Artist's conception of a future lunar rover gathering regolith to construct a moon base using 3-D printing. Credit: Foster+Partners/European Space Agency/YouTube (screenshot)
The Moon is so close to us, and yet so far. Just last year the Chang’e-3 spacecraft and Yutu rover made the first soft landing on the surface in more than a generation. Humans haven’t walked in the regolith since 1972. But that hasn’t decreased the desire of some to bring people back there — with an armful of new technologies to make life easier.
Take the European Space Agency’s desire to do 3-D printing on the lunar surface. Rovers with big scoopers would pick up the moon dust and use that as raw materials to make a habitat that humans would then enjoy. Far out? Perhaps, but it is something the agency is seriously examining in consultation with Foster+Partners. See the video above.
Universe Today recently explored the value of being on the Moon or a nearby asteroid. In a nutshell, the lower gravity would make it easier to loft things from the base, making it potentially cheaper to explore the Solar System. That said, there are considerable startup costs. One thing that could be considered is the value of investing in smart robots that could build simple structures on the moon or even (gasp) build other prototypes to replace or supplement them.
As ESA explained in a 2013 blog post, the agency envisions using robots to use more “local” resources on the moon and to reduce the need to ship stuff in from planet Earth. “As a practice, we are used to designing for extreme climates on Earth and exploiting the environmental benefits of using local, sustainable materials,” stated Xavier De Kestelier of Foster + Partners specialist modelling group. “Our lunar habitation follows a similar logic.”
The new video takes that concept a bit further and specifies a location: Shackleton Crater, which receives near-constant sunlight in certain areas, next to spots that are in permanent shadow. As ESA explains, being in this crater allows the best of two scenarios: constant energy available for solar panels, but areas to build structures that would be more sensitive to extreme heat.
ESA plans to push forward its research from 2013 to look at “harnessing concentrated sunlight to melt regolith rather than using a binding liquid,” as the agency explains on its YouTube page. Moon dust structures glued together with more moon dust? Sounds like the ultimate snow fort.
As of November 2014, these are all of the planetary, lunar and small body surfaces where humanity has either lived, visited, or sent probes to. Composition by Mike Malaska, updated by Michiel Straathof. Image credits: Comet 67P/C-G [Rosetta/Philae]: ESA / Rosetta / Philae / CIVA / Michiel Straathof. Asteroid Itokawa [Hayabusa]: ISAS / JAXA / Gordan Ugarkovic. Moon [Apollo 17]: NASA. Venus [Venera 14]: IKI / Don Mitchell / Ted Stryk / Mike Malaska. Mars [Mars Exploration Rover Spirit]: NASA / JPL / Cornell / Mike Malaska. Titan [Cassini-Huygens]: ESA / NASA / JPL / University of Arizona. Earth: Mike Malaska
Correction, 11:33 a.m. EST: The University of Central Florida’s Phil Metzger points out that the image composition leaves out Eros, which NEAR Shoemaker landed on in 2001. This article has been corrected to reflect that and to clarify that the surfaces pictured were from “soft” landings.
And now there are eight. With Philae’s incredible landing on a comet earlier this week, humans have now done soft landings on eight solar system bodies. And that’s just in the first 57 years of space exploration. How far do you think we’ll reach in the next six decades? Let us know in the comments … if you dare.
More seriously, this amazing composition comes courtesy of two people who generously compiled images from the following missions: Rosetta/Philae (European Space Agency), Hayabusa (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), Apollo 17 (NASA), Venera 14 (Soviet Union), the Spirit rover (NASA) and Cassini-Huygens (NASA/ESA). Omitted is NEAR Shoemaker, which landed on Eros in 2001.
Before Philae touched down on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko Wednesday, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Mike Malaska created a cool infographic of nearly every place we’ve lived or visited before then. This week, Michiel Straathof updated the infographic to include 67P (and generously gave us permission to use it.)
And remember that these are just the SURFACES of solar system bodies that we have visited. If you include all of the places that we have flown by or taken pictures from of a distance in space, the count numbers in the dozens — especially when considering prolific imagers such as Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, which flew by multiple planets and moons.
To check out a small sampling of pictures, visit this NASA website that shows some of the best shots we’ve taken in space.
Launch teams practice countdown and fueling tests on the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket that will lift NASA’s Orion spacecraft on its unmanned flight test in December 2014. Credit: NASA
And Orion is so big and heavy that she’s not launching on just any old standard rocket.
To blast the uncrewed Orion to orbit on its maiden mission requires the most powerful booster on Planet Earth – namely the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket.
Liftoff of the state-of-the-art Orion spacecraft on the unmanned Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) mission is slated for December 4, 2014, from Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Just days ago, the launch team successfully completed a countdown and wet dress rehearsal fueling test on the rocket itself – minus Orion – at launch complex 37.
The high fidelity rehearsal included fully powering up the booster and loading the tanks with cryogenic fuel and oxidizer, liquid oxygen, and liquid hydrogen
The high fidelity rehearsal included fully powering up the booster and loading the tanks with cryogenic fuel and oxidizer, liquid oxygen, and liquid hydrogen.
ULA technicians and engineers practiced the countdown on Nov. 5 which included fueling the core stages of the Delta IV Heavy rocket.
“Working in control rooms at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, countdown operators followed the same steps they will take on launch day. The simulation also allowed controllers to evaluate the fuel loading and draining systems on the complex rocket before the Orion spacecraft is placed atop the launcher,” said NASA.
The next key mission milestone is attachment of the completed Orion vehicle stack on top of the rocket. Read more about the fully assembled Orion – here.
Today’s scheduled rollout of Orion to the launch pad for hoisting atop the rocket was scrubbed due to poor weather.
The Orion spacecraft sits inside the Launch Abort System Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Ogive panels have been installed around the launch abort system. Credit: NASA/Jim Grossman
The triple barreled Delta IV Heavy booster became the world’s most powerful rocket upon the retirement of NASA’s Space Shuttle program in 2011 and is the only rocket sufficiently powerful to launch the Orion EFT-1 spacecraft.
The first stage of the mammoth Delta IV Heavy generates some 2 million pounds of liftoff thrust.
“The team has worked extremely hard to ensure this vehicle is processed with the utmost attention to detail and focus on mission success,” according to Tony Taliancich, ULA’s director of East Coast Launch Operations.
“The Delta IV Heavy is the world’s most powerful launch vehicle flying today, and we are excited to be supporting our customer for this critical flight test to collect data and reduce overall mission risks and costs for the program.”
From now until launch technicians will continue to conduct the final processing, testing, and checkout of the Delta IV Heavy booster.
These three RS-68 engines will power each of the attached Delta IV Heavy Common Booster Cores (CBCs) that will launch NASA’s maiden Orion on the EFT-1 mission in December 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
The Delta IV Heavy first stage is comprised of a trio of three Common Booster Cores (CBCs).
Each CBC measures 134 feet in length and 17 feet in diameter. They are equipped with an RS-68 engine powered by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants producing 656,000 pounds of thrust. Together they generate 1.96 million pounds of thrust.
The first CBC booster was attached to the center booster in June. The second one was attached in early August.
Side view shows trio of Common Booster Cores (CBCs) with RS-68 engines powering the Delta IV Heavy rocket resting horizontally in ULA’s HIF processing facility at Cape Canaveral that will launch NASA’s maiden Orion on the EFT-1 mission in December 2014 from Launch Complex 37. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
This fall I visited the ULA’s Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF) during a media tour after the three CBCs had been joined together as well as earlier this year after the first two CBCs arrived by barge from their ULA assembly plant in Decatur, Alabama, located about 20 miles west of Huntsville. See my photos herein.
Orion in orbit in this artist’s concept. Credit: NASA
Orion is NASA’s next generation human rated vehicle that will eventually carry America’s astronauts beyond Earth on voyages venturing farther into deep space than ever before – beyond the Moon to Asteroids, Mars, and other destinations in our Solar System.
The two-orbit, four and a half hour EFT-1 flight will lift the Orion spacecraft and its attached second stage to an orbital altitude of 3,600 miles, about 15 times higher than the International Space Station (ISS) – and farther than any human spacecraft has journeyed in 40 years.
“This mission is a stepping stone on NASA’s journey to Mars,” said NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot.
The United Launch Alliance Delta-IV Heavy rocket tasked with launching NASA’s Orion EFT-1 mission being hoisted vertical atop Space Launch Complex-37B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on the morning of Oct. 1, 2014. Photo Credit: Alan Walters / AmericaSpace
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“The EFT-1 mission is so important to NASA. We will test the capsule with a reentry velocity of about 85% of what’s expected by [astronauts] returning from Mars.”
“We will test the heat shield, the separation of the fairing, and exercise over 50% of the eventual software and electronic systems inside the Orion spacecraft. We will also test the recovery systems coming back into the Pacific Ocean.”
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Orion and Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
NASA’s completed Orion EFT 1 crew module loaded on wheeled transporter during move to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility (PHFS) on Sept. 11, 2014, at the Kennedy Space Center, FL. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
An astronaut retrieves a sample from an asteroid in this artist's conception. Credit: NASA
We’re still a few years away from the cute robots in Moon or Interstellar that help their human explorers. But if we want to build a base off of Earth, robotic intelligence will be essential to lower the cost and pave the way for astronauts, argues Philip Metzger, a former senior research physicist at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
In the last of a three-part series on getting a base ready on the moon or an asteroid, Metzger talks about the steps to get robots ready for the work and what barriers are standing in the way of accomplishing this.
UT: A table in your 2012 paper talks about the steps of lunar industry, starting with tele-operation and an “insect-like” robotic intelligence and then progressing through a few steps to “closely supervised autonomy” (mouse-like) and eventually “nearly full autonomy” (monkey-like) and “autonomous robotics” (human-like). What sorts of developments and how much time/resources would it take to progress through these steps?
Most of the advances in robotic artificial intelligence are being made in software, but they also require advances in computing power. We mentioned in the paper that really only “mouse-like” robotics is needed for it to become successful in a near-Earth environment. We will need robots that can pick up a nut and screw it on a bolt without every motion being commanded from Earth. I believe we are on a trajectory to achieve these levels of autonomy already for robotics here on Earth. I am more concerned about developing robots that can be made easily in space without an extensive supply chain. For example, we need to invent a simple way to manufacture functional motors for the robots, minimizing the assembly tasks for robots making the same motors that are in themselves.
It is very difficult to estimate how long this will take. Here are some guiding ideas. First, robotics and manufacturing technologies are already on an explosive growth curve for terrestrial application, so we can ride on the coattails of that growth as we re-purpose the technologies for space. Second, we are not talking about inventing new capabilities. Everything we are talking about doing in space is already being done on Earth. All we need to do is discover what sets of equipment will function together as partial supply chains using space resources. We need to develop a sequence of partial supply chains, each more sophisticated than the last, each one capable of making a significant portion of the mass of the next. It will require innovation, but it is lower-risk innovation because we already have Earth’s more sophisticated industry to copy.
R2 and D2? NASA and General Motors have come together to develop the next generation dexterous humanoid robot. The robots – called Robonaut2 – were designed to use the same tools as humans, which allows them to work safely side-by-side humans on Earth and in space. Credit: NASA
Third, we tend to estimate things will happen faster than they do in the near term, but slower than they do in the long term. Consider how much technology has changed in the past 200 years, and you will agree that it won’t take another 200 years to get this done. I think it will be much less than 100 years. I am betting it will be done within 50 years, and if we try hard we could do it in 20. In fact, if we really wanted to, and if we put up the money, I think we could do it in 10. But I’m telling people 20 to 50 years. Don’t worry if you think that’s too slow, because the fun of doing it can start immediately, and we will be doing really cool things in space long before the supply chain is complete.
UT: Is it really cheaper and scientifically viable to have a robotic fleet of spacecraft than humans, given development costs and the difficulties of making the robots as efficient to do work as humans?
Biological life needs a place like planet Earth. Humans need more than that; we also need a food chain, and in the final analysis we need an entire ecology of networked organisms interdependent on each other. And if we want to be more than hunters and gatherers, then civilization requires even more than that. We require the industrial supply chain: all the tools and machines and energy sources that we have developed over the past 10,000 years.
When we leave Earth, we need to take not just a canister of air to breath to replicate the physical conditions of our planet. We need the benefit of the entire ecosystem and the entire industrial base to support us. So far we have stayed close to Earth so we have never really “cut the surly bonds of Earth.” We take a consumable supply of food and spare parts from Earth with us, and we send up rockets to the space station when we need more. Even schemes to colonize Mars are depending on regular shipments of things from Earth. These are the things that make it expensive to put humans in space.
Robots, on the other hand, can be adapted to living in the space environment with nothing more from Earth. They can become the ecosphere and the supply chain in space that we humans require. Under our guidance, they can transform any environment analogously to how life has transformed the Earth. They can make air, purify water, and build the habitats and landing pads. Then, when we arrive, it will be vastly less expensive, and it will be safer, too. And this will free us up to spend our time in space doing the things that make us uniquely human. In the long term, robots will make space vastly cheaper for humans.
Canada’s Dextre robot (highlight) and NASA’s Robotic Refueling Experiment jointly performed groundbreaking robotics research aboard the ISS in March 2012. Dextre used its hands to grasp specialized work tools on the RRM for experiments to repair and refuel orbiting satellites. Credit: NASA
But yes, in the near-term there are things we can do more affordably in space by skipping development of robotic industry. We can shoot off sortie missions to various places, and when we are done we can zip back home before everyone dies. But that doesn’t fulfill our great potential as a species. It doesn’t take civilization to the next level. It doesn’t enable scientific research with a billion times the budget we have today. It doesn’t save our planet from overuse and industrial pollution. It doesn’t bring all humanity up to the standard of living many of us are enjoying in the west. It doesn’t make our existence safe in the galaxy. It doesn’t terraform new worlds. It doesn’t take us to other stars. All these things will be possible for almost no additional investment once we pay the tiny cost of bootstrapping industry in our solar system. It’s worth the cost.
I know of several other groups also developing 3D printers that could work on the Moon or Mars to print things directly out of regolith. The KSC Swamp Works is pursuing one technological approach and has built a prototype, and Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis at the University of Southern California is pursing another approach and has printed many things already. My friend Jason Dunn who founded Made In Space, which put the 3D printer into the ISS, has another concept they are pursuing. My friends at NASA have told me that this is healthy, having a portfolio of technologies to pursue rather than just one.
To be ready for missions in space you have to do more than test things in a lab. You need to do testing in reduced gravity aircraft to see if the materials like regolith will flow properly, in vacuum chambers to make sure nothing overheats or jams, and in rugged field locations like a desert or on a volcano to check for dust problems or other unexpected effects. After that, you are ready to start designing the actual version that is going into space, to do the final qualification testing where you shake it and bake it half to death, to assemble and test the flight version, and to launch it.
Deputy Program Manager Matthew Napoli examines a 3D printed piece at Marshall Space Flight Center. Image courtesy Made In Space.
So there are years of work ahead before all that is done. NASA’s direction is to put humans on Mars by the mid-2030’s, so we also have time and there is no rush. If we start to bootstrap space industry in the near-Earth region of space in parallel with getting ready for a Mars campaign then we will probably start testing regolith printers at field sites and making them interoperable with other equipment sooner than NASA presently needs them.
UT: What are the main barriers to robotic exploration on the Moon and beyond?
Budget is the only barrier. But taking a step back we might say a lack of vision is the only barrier because if enough of us understand what is now possible in space and how revolutionary it will be for humanity then there will be no lack of budget.
UT: Is there anything else you would like to add that I haven’t brought up yet?
We live in a very exciting time when these possibilities are being opened to us. It is exciting to think about the world our grandchildren will see, and it is exciting to think of what we can do to bring it about.
Whenever I speak on this topic, afterward the young people in the audience come up and start asking what they can do to get involved in space industry. They tell me that this is how they want to spend their lives. It gets that response because it is so compelling, so logical, and so right.
How much would it cost to establish a space base close to Earth, say on the Moon or an asteroid? To find out, Universe Today spoke with Philip Metzger, a former senior research physicist at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, who has explored this subject extensively on his website and in published papers.
UT: Your 2012 paper specifically talks about how much development is needed on the Moon to make the industry “self-sustaining and expanding”, but left out the cost of getting the technology ready and of their ongoing operation. Why did you leave this assessment until later? How can we get a complete picture of the costs?
PM: As we stated at the start of the paper, our analysis was very crude and was intended only to garner interest in the topic so that others might join us in doing a more complete, more realistic analysis. The interest has grown faster than I expected, so maybe we will start to see these analyses happening now including cost estimates. Previous analyses talked about building entire factories and sending them into space. The main contribution of our initial paper was to point out that there is this bootstrapping strategy that has not been discussed previously, and we argued that it makes more sense. It will result in a much smaller mass of hardware launched into space, and it will allow us to get started right away so that we can figure out how to make the equipment work as we go along.
Moonbase rover concept – could be used for long-term missions (NASA)
Trying to design up front everything in a supply chain for space is impossible. Even if we got the budget for it and gave it a try, we would discover that it wouldn’t work when we sent it into the extraterrestrial environments. There are too many things that could go wrong. Evolving it in stages will allow us to work out the bugs as we develop it in stages. So the paper was arguing for the community to take a look into this new strategy for space industry.
Now, having said that, I can still give you a very crude cost estimate if you want one. Our model shows a total of about 41 tons of hardware being launched to the Moon, but that results in 100,000 tons of hardware when we include what was made there along the way. If 41 tons turns out to be correct, then let’s take 41% of the cost of the International Space Station as a crude estimate, because that has a mass of 100 tons and we can roughly estimate that a ton of space hardware costs about the same in every program. Then let’s multiply by four because it takes four tons of mass launched to low Earth orbit to land one ton on the Moon.
That may be an over-estimate, because the biggest cost of the International Space Station was the labor to design, build, assemble, and test before launch, including the cost of operating the space shuttle fleet. But the hardware for space industry includes many copies of the same parts so design costs should be lower, and since human lives will not be at stake they don’t need to be as reliable. As discussed in the paper, the launch costs will also be much reduced with the new launch systems coming on line.
The International Space Station in March 2009 as seen from the departing STS-119 space shuttle Discovery crew. Credit: NASA/ESA
Furthermore, the cost can be divided by 3.5 according to the crude modeling, because 41 tons is needed only if the industry is making copies of itself as fast as it can. If we slow it down to making just one copy of the industry along the way as it is evolving, then only 12 tons of hardware needs to be sent to the Moon. Now that gives us an estimate of the total cost over the entire bootstrapping period, so if we take 20 or 30 or 40 years to accomplish it, then divide by that amount to get the annual cost. You end up with a number that is a minority fraction of NASA’s annual budget, and a miniscule fraction of the total U.S. federal budget, and even tinier fraction of the US gross domestic product, and an utterly insignificant cost per human being in the developed nations of the Earth.
Even if we are off by a factor of 10 or more, it is something we can afford to start doing today. And this doesn’t account for the economic payback we will be getting while starting space industry. There will be intermediate ways to get a payback, such as refueling communications satellites and enabling new scientific activities. The entire cost needn’t be carried by taxpayers, either. It can be funded in part by commercial interests, and in part by students and others taking part in robotics contests. Perhaps we can arrange shares of ownership in space industry for people who volunteer time developing technologies and doing other tasks like teleoperating robots on the Moon. Call that “telepioneering.”
Perhaps most importantly, the technologies we will be developing – advanced robotics and manufacturing – are the same things we want to be developing here on Earth for the sake of our economy, anyway. So it is a no-brainer to do this! There are also intangible benefits: giving students enthusiasm to excel in their education, focusing the efforts of the maker community to contribute tangibly to our technological and economic growth, and renewing the zeitgeist of our culture. Civilizations fall when they become old and tired, when their enthusiasm is spent and they stop believing in the inherent value of what they do. Do we want a positive, enthusiastic world working together for the greater good? Here it is.
The Japanese Kibo robotic arm on the International Space Station deploys CubeSats during February 2014. The arm was holding a Small Satellite Orbital Deployer to send out the small satellites during Expedition 38. Credit: NASA
UT: We now have smaller computers and the ability to launch CubeSats or smaller accompanying satellites on rocket launches, something that wasn’t available a few decades ago. Does this reduce the costs of sending materials to the Moon for the purposes of what we want to do there?
Most of the papers about starting the space industry are from the 1980’s and 1990’s because that is when most of the investigations were performed, and there hasn’t been funding to continue their work in recent decades. Indeed, changes in technology since then have been game-changing! Back then some studies were saying that a colony would need to support 10,000 humans in space to do manufacturing tasks before it could make a profit and become economically self-sustaining. Now because of the growth of robotics we think we can do it with zero humans, which drastically cuts the cost.
The most complete study of space industry was the 1980 Summer Study at the Ames Research Center. They were the first to discuss the vision of having space industry fully robotic. They estimated mining robots would need to be made with several tons of mass. More recently, we have actually built lunar mining robots at the Swamp Works at the Kennedy Space Center and they are about one tenth of a ton, each. So we have demonstrated a mass reduction of more than 10 times.
But this added sophistication will be harder to manufacture on the Moon. Early generations will not be able to make the lightweight metal alloys or the electronics packages. That will require a more complex supply chain. The early generations of space industry should not aim to make things better; they should aim to make things easier to make. “Appropriate Technology” will be the goal. As the supply chain evolves, eventually it will reach toward the sophistication of Earth. Still, as long as the supply chain is incomplete and we are sending things from Earth, we will be sending the lightest and most sophisticated things we can to be combined with the crude things made in space, and so the advances we’ve made since the 1980’s will indeed reduce the bootstrapping cost.
Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin practice LRV operations in Arizona, Nov. 2 1970 (Credit: NASA. Research by J.L. Pickering)
Between the years of 1969 and 1972 the astronauts of the Apollo missions personally explored the alien landscape of the lunar surface, shuffling, bounding, digging, and roving across six sites on the Moon. In order to prepare for their off-world adventures though, they needed to practice extensively here on Earth so they would be ready to execute the long laundry lists of activities they were required to accomplish during their lunar EVAs. But where on Earth could they find the type of landscape that resembles the Moon’s rugged, dusty, and — most importantly — cratered terrain?
Enter the Cinder Lakes Crater Fields of Flagstaff, Arizona.
The Cinder Lakes Crater Fields northeast of Flagstaff, near the famous San Francisco peaks and just south of the Sunset Crater volcano, were used for Apollo-era training because of the inherently lunar-like volcanic landscape. LRV practice as well as hand tool geology and lunar morphology training were performed there, as well as ALSEP – Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package – placement and setup practice.
The photo above shows Apollo 15 astronauts Dave Scott and Jim Irwin driving a test LRV nicknamed Grover along the rim of a small “lunar crater.” (This particular exercise was performed on Nov. 2, 1970… 44 years ago today!)
Detonation of a “lunar crater” in 1967 (USGS)
Although the craters might look similar to the ones found on the Moon, they were actually created by the USGS in 1967 by digging holes and filling them with various amounts of explosives, which were detonated to simulate different-sized lunar impact craters. The human-made craters ranged in size from 5-40 feet (1.5-12 meters) in diameter.
The two crater field sites at Cinder Lakes were chosen because of the specific surface geology: a layer of basaltic cinders covering clay beds, left over from an eruption of the Sunset Crater volcano 950 years ago. After the explosions the excavated lighter clay material spread out from the blast craters and across the fields, like ejecta from actual meteorite impacts. A total of 497 craters were made within two sites comprising 2,000 square feet.
Detonations were done in series to simulate ejected debris from cratering events of different ages. And one of the areas of Cinder Lakes was designed to specifically replicate craters found within a particular region of the Apollo 11 Mare Tranquillitatis landing site.
The completed Cinder Lakes Crater Field #1 in October 1967 (USGS)
Today only the largest craters can be distinguished at all in the publicly-accessible Cinder Lakes field, which has become popular with ATV enthusiasts. But a smaller field, fenced off to vehicles, still contains many of the original craters used by Apollo astronauts, softened by time and weather but still visible.
A couple of other areas were used as lunar analogue training fields as well, such as the nearby Merriam Crater and Black Canyon fields — the latter of which is now covered by a housing development. Geology field training exercises by Apollo astronauts were also performed at locations in Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Alaska, Idaho, Iceland, Mexico, the Grand Canyon, and the lava fields of Hawaii. But only in Arizona were actual craters made to specifically simulate the Moon!
Read more about the Cinder Lakes Crater Field in a presentation document (my main article source) by LPI’s Dr. David Kring, and you can find more recent photos of the Crater Lakes sites on this page by LPI’s Jim Scotti.
The impact site of the LADEE spacecraft is clear to see. Actually not really. One must compare to LROC images of the same site photographed before and after the impact to locate it. Click on the image to view the animated gif holding the pair of images. (Photo Credits: NASA/GSFC/LROC)
Ever wonder what your refrigerator’s impacting at the speed of a tank artillery shell would do to the Moon? The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s (LRO) primary camera has provided an image of just such an event when it located the impact site of another NASA spacecraft, the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE). The fridge-sized LADEE spacecraft completed its final Lunar orbit on April 18, 2014, and then crashed into the far side of the Moon. LADEE ground controllers were pretty certain where it crashed but no orbiter had found it until now. With billions of craters across the lunar surface, finding a fresh crater is a daunting task, but a new method of searching for fresh craters is what found LADEE.
The primary purpose of the LADEE mission was to search for lunar dust in the exceedingly thin atmosphere of the Moon. NASA Apollo astronauts had taken notes and drawings of incredible spires and rays of apparent dust above the horizon of the Moon as they were in orbit. To this day it remains a mystery although LADEE researchers are still working their data to find out more.
The LRO spacecraft has been in lunar orbit since 2007. With the LROC Narrow Angle Camera, LRO has the ability to resolve objects less than 2 feet across, and it was likely just a matter of finding time to snap and to search photos for a tiny impact crater.
However, the LROC team recently developed a new algorithm in software to search for fresh craters. Having a good idea where to begin the search, they decided to search for LADEE and quickly found it. The LROC team said the impact site is “about half a mile (780 meters) from the Sundman V crater rim with an altitude of about 8,497 feet (2,590 meters) and was only about two tenths of a mile (300 meters) north of the location mission controllers predicted based on tracking data.” Sundman Crater is about 200 km (125 miles) from a larger crater named Einstein.
A Google Earth map display of the Moon shows the area of the western limb and the offset of the LADEE impact site relative to the crater Einstein. The Moon’s limbs are zones rather than a distinct line because of its libration. (Photo Credit: Google, Illus. T. Reyes)
The LADEE impact site is within 300 meters of the location estimated by the LADEE team. The ground control team at Ames Research Center knew the location very well within just hours after the time of the planned impact. They had to know LADEE’s location in orbit with split-second accuracy and also know very accurately the altitude of the terrain LADEE was skimming over. LADEE was traveling at 1699 meters per second (3,800 mph, 5,574 feet/sec) upon impact.
But still, finding something as small as this crater can be difficult.
Looking at these images, the scale of lunar morphology is very deceiving. Craters that are 10 meters in diameter can be mistaken for 100 meter or even 1000 meters. The first image and third images (below) in this article are showing only a small portion of the external slope of the eastern rim of Sundman V, the satellite crater to the southeast of crater Sundman. Sundman V is 19,000 meters in diameter (19 km, 11.8 miles) whereas the first image is only 223 meters across.
The following image, which is the ratioing of “before” and “after” impact images by LROC, clearly reveals the impact scar from LADEE. LADEE’s crater is only approximately 10 feet in diameter (3 m) with the ejecta fanning out 200 meters to the west by northwest. LADEE was traveling westward across the face of the Moon that we see from Earth, reached the western limb and finally encountered Sundman.
A high resolution LROC image of the LADEE impact site on the eastern rim of Sundman V crater. The image was created by ratioing two images, one taken before the impact and another afterwards. The bright area highlights what has changed between the time of the two images, specifically the impact point and the ejecta. Full resolution of the image (click) is 1 pixel per meter [1000 m on a side]. (Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University)In the third image of this article (above), only a 1000 meter square view of the outer slope of Sundman V’s eastern rim is seen. Rather than take the difference between the two images, which is essentially what your eye-brain does with an image pair, LROC engineers take the ratio which effectively raises the contrast dramatically. Sundman V crater is on the far side of the Moon but very near the limb. At times, due to lunar libration, this site can be seen from the Earth. In the Lunar Orbiter image, below, Sundman and satellites J & V are marked. The red circle in the image below is the area in which LROC’s high resolution images reside. Furthermore, the famous Arizona meteor crater east of Flagstaff would also easily fit inside the circle.
This Lunar Orbiter image shows the Sundman craters. The high resolution LROC images of the LADEE impact site easily fit within the red circle (2 km dia.) on “Sundman V” eastern rim. (Photo Credit: NASA, Illus. T.Reyes)
The discovery so close to the predicted impact site confirmed how accurately the LADEE team could model the chaotic orbits around the Moon – at least during short intervals of time. Gravitationally, the Moon is truly like Swiss cheese. The effects of upwelling magma during its creation, the effects of the Earth’s tidal forces, and all the billions of asteroid impacts created a very chaotic gravitational field. Where the lunar surface is higher or more dense, gravity is stronger and vice-versa. LADEE struggled to maintain an orbit that would not run into the Moon. Without a constant vigil by Ames engineers, LADEE’s orbit would be shifted and rotated relative to the Moon’s surface until it eventually would intersect the Lunar surface – run into the Moon. Eventually, this had to happen as LADEE ran out of propulsion fuel.
The blink comparator used by Clyde Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory to discover Pluto in 1930. The basic approach has since been translated into computer software capable of searching many times faster than a human. (Photo Credit: MWT Associates/Melitatrips)
The method used by the LROC team in its basic approach is by no means new. Clyde Tombaugh used a blink comparator to search for Planet X for several months and many frame pairs of the night sky. The comparator would essentially show one image and then a second of the same view taken a few nights apart to Clyde’s eye. Tombaugh’s eye and brain could process the two images and identify slight shifts of an object from one frame to the other. Stars are essentially fixed, don’t move but objects in our solar system do move in the night sky over hours or days. In the same way, the new software employed by LROC engineers takes two images and compares them mathematically. A human is replaced by a computer and software to weed out the slightest changes between a pair of images; images of the same area but spaced in time. Finding changes on the surface of a body such as the Moon or Mars is made especially difficult because of the slightest changes in lighting and location of the observer (the spacecraft). The new LROC software marks a new step forward in sophistication and thus has returned LADEE back to us.
The following Lunar Orbiter image from the 1960s is high contrast and reveals surface relief in much more detail. Einstein crater is clearly seen, as is Sundman with J and V satellite craters on its rim.
A NASA Lunar Orbiter image of the LADEE impact site. Einstein is actually an old low profile crater 198 km in diameter with 51 km “Einstein A” at its center. Sundman is also a low profile crater, 40 km diameter, with satellite craters J (10 km dia., southwest), V (19 km dia., southeast). (Photo Credit: NASA)
A unique view of the Moon and distant Earth from China's Chang’e-5 T1 lunar test flight. Image via CCTV News and UnmannedSpaceflight.com.
The Chinese lunar test mission Chang’e 5T1 has sent back some amazing and unique views of the Moon’s far side, with the Earth joining in for a cameo in the image above. According to the crew at UnmannedSpaceflight.com the images were taken with the spacecraft’s solar array monitoring camera.
Add this marvelous shot to previous views of the Earth and Moon together.
A closeup of Mare Marginis, a lunar sea that lies on the very edge of the lunar nearside. Credit: Xinhua News, via UnmannedSpacefight.com.
The mission launched on October 23 and is taking an eight-day roundtrip flight around the Moon and is now journeying back to Earth. The mission is a test run for Chang’e-5, China’s fourth lunar probe that aims to gather samples from the Moon’s surface, currently set for 2017. Chang’e 5T1 will return to Earth on October 31.
The test flight orbit had a perigee of 209 kilometers and reached an apogee of about 380,000 kilometers, swinging halfway around the Moon, but did not enter lunar orbit.
A view of Earth on October 24, 2014, from the Chinese Chang’e-5 T1 spacecraft. Credit: Xinhua News, via UnmannedSpaceflight.com.
Whether its asteroid prospecting, mining interests, or space tourism, a lot of industries are taking aim at space exploration. Some pioneering spirits – such as Elon Musk – even believe humanity’s survival depends on our colonizing onto other planets – such as the Moon and Mars. It’s little surprise then that lunar land peddlers have begun making deals for land on the Moon.
The Partially eclipsed Sun rising over the Vehicle Assembly Building on the Florida Space Coast on November 3rd, 2013.
Get those solar viewers out… the final eclipse of 2014 occurs this Thursday on October 23rd, and most of North America has a front row seat. Though this solar eclipse will be an exclusively partial one as the Moon takes a ‘bite’ out the disk of the Sun, such an event is always fascinating to witness. And for viewers across the central U.S. and Canada, it will also provide the chance to photograph the setting crescent Sun along with foreground objects.
A map showing the eclipse prospects over the CONUS. (click to enlarge). Credit: Michael Zeiler @EclipseMaps, www.thegreatamericaneclipse.com.
The shadow or ‘antumbra’ of the Moon just misses northern limb of the Earth on October 23rd, resulting in a solar eclipse that reaches a maximum of 81% partial as seen from the high Canadian Arctic. The eclipse would be annular in any event had the Moon’s shadow touched down on Earth’s surface, as the Moon just passed apogee on October 18th. The penumbral cone of the Moon’s shadow touches down at 19:38 UT in the Bering Sea just west of the International Date Line before racing eastward across North America to depart the Earth over southern Texas at 23:52 UT.
An animated .gif of this week’s partial solar eclipse. Credit: NASA/GSFC/A.T. Sinclair.
The farther northwest you are, the greater the eclipse: For example, Anchorage and Seattle will see 54.8% and 54.5% of the Sun obscured by the Moon, while Mexico City and Phoenix, Arizona will see 4.8% and 33% of the Sun’s disk obscured.
A key region will be the zone of longitude running a few hundred miles east and to the west of Ontario, the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, which will see the Sun setting during greatest eclipse.
Simulated views of the October 23rd partial solar eclipse from around North America. Created using Stellarium.
Successful sunset viewing of the eclipse will call for a clear, uncluttered western horizon. As of 48+ hours out, the current weather prospects call for clear skies across most of the U.S. on Thursday, with the exception of the U.S. northwest… but you only need a gap in the clouds to observe an eclipse!
Predicted cloud cover for the CONUS hours prior to the start of the Oct 23 partial solar eclipse. Credit: NWS/NOAA.
It’s also worth noting that massive sunspot region AR 2192 is currently turned Earthward and will make for a very active and photogenic Sun during Thursday’s eclipse.
Sunspot activity leading up to this week’s eclipse. Credit: NASA/SDO/HMI
Proper safety precautions must be taken while observing the Sun through all stages of a partial solar eclipse. Don’t end up like 19th century psychologist Gustav Fechner, who blinded himself staring at the Sun! With the recent interest in the event, we’ve been fielding lots of questions on eclipse imaging, which presents safety challenges of its own.
An homemade solar optical filter using Baader film. Credit: Eric Teske/Stellar Neophyte.
Imaging the Sun with a solar filter is pretty straightforward. Glass solar filters for telescopes fitting over the full aperture of the instrument can be had from Orion for about $100 USD, and we’ve made inexpensive filter masks out of Baader AstroSolar Safety Film for everything from binoculars to DLSR cameras to telescopes. Make sure these fit snugly in place, and inspect them for pin holes prior to use. Also, be sure to cover or remove any finderscopes as well. And throw away those old screw-on eyepiece filters sold by some department store scope manufacturers in the 60s and 70s, as they can overheat and crack!
Catching the eclipsed Sun with a silhouetted foreground requires more practice. We’ve had great luck using a DSLR and a neutral density filter to take the f-stop and glare down while preserving the foreground view. Remember, though, an ND filter is for photographic use only… never stare at the Sun through one! Likewise, you’ll need to physically block off your camera’s viewfinder to resist the same temptation of looking while aiming. Shooting several quick frames at 1/1000th of a second or faster will help get the ISO/f-stop settings for the local illumination just right. Even 1% sunlight is surprisingly bright, as we noticed observing the May 10th 1994 annular eclipse from the shores of Lake Erie.
You’ll also need a lens with a focal length of 200mm or better to have the Sun appear larger than a dot in your images. Several key landmarks, such as the Saint Louis Arch and the Sears Tower in Chicago lie along the key sunset zone Thursday and would make great potential foreground shots… our top pick would be the 1978 World’s Fair Sunsphere Tower in Knoxville, Tennessee for a photo with a true visual double entendre. Scout out the geometry of such a shot the evening beforehand, and remember that you’ll need a good amount of distance (half a mile or more) for a building or foreground object to appear equal in size to the Sun.
And don’t miss the spectacle going on around you during an eclipse as well. Projecting the disk of the Sun using a pinhole camera or binoculars onto a piece of paper makes for a great shot. Hundreds of crescents may litter the ground, caused by natural “pinhole projectors” such as gaps in leaves or latticework. And photographs of everyday folks wearing eclipse glasses standing enthralled by the ongoing event can be just as captivating as the eclipse itself.
Imaging a partial solar eclipse via a homemade shoebox binocular projector. Photo by author.
Up for a challenge? Another unique opportunity awaits eclipse viewers in the northwest, as the International Space Station will cross the disk of the Sun around ~21:08 UT during the eclipse. You’ll need to run video to catch such a speedy (about a second in duration) event, but it would make for a great capture! Be sure to check CALSky for predictions of ISS solar and lunar transits within 48 hours of the event.
The path of the ISS over the US during the partial eclipse. Credit: Orbitron.
Robotic eyes in low Earth orbit will be watching the eclipse as well. JAXA’s Hinode and ESA’s Proba-2 routinely observe the Sun and will catch fleeting eclipses on successive passes on Thursday… in the case of Hinode, it may score a direct “hit” with an annular eclipse seen from space around 21:03 UT:
And don’t forget, we’re now less than three years out from the next total solar eclipse to (finally!) grace the United States from coast to coast on August 21st, 2017. This week’s partial solar eclipse offers a great test run to hone your photographic technique!
