. China should remember that saying "Yutu 2" in English sounds stranger than it does in Chinese!

Jade Rabbit has landed on the Moon

"China's Jade Rabbit Moon rover sends back first photos"

December 15th, 2013

BBC NEWS

The first robot to land on the Moon in nearly 40 years, China's Jade Rabbit rover, has begun sending back photos, with shots of its lunar lander.

Jade Rabbit rolled down a ramp lowered by the lander and on to the volcanic plain known as Sinus Iridum at 04:35 Beijing time on Saturday (20:35 GMT).

It moved to a spot a few metres away, its historic short journey recorded by the lander.

On Sunday evening the two machines began photographing each other.

A Chinese flag is clearly visible on the Jade Rabbit as it stands deployed on the Moon's surface.

Ma Xingrui, chief commander of China's lunar programme, declared the mission a "complete success".

The first soft landing on the Moon since 1976 is the latest step in China's ambitious space programme, says BBC science reporter Paul Rincon.

The lander will operate there for a year, while the rover is expected to work for some three months.

The Chang'e-3 mission landed some 12 days after being launched atop a Chinese-developed Long March 3B rocket from Xichang in the country's south.

The official Xinhua news service reported that the lander began its descent on Saturday just after 1300 GMT, touching down in Sinus Iridum (the Bay of Rainbows) 11 minutes later.

"I was lucky enough to see a prototype rover in Shanghai a few years ago - it's a wonderful technological achievement to have landed," Prof Andrew Coates, from UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory, told BBC News.

Chang'e-3 is the third unmanned rover mission to touch down on the lunar surface, and the first to go there in more than 40 years. The last was an 840kg (1,900lb) Soviet vehicle known as Lunokhod-2, which was kept warm by polonium-210.

But the six-wheeled Chinese vehicle carries a more sophisticated payload, including ground-penetrating radar which will gather measurements of the lunar soil and crust.

The 120kg (260lb) Jade Rabbit rover can reportedly climb slopes of up to 30 degrees and travel at 200m (660ft) per hour.

Its name - chosen in an online poll of 3.4 million voters - derives from an ancient Chinese myth about a rabbit living on the moon as the pet of the lunar goddess Chang'e.

The rover and lander are powered by solar panels but some sources suggest they also carry radioisotope heating units (RHUs), containing plutonium-238 to keep them warm during the cold lunar night.

According to Chinese space scientists, the mission is designed to test new technologies, gather scientific data and build intellectual expertise. It will also scout valuable mineral resources that could one day be mined.

"China's lunar programme is an important component of mankind's activities to explore [the] peaceful use of space," Sun Huixian, a space engineer with the Chinese lunar programme, told Xinhua.

After this, a mission to bring samples of lunar soil back to Earth is planned for 2017. And this may set the stage for further robotic missions, and - perhaps - a crewed lunar mission in the 2020s.

Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank in Washington DC, said China's space programme was a good fit with China's concept of "comprehensive national power". This might be described as a measure of a state's all-round capabilities.

But he said that China did not see itself as being in a "space race" with anyone else. "I'm comparing it specifically to how the US and the Soviets were behaving in the late 1950s and 1960s when you had space launches almost every month.

"Look at how often the Chinese do manned missions - it's almost every other year."
Instead, the country is methodically and patiently building up the key elements needed for an advanced space programme - from launchers to manned missions in Earth orbit to unmanned planetary craft - and it is investing heavily.

Mr Cheng added: "China is saying: 'We are doing something that only two other countries have done before - the US and the Soviet Union."

The landing site of Sinus Iridum is a flat volcanic plain, part of a larger feature known as Mare Imbrium that forms the right eye of the "Man in the Moon".

  
Rolling to lunar surface...

Lunar property rights

 

"Hands Off Our Lunar Landing Sites? Not So Fast"

A new paper argues against the wisdom of the U.S. declaring sovereignty over parts of the moon

by

Michael D. Lemonick

November 28th, 2013

Time

The Moon has been kind of a backwater lately. During the 1960’s, and early 1970’s it was the hottest possible destination, what with unmanned probes from the U.S. and U.S.S.R. touching down on the lunar surface, followed by American astronauts tromping and joyriding across the dusty landscape. It’s not that scientists have lost interest by any means, but most of what they’ve learned in recent decades has come from orbiting spacecraft like GRAIL and LCROSS and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

All that is changing, however, as China gears up to launch its first lunar rover, the Chang’e-3 in mid-December, following the success of the Chang’e-1 and Chang’e-2 orbiters in 2007 and 2010.  The Russians have plans to return with unmanned probes as well, and so does at least one private company named Astrobotic Technology. While this new flurry of interest in up-close lunar exploration could be terrific for science, it could also threaten to disrupt or damage the historic sites of previous landings, where 60’s-era technology still sits, undisturbed.

And undisturbed is how it should stay, say Henry Hertzfeld and Scott Pace, of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute. “Although we might assume the best of intentions for such [new] missions,” they write in a policy paper in the current Science, “they could irreparably disturb the traces of the first human visits to another world.”

It’s not an entirely new worry. In the 1950’s, in fact, before the first primitive probes headed to the Moon, a panel of scientists warned the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. to “make haste with due care” in exploring our closest neighbor. They were worried about contaminating the Moon’s then-pristine environment, but last summer the House of Representatives drafted legislation that would create the Apollo Lunar Landing Sites National Historical Park to safeguard artifacts from the heroic early years of the Space Age.

It’s a noble idea, says Hertzfeld, but there’s one glaring problem. “If the bill were to become law,” he says, “it would be very easy for other nations to say the U.S. is aggressively declaring sovereignty over parts the Moon”—something explicitly prohibited by the U.N.-sponsored Outer Space Treaty created in 1967. Indeed, the new American law would violate not merely the spirit of that 46-year international one, but the letter of it too since all national parks fall under the jurisdiction  of the National Park Service, whose charter is to manage its assets “for the benefit and inspiration of all the people of the United States.”

That sounds an awful lot like a declaration of sovereignty, worries Hertzfeld. It might be possible instead to have the Apollo sites and other places with remnants of unmanned landers declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites—but again, says Hertzfeld, “all of those sites are on sovereign territory,” raising that tricky question again.

A better route, he and Pace argue, might be to create a new international treaty through the U.N. That, however, could take many years to push through, and with a new Moon rush about to begin, the diplomatic pace might not keep up with the exploratory one, leaving the historic sites vulnerable to damage. “The lunar regolith is dusty,” says Pace, “and if you kick up a lot of dust, you can inadvertently cause a lot of damage.” If lunar tourism ever begins in earnest—even if it’s virtual tourism, with a rover taking customers on a video ride-through of Apollo landing sites—the danger of flinging dust and, worse yet, obliterating astronaut footprints, would be even greater.

The most efficient solution, Hertzfeld and Pace say, is to approach Russia directly, and, as of next month, China as well. “We should engage with those nations, despite some obvious political issues, and make a multilateral agreement that simply says ‘you leave our stuff alone, we’ll leave your stuff alone.’” As for lunar tourism, he says “any company that wants to do it will have to get permission from their government first,” so any multiparty agreement would presumably be binding on private companies as well.

The good thing about last summer’s Congressional bill, Hertzfeld believes, is that while it might never actually be passed into law, it jump-started an important conversation. The new paper is part of that conversation. “Our suggestion would need a lot more study and negotiation before it could be implemented,” he says, and acknowledges that someone might come up with an even better idea for preserving these monuments to space exploration.

“Of course,” Hertzfeld says, “we’re assuming they’re worth preserving. But I think that’s a given.” Anyone who’s ever been inspired by the drama and adventure of space exploration would find it hard to disagree.

Israeli spacecraft destined for a Moon landing?

Yariv Bash, Yonatan Winetraub, and Kfir Damari, three of SpaceIL's founders, with a model of the unmanned spacecraft they aim to land on the surface of the moon.

"Israel’s Mission to the Moon: Can a Small Country Win a Big Prize?"

by

Aaron J. Klein

March 8th, 2013

Time

Confronted with the notion of Israel sending a spacecraft to the moon, as Yanki Margalit was one day two years ago, the hi-tech millionaire recalled his options as one or the other: He could laugh, which he acknowledged was a reasonable temptation. Or he could do what he went ahead and did, putting up the $50,000 required to enter Google’s Lunar X Prize international space race. The entry fee was pocket change beside the $30 million it will take to put together the first soft lunar landing since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 returned with some soil samples in 1976.

“We were naïve,” says Margalit, of the initial estimates developed by Team SpaceIL.

“In the beginning we thought it would cost $8 million and the spaceship would be the size of a Coke bottle.” The reality turned out to be larger in every way: The unmanned craft Margalit’s team aims to land on the lunar surface before the end of 2015 looks more like a credenza.

It’s still a relatively miniature spacecraft, but then Israel is a relatively small country. It’s also one used to punching above its weight, especially in the applied sciences and hi-tech, where miniaturization is a given. As the so-called Start-Up Nation, Israel ranks behind only the U.S. and China in companies listed on Nasdaq; it also ranks high in time its citizens spend online, which is where the lunar effort started. In November 2010 an engineer named Yariv Bash went on Facebook to ask if anyone was interested in being part of the Google contest. Another engineer, Kfir Damari saw the post and said he would. A third, Yonataon Winetraub, got wind of the idea, and the three got together in a pub in Holon, a suburb of Tel Aviv. “We sat down and on a napkin wrote the problems were are facing till today – launching the spaceship, the journey, and then landing safely on the moon,” says Winetraub, 26. Someone thought to keep the napkin.

Much has changed since the original Space Race, a clean-room version of the Cold War. But the basic challenges remain: Clear the earth’s atmosphere, break free of its orbit, and find the trajectory that will snag the moon’s gravitational pull – a task the engineers liken to threading a needle from five stories up. Part one turned out to be the easiest: Rather than build their version of a Saturn V rocket to escape the earth’s atmosphere, the Israelis plan to pay to hitch a ride on a rocket launching a commercial satellite.  Once in earth’s orbit, their 300-pound craft will fire its own jets to escape earth’s orbit, and make the 384,000 kilometer journey to the moon. They expect the trip will take about a month. Once it’s slipped into lunar orbit, the craft might circle the moon for as long as two weeks, waiting for the most propitious moment to descend to the lunar surface – the most perilous 15 minutes of the enterprise. On Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong maneuvered the Eagle to avoid boulders in the Sea of Tranquility too small to show up on reconnaissance photos but big enough to upend the lunar lander. The Israeli spacecraft will not have that luxury, following a descent programmed before lift-off. To increase the odds of landing upright, some 200 high school students have been scouting landing spots; they’ve narrowed it down to a few dozen sites so far.

Involving students is a major justification for the effort, a nonprofit enterprise that, if it wins, will recover at most its costs – the total prize could reach $30 million. The effort is sponsored, in part, by the Israel Aerospace Industries, a military enterprise specializing in ballistic missiles. But as its chief pointed out on Israeli television last month, the project makes no particular sense in business or security terms – the main drivers for Israel’s hi-tech sector. “It’s only prestige,” the executive said. “It’s about innovating and thinking long term.” To draw attention, Team SpaceIL has been inviting ordinary people to send their names and digital photos for a thumb drive that will be carried along; judging by the rate at which the late Neil Armstrong’s footprints are degrading on the lunar surface, they’re offering a 10,000 year guarantee.

Thirty-three contestants paid to compete for the Lunar X Prize. Of the 23 considered still active, the Israelis see five as serious threats, which include a number of American companies. The contest requires a “soft landing” – some moon shots were literally that, spacecraft launched at the moon and impact the surface at 3,000 miles an hour. Not only must the Lunar X entrant broadcast eight minutes of video after landing, the craft must then take off again – or, rather,  “leap,” some 500 meters, then transmit video for another eight minutes. The Israelis plan to launch in 2015, provided they can raise the $30 million. They’re two-thirds of the way there, Margalit says.

“Think about it,” Margalit tells TIME. “Three countries will have landed on the moon: The United States, Russia and Israel. What fun to be able to say that.”

Lunar litterbug...Charlie Duke

Astronaut Charlie Duke leaves a family snap on the moon in 1972.

A lunar satellite?

This is ridiculous. Would the asteroid have any effect on Earth's tides?

"NASA mulls plan to drag asteroid into moon's orbit"

by

Jeff Hecht

January 2nd, 2013

New Scientist

Who says NASA has lost interest in the moon? Along with rumours of a hovering lunar base, there are reports that the agency is considering a proposal to capture an asteroid and drag it into the moon's orbit.

Researchers with the Keck Institute for Space Studies in California have confirmed that NASA is mulling over their plan to build a robotic spacecraft to grab a small asteroid and place it in high lunar orbit. The mission would cost about $2.6 billion – slightly more than NASA's Curiosity Mars rover – and could be completed by the 2020s.

For now, NASA's only official plans for human spaceflight involve sending a crewed capsule, called Orion, around the moon. The Obama administration has said it also wants to send astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid. One proposed target, chosen because of its scientific value and favourable launch windows for a rendezvous, is a space rock called 1999 AO10. The mission would take about half a year, exposing astronauts to long-term radiation beyond Earth's protective magnetic field and taking them beyond the reach of any possible rescue.

Robotically bringing an asteroid to the moon instead would be a more attractive first step, the Keck researchers conclude, because an object orbiting the moon would be in easier reach of robotic probes and maybe even humans.
Catch and release

The Keck team envisions launching a slow-moving spacecraft, propelled by solar-heated ions, on an Atlas V rocket. The craft would then propel itself out to a target asteroid, probably a small space rock about 7 metres wide. After studying it briefly, the robot would catch the asteroid in a bag measuring about 10 metres by 15 metres and head back towards the moon. Altogether it would take about six to 10 years to deliver the asteroid to lunar orbit.

The project still needs some technical and scientific fine-tuning, says co-leader Louis Friedman of the Planetary Society, but he sees it as an important boost to exploration.

For instance, NASA has also expressed interest in putting astronauts on an outpost parked in orbit at the Earth-moon Lagrange point 2. From there they could study a captured asteroid using telepresence technology, or even practise human landings on its surface.

Such work could help develop ways to use asteroid material for construction or spaceship fuels, making the captured asteroid a stepping stone for human missions to larger asteroids and eventually to Mars.

A moon-orbiting asteroid would probably also be of interest to private companies proposing human missions to the lunar surface for scientific exploration and mining studies.

Favorite planets

Keep up-to-date on some planets...

Earth

Jupiter

Mars

Mercury

Pluto

Saturn
Venus
 

And the Moon .

Lunar Orbiter 1 and snap of home

The Writer's Almanac...

On this date in 1966, Lunar Orbiter 1 took the first photograph of the Earth from space. The Orbiter program began in 1964; its purpose was to take pictures of as much of the Moon's surface as possible so that scientists could scout potential landing sites for the upcoming Apollo missions. Lunar Orbiter 1 was launched on August 10 and recorded images from the 18th to the 29th. There were five Orbiters in all — the last one launched on August 1, 1967 — and by the time the project was completed, they had images of 99 percent of the lunar surface. The data was recorded on large magnetic tapes, and the resolution wasn't great by modern standards, but it proved invaluable for mapping purposes. It's since been restored and digitized, and the level of detail has allowed scientists to study the weather patterns of that day.

On August 23, just as Orbiter 1 was about to pass behind the Moon, mission controllers sent the command to change the angle of the cameras so that they were pointing at the Earth rather than the surface below. They just managed to capture our home planet's first portrait: a silvery, cloud-swirled crescent rising over the Moon's pockmarked face. Down on Earth, the Beatles were preparing for their last concert at Shea Stadium, the Vietnam war was raging, Muhammad Ali was applying for a "conscientious objector" exemption from the draft, and Star Trek, one of the most influential depictions of space travel in pop culture history, would premiere only two weeks later.

Earth's two moons?

"Moon Jr.: Once Upon a Time, the Earth Had Two"

by

Michael D. Lemonick

August 3rd, 2011

Time

Earth must have felt pretty inadequate a week or two ago when astronomers announced that distant Pluto has yet another moon. Pluto! Recently demoted to a dwarf planet! And yet it boosted its satellite total to four, while we remain forever stuck at one. True, Earth is ahead of Mercury and Venus, which have no moons at all. But Mars, which is significantly smaller than Earth, has two; and don't even mention Jupiter, with more than 60; or Saturn, with 53. Even asteroids have multiple moons — including Sylvia, a 384-mile (617 km) space rock that boasts the twin satellites Romulus and Remus.

But Earth's rep may might gotten a bump, thanks to a paper just published in the journal Nature. Our home planet may have just one lonely moon now, but long ago, like Mars and Sylvia, we had two. "Whether it's right or not, I don't know," says Maria Zuber, a planetary scientist at MIT who wrote an opinion piece accompanying the new study. "But I think it's very plausible."

The idea, cooked up by astronomers Martin Jutzi and Erik Asphaug, of the University of California at Santa Cruz, started out as an attempt to explain why our moon has so asymmetrical a surface. The part that faces us is relatively smooth, with vast expanses of ancient lava forming flat, dark, low-lying plains that earlier astronomers mistook for oceans. But when space probes first circled the moon in the early 1960s, scientists learned that the far side is mostly covered with rugged mountains and craters.

Nobody has ever been able to explain with certainty why the moon should be so lopsided: maybe it had to do with some kind of massive impact that violently rearranged the surface, much like what happened to the asteroid Vesta. Maybe it was a slightly off-center core that caused the crust to be thinner on the Earth-facing half of the moon, which made that hemisphere more susceptible to lava bleeds.

But then Jutzi and Asphaug began thinking. "It looked to us a little bit as though the highlands on the far side accreted" — which is to say, they were added on top of the pre-existing surface. The astronomers thought a bit more, and realized that this idea was consistent with scientists' beliefs about how the moon formed in the first place. Thanks to the analysis of moon rocks that were brought back by the Apollo missions, planetary scientists are pretty sure that our satellite was born billions of years ago when a Mars-size planetoid smashed into the young Earth.

The impact blasted off a cloud of debris from both of the objects and sent it spinning into space, where it eventually congealed into the moon. There could have been other, smaller pieces as well, says Zuber, but their orbits would have been unstable, causing them either to be flung away or to fall into Earth or the moon pretty much immediately.

Except, that is, if they happened to end up at a Trojan point — a place in the same orbit as the moon, but either well ahead of or well behind it, that's gravitationally stable — or relatively so anyway. Just last week, astronomers announced the discovery of a Trojan asteroid leading the planet Earth around the sun. There's no reason a Trojan moon couldn't lead or follow our moon around the Earth.

Read about one librarian's quest to locate American flags on the moon.

After a few tens of millions of years, Moon Jr. would become unstable, almost certainly falling into Moon Sr. But Jutzi and Asphaug's computer simulations of how that would play out showed that the short-lived satellite would have fallen surprisingly gently, at only a few miles per second, making more of a splat than a bang. At a more typical impact speed, which would be at least 10 times faster, says Zuber, "you'd make a big hole and fling off ejecta" — in short form, a massive crater.

In this case, you'd form just a pile of extra stuff on one side, as though you slapped a handful of mud onto a basketball. And if the minimoon were about 750 miles (1,200 km) across, with about a third as much mass as its big brother, it could account for most of the extra material we now see on the far side.

The scenario could also explain why the near side is paved over with so much lava. At the time of impact, the moon would have cooled from its original molten state to form a thin crust, with an ocean of magma underneath. But all the extra mass added to the far side could have squeezed most of the subsurface magma around to the side that faces us, providing an ample supply of molten rock for later eruptions. "Every once in a while I read a paper I really enjoy," says Zuber. "This is a genuinely new idea. That's what really struck me."

A new theory in science isn't worth much, however, unless you can test it somehow. The best way would be to look for the mineralogical signature of such an event in rocks brought back from the far side of the moon. Unfortunately, no such mission is in the works anytime soon. But the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, which is circling the moon even now, has detectors that can get at least a sense of the minerals below.

And in September, another moon probe will be on its way, with Zuber as principal investigator. It's called GRAIL, for Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory. Actually, it's a pair of probes that will orbit in tandem; changes in the distance between them will measure the local lunar gravity with extraordinary precision. That will give Zuber and her team a detailed look at the moon's geological (or technically, selenological) structure and history, and when combined with LRO's data, could make or break Jutzi and Asphaug's idea.

Science is indifferent to what the answer will turn out to be, of course. But scientists and ordinary folks alike can't be indifferent to the romantic idea that two moons once shone together in the evening sky. If nothing else, it's a simple matter of planetary pride.

What If the Earth Had Two Moons?: And Nine Other Thought-Provoking Speculations on the Solar System

by

Neil F. Comins

ISBN-10: 0312598920
ISBN-13: 978-0312598921

Moondogs

An interesting Moon phenomena.

Wikipedia...

A moon dog or moondog [scientific name paraselene, plural paraselenae, i.e. "beside the moon"] is a relatively rare bright circular spot on a lunar halo caused by the refraction of moonlight by hexagonal-plate-shaped ice crystals in cirrus or cirrostratus clouds. Moondogs appear to the left and right of the moon 22° or more distant. They are exactly analogous to sun dogs, but are rarer because to be produced the moon must be bright and therefore full or nearly full. Moondogs show little color to the unaided eye because their light is not bright enough to activate the cone cells of humans' eyes.

Wave of the future motivated by commerce...private enterprise in space

A presentation in June by engineers from Carnegie Mellon University, working with a company called Astrobotic Technology, one of the teams in a competition to become the first private venture to land on the Moon.

This is good and more to come.

"Race to the Moon Heats Up for Private Firms"

by

Kenneth Change

July 21st, 2011

The New York Times

Now that the last space shuttle has landed back on Earth, a new generation of space entrepreneurs would like to whip up excitement about the prospect of returning to the Moon.

Spurred by a $30 million purse put up by Google, 29 teams have signed up for a competition to become the first private venture to land on the Moon. Most of them are unlikely to overcome the financial and technical challenges to meet the contest deadline of December 2015, but several teams think they have a good shot to win — and to take an early lead in a race to take commercial advantage of our celestial neighbor.

At the very least, a flotilla of unmanned spacecraft could be headed Moonward within the next few years, with goals that range from lofty to goofy.

One Silicon Valley venture, Moon Express, is positioning itself as a future FedEx for Moon deliveries: if you have something to send there, they would like to bring it. The company is throwing a party on Thursday night to show off the flight capabilities of its lunar lander, a prototype it bought from NASA, and “to begin the next era of the private commercial race to the Moon,” as the invitation put it.

“In the near future, the Moon Express lunar lander will be mining the Moon for precious resources that we need here on Earth,” the invitation promised. “Years from now, we will all remember we were there.”

Naveen Jain, an Internet billionaire and a founder of Moon Express, says the company will spend $70 million to $100 million to try to win the Google Lunar X Prize, but could recoup its investment on its first flight. He envisions selling exclusive broadcast rights for video from the Moon, as well as sponsorships, á la Nascar, for companies to put their logos on the lander.

Or, perhaps, a tie-in to reality television.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if you could have a ‘Moon Idol,’ just like ‘American Idol?’ ” suggested Mr. Jain, who previously founded Infospace and Intelius. “You take the top 10 contestants and play their voices on the moon, record it and see who sounds the best.”

(There is no air on the Moon to transmit sound waves, but “you could play it through the dust and see what it sounds like when you play it right on the surface,” Mr. Jain said.)

Another competitor, Astrobotic Technology, intends to sell berths on its lunar lander to space agencies and scientific institutions, which would pay $820,000 a pound to send up their experiments. The company, a spinoff from Carnegie Mellon University, is building a large craft — much bigger than Moon Express’s — capable of carrying 240 pounds of payload (read: $200 million of cargo) and hopes to be ready to launch in December, 2013.

“We can make a lot of money even if we do not win the prize,” said David Gump, president of Astrobotic, which is based in Pittsburgh. “We will be making substantial profit on the first flight. Basically, we’ll break even by selling a third of the payload.”

The X Prize competitors might all be beaten by landers and rovers that China, Russia and India plan to send up over the next couple of years. But those fall more in the mold of traditional, government-built science probes.

While NASA had wanted to send astronauts back to the Moon, its program was canceled last year, a victim of budget cuts and shifting priorities. But it has awarded $500,000 each to Moon Express, Astrobotic and a third competitor, Rocket City Space Pioneers, the first installments of up to $30 million that it will contribute to the X Prize efforts.

George Xenofos, manager of NASA’s Innovative Lunar Demonstrations Data program, said he expected one or more teams to make it to the Moon. “It’s definitely not the technical issues that’s stopping them,” he said.

The contestants’ goals do not appear to face legal hurdles. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, ratified by 100 nations including the United States, bars countries from claiming sovereignty over any part of the Moon, but does not prevent private companies from setting up shop. As for mining the Moon, it could fall under similar legal parameters as fishing in international waters.

Although some orbiting spacecraft have crashed into the Moon in recent years, 35 years have passed since anything from Earth made a soft landing there. To some people, this looks like an overdue invitation.

“It’s probably the biggest wealth creation opportunity in modern history,” said Barney Pell, a former NASA computer scientist turned entrepreneur and now a co-founder of Moon Express. While Moon Express might initially make money by sending small payloads, the big fortune would come from bringing back platinum and other rare metals, Dr. Pell said.

“Long term, the market is massive, no doubt,” he said. “This is not a question of if. It’s a question of who and when. We hope it’s us and soon.”

Like the aviation prizes that jump-started airplane technology a century ago, the Google Lunar X Prize is meant to rally the enthusiasm of technologists and entrepreneurs. It is administered by the X Prize Foundation, which handed out $10 million in 2004 to the first private team to build a spacecraft that could carry people 60 miles above the Earth’s surface. (The winner, SpaceShipOne, was built by the aerospace designer Burt Rutan with backing from Paul Allen, the software magnate.)

For the Moon competition, Google put up $30 million. Of that, $20 million will go to the first team to land a spacecraft on the Moon, explore 500 meters and send back high-definition video and photos. The second team will win $5 million, and the remaining $5 million will pay for bonus prizes like surviving a frigid lunar night or traveling more than 5,000 meters on the surface.

Not all the competitors see dollar signs in the Moon. Rocket City Space Pioneers, a consortium of space businesses, is using its Moon effort largely to market technology that will allow multiple payloads to share one rocket, greatly reducing launching costs. (In other words, as the lander headed for the Moon, it could drop off a few satellites in orbit.)

“I think the Moon, it’s so expensive, we don’t know what the market is for sure in its entirety,” said Tim Pickens, chief propulsion engineer at Dynetics, an aerospace company in Huntsville, Ala., that is leading the Rocket City effort.

Meanwhile, at Moon Express, Mr. Jain’s imagination runs wild. A robot could scrawl a marriage proposal in the lunar dust, take a picture and send it to the customer’s beloved back on Earth. A time capsule filled with mementos or a strand of someone’s hair — and DNA — could be sent to the Moon, where it would persist, pristine in the airless environs.

“People become part of moon exploration,” Mr. Jain said, “and that has never been done before.”

Lunar crater book for the visually impaired...from NASA

"NASA Unveils a New Lunar Book for the Visually Impaired"

The book “Getting a Feel for Lunar Craters” features tactile diagrams of the lunar surface

by

Soderman/NLSI Staff

July 19th, 2011

NASA

NASA has unveiled a new book for blind and visually impaired readers at a media event and reception hosted by the NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI) at 6 p.m. PDT on July 18 at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.

The book “Getting a Feel for Lunar Craters” was created with the NLSI and features tactile diagrams of the lunar surface designed to educate the blind and visually impaired about the wonders of Earth’s moon. David Hurd, a space science professor at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, Edinboro, Pa., is the book’s author. He and tactile engineer John Matelock began creating tactile astronomy tools after a student with a visual impairment signed up for Hurd’s introductory astronomy course. Cassandra Runyon, a professor at College of Charleston, Charleston, S.C. and Hurd previously produced “A Tactile Guide to the Solar System with Digital Talking Book” for NASA.

Note: the first publication has run out; a second reprinting of the book is expected in 2 months.
You can also download the Text Only Version or Audio File.

Hurd and students from the California School for the Blind, Fremont, Calif., are scheduled to attend the unveiling.

“NASA’s Lunar Science Institute is committed to the development of resources to bring lunar science into the world of those who cannot see. ‘Getting a Feel for Lunar Craters’ is one giant step for humankind, making lunar science visible through touch and sound,” said Yvonne Pendleton, director of the NLSI.

Moon made of cheese...green cheese?

Myth, fable, folklore, and linguistics are involved.

There exists a family of stories in comparative mythology in diverse countries that concern a simpleton who sees a reflection of the Moon and mistakes it for a round cheese:

... the Servian tale where the fox leads the wolf to believe the moon reflection in the water is a cheese and the wolf bursts in the attempt to drink up the water to get at the cheese; the Zulu tale of the hyena that drops the bone to go after the moon reflection in the water; the Gascon tale of the peasant watering his ass on a moonlight night. A cloud obscures the moon, and the peasant, thinking the ass has drunk the moon, kills the beast to recover the moon; the Turkish tale of the Khoja Nasru-'d-Din who thinks the moon has fallen into the well and gets a rope and chain with which to pull it out. In his efforts the rope breaks, and he falls back, but seeing the moon in the sky, praises Allah that the moon is safe; the Scotch tale of the wolf fishing with his tail for the moon reflection;....

Read more...

The Moon is made of green cheese [Wikipedia]

Little Buck Cheeser

 

1937

107 years ago today Georges Melies took us to the moon

"Sept. 1, 1902: Early Sci-Fi Flick Sticks It to the Moon"

by

John Scott Lewinski

August 31st, 2009

Wired

A Trip to the Moon (or Le Voyage dans la Lune for you fancy, book-learnin’ types) created a pop-culture image that’s been reproduced on everything from T-shirts to dinner plates: The man in the moon’s disgruntled face sports an oversize space capsule stuck in his right eye.

It’s obviously not to scale, and it’s playfully gruesome when you consider the pain a modestly sized celestial body would experience with a heavy hunk of medal forcibly injected into its eye socket. It could be legally considered satellite abuse. If it weren’t science fiction.

Conceived, produced and starring Méliès and inspired by the words of Jules Verne, the black-and-white silent film tells the fanciful story of a group of dandy astronomers who journey to our crater-faced neighbor, propelled by cannon shot.

After their simple projectile arrives just south of the moon’s frontal lobe, the explorers venture forth in their waistcoats and leggings into a wondrous landscape filled with craters, volcanic geysers and spiraling rock formations. They’re so amazed that they immediately take a nap. You can see for yourself in the complete video.

In their dreams, the astronomers fantasize about the moon’s sizable lady population — conjuring another famous image of Phoebe — The Lady of the Moon — swinging on a distant crescent.

After descending into a crater and discovering the moon’s underground civilization, the astronomers encounter the primitive, contortionist moon people (the Selenites — think Cirque du Soleil with better costumes).

As true scientists and the first representatives of Earth to reach the moon, they immediately kill the first beings they encounter (along with their leader) and must flee an enraged mob of spear-bearing moon folk to return to Earth.

While it’s easy enough to turn a jaundiced eye to what might seem like a primitive cinematic effort of ages past, Méliès was genuinely ahead of his time in his mastery of still-developing film techniques. He also is recognized as the first pioneer of cinematic art direction and visual effects.

Much of his on-camera production design fell back on traditional stagecraft. But Méliès became fascinated with the potential to distort reality while making countless fantasy films. Referred to in his time as the Cinemagician, Méliès would develop the use of substitute edits, dissolves, time-lapse photography and multiple exposures. He would also produce some of the world’s first color movies by hand-painting his frames.

Unfortunately, Méliès wasn’t overly industrious or prolific during his career — producing only about 550 films in his lifetime. Most of that astounding number were early horror, fantasy and sci-fi efforts — making Méliès the father of those genres.

But his creativity and inventiveness weren’t fully awarded financially during his career. In 1913, his film company went bankrupt — beaten down by bigger French and American studios. While Méliès was forced to become a toy salesman, the French army seized his films — melting them down into boot heels for soldiers during World War I (according to legend).

In time, Méliès received proper recognition from the French arts community — which provided him a home and an opportunity to perform on stage until his death in Paris at 76 on Jan. 21, 1938.

Le Voyage dans la Lune

[A Trip to the Moon]

by

Georges Melies

1902

Other films by Georges Melies...

CENDRILLON [1899]

JEANNE D'ARC [1899]

LA COLLE UNIVERSELLE [GOOD GLUE STICKS] [1907]

THE CONJUROR [1899]

THE INFERNAL CAKE-WALK [1903]

THE MAGIC LANTERN [1903]

THE MELOMANIAC [1902]

THE MONSTER [1903]

THE UNTAMABLE WHISKERS [1904]


A Trip to the Moon [Wikipedia]

"For All Mankind"...40 years after Apollo 11

Al Reinert's For All Mankind won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1990 covering the Apollo 11 mission [including Apollo 1 and Apollo 7 through 10]. The film is available as a restored high-definition digital transfer from The Criterion Collection or you can watch it for free from NASA .

For All Mankind

Return to the Moon poll

40 years ago we went to the moon. Should we return?

Yes...1
No...3

I won't belabor the point but a trip to the Moon [or anywhere else...like Mars] at this time is just not a good idea. The United States' fiscal crisis cannot warrant such a venture, NASA has some serious economic issues, the methodology of getting there is outdated and risky, and the whole idea of pushing man into space is questionable. It is still a better idea to send satellites and probes. Common sense rules over grandeur of space travel--let the science fiction writers satisfy that need.

Bye, bye moon

This won't make any difference to the citizens of Earth now but it might 1,000 years from now if mankind is still around. The fabulous orb some 238,857 miles from Earth is moving away at about 1.5 inches each year. That is about 1/3 of a mile in 1,000 years. And what will happen? Lots of things. The total solar eclipse will cease as we experience it...it won't be "total". The tides will change causing havoc on the ocean shores. Human fecundity cycles [the synodic period of 29-1/2 days] will shrink causing who knows what issues. Seasons will be altered. EGADS...enjoy the moon now.

Thomas Harriot and the first moon maps

Thomas Harriot
1560 to July 2nd 1621

First drawing of the moon.

A later drawing via telescope observation.

It is really satisfying to know that some 400 year old drawing has survived relating to the early history of astronomy. These items are truly priceless.

"History Corrected by 400-year-old Moon Map"

January 14th, 2009

space.com

Galileo Galilei is often credited with being the first person to look through a telescope and make drawings of the celestial objects he observed. While the Italian indeed was a pioneer in this realm, he was not the first.

Englishman Thomas Harriot made the first drawing of the moon after looking through a telescope several months before Galileo, in July 1609.

Historian Allan Chapman of the University of Oxford details that 400-year-old breakthrough in astronomy in the February 2009 edition of Astronomy and Geophysics, a journal of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Chapman explains how Harriot preceded Galileo and went on to make other maps of the moon's surface that would not be bettered for decades.

The story

Harriot lived from 1560 to 1621. He studied at St Mary's Hall (now part of Oriel College), Oxford, achieving his BA in 1580.

He then became a mathematical teacher and companion to the explorer Sir Walter Raleigh. In the early 1590s Raleigh fell from royal favor and was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Harriot was passed to the patronage of Henry Percy, the Ninth Earl of Northumberland who was himself imprisoned as one of the Gunpowder Plotters in 1605 but continued to support Harriot in his residence at Sion (now Syon) Park, in what is now west London.

Harriot became a leading force in mathematics, Chapman explains, working on algebraic theory and corresponding with scientists across Europe.

By 1609, Harriot had acquired his first "Dutch trunke" (telescope), which had been invented in The Netherlands in 1608. He turned it on the moon on July 26, becoming the first astronomer to draw an astronomical object after viewing it through a telescope. The crude lunar sketch shows a rough outline of the lunar terminator (the line marking the division between night and day on the moon, as seen from the Earth) and includes a handful of features like the dark areas Mare Crisium, Mare Tranquilitatis and Mare Foecunditatis.

Harriot went on to produce more maps from 1610 to 1613, Chapman said in a statement released today. Not all of these are dated, but they show an increasing level of detail. By 1613 he had created two maps of the whole moon, with many identifiable features such as lunar craters that crucially are depicted in their correct relative positions.

The earliest telescopes of the kind used by Harriot (and Galileo) had a narrow field of view, meaning that only a small portion of the moon could be seen at any one time and making this work all the more impressive. No better maps would be published for several decades.

Cush job

Despite his innovative work, Harriot remains relatively unknown. Unlike Galileo, he did not publish his drawings. Unlike Galileo, Harriot is not being widely celebrated during 2009, dubbed the International Year of Astronomy as a commemoration of the telescope's 400th year.

Chapman attributes this to his comfortable position as a "well-maintained philosopher to a great and wealthy nobleman" with a generous salary, said to be "several times the level of the Warden of Wadham College, Oxford." Harriot had comfortable housing and a specially provided observing chamber on top of Sion House, all of which contrasted with Galileo's financial pressures.

Galileo, interestingly, was unable to buy a telescope. So he figured out the optics of it and built his own. He also examined the moon, and then found that the Milky Way was composed of individual stars. Galileo also discovered four moons around Jupiter and spent much time observing and drawing sunspots.

"Thomas Harriot is an unsung hero of science," Chapman said. "His drawings mark the beginning of the era of modern astronomy we now live in, where telescopes large and small give us extraordinary information about the universe we inhabit."

Professor Andy Fabian, President of the Royal Astronomical Society, agrees.

"As an astrophysicist of the 21st century, I can only look back and marvel at the work of 17th century astronomers like Thomas Harriot," Fabian said. "The world is right to celebrate Galileo in the International Year of Astronomy – but Harriot shouldn't be forgotten!"

Thomas Harriot