(fifth in a series)
Artemis II’s mission is in the books–a nearly unqualified success. We’ll discuss the Artemis II results later in this series. Now, on to the attractiveness of the Moon as a natural and versatile laboratory.
The varied geology of the Moon is a rich and largely untapped field of research. With their landing sites limited to areas near the lunar equator, the Apollo explorers just scratched the surface of the moon’s scientific potential. On their last three missions, they covered about 56 miles on their lunar rovers, returning in total about 842 pounds of lunar material, but only from six sites. The lunar poles and the far side hold many mysteries that we need to unravel. There are no end of intriguing places on the moon, like the Ina depression with rugged lava flows (?) from a possible eruption perhaps 3.5 billion years ago. We’d love to land there and find out what volcanic or collapse processes created these flat-topped, pancake-like flows and the rough-floored lowlands between them.
Aside from its unique geological offerings, the Moon is interesting as a natural scientific laboratory. The moon has only a wisp of an atmosphere—at the surface, a nearly a complete vacuum. The surface gravity, one-sixth that of Earth, invites some very interesting physics experiments and materials behavior, advantageous over free-fall conditions in running mining processes and lunar resource extraction plants.
Because many lunar craters are bowl-shaped due to the physics of impact cratering, they are inviting as sites for radio telescopes on the quiet, far side of the moon. The moon’s bulk shields the far side from the radio and TV noise from Earth, creating a very quiet listening environment for a radio telescope exploring the universe. We can imagine just draping the radio telescope’s light wire mesh down in the natural bowl of a crater, creating a very sensitive parabolic dish for radio astronomy.
As the moon circles the Earth, its radio-shielded far side sweeps across a large portion of the celestial sphere, enabling a telescope nestled in a crater to scan interesting targets for a good part of every month. Such a telescope would see more of the sky if located on the lunar equator, so future Artemis crews (or robotic missions) may not limit their visits only to the lunar south pole. I’ll watch this design evolution with interest.
Next: The Moon’s Usefulness
Leave a Reply