Moon Archives

May 20, 2016May 20, 2016 by Ken Kremer

Orbital ATK Proposes Man-Tended Lunar-Orbit Outpost by 2020 for Link Up with NASA’s Orion

Artist rendering of Orbital ATK concept for an initial lunar habitat outpost, as it would appear with NASA’s Orion spacecraft in 2021. Credit: Orbital ATK

Orbital ATK has unveiled a practical new proposal to build a near term man-tended outpost in lunar orbit that could launch by 2020 and be operational in time for a lunar link-up with NASA’s Orion crew module during its maiden mission, when American astronauts finally return to the Moon’s vicinity in 2021 – thus advancing America’s next giant leap in human exploration of deep space.

The intrepid offer by Orbital could be carried out rather quickly because it utilizes an evolved version of the company’s already proven commercial Cygnus space station resupply freighter as “the building block … in cislunar space,” said Frank DeMauro, Orbital ATK Vice President for Human Spaceflight Systems, in an exclusive interview with Universe Today. See an artist concept in the lead image.

“Our Cygnus spacecraft is the building block to become a vehicle for exploration beyond low Earth orbit,” Orbital ATK’s Frank DeMauro told Universe Today.

“We are all about supporting NASA’s Mission to Mars. We feel that getting experience in cislunar space is critical to the buildup of the capabilities to go to Mars.”

NASA’s agency wide goal is to send astronauts on a ‘Journey to Mars’ in the 2030s – and expeditions to cislunar space in the 2020s serve as the vital ‘proving ground’ to fully develop, test out and validate the robustness of crucial technologies upon which the astronauts lives will depend on later Red Planet missions lasting some 2 to 3 years.

Orbital ATK’s lunar-orbit outpost proposal was announced at an official hearing of the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Space on Wednesday, May 18, by former NASA Astronaut and Orbital ATK President of the Space Systems Group, Frank Culbertson.

“A lunar-orbit habitat will extend America’s leadership in space to the cislunar domain,” said Orbital ATK President of the Space Systems Group, Frank Culbertson.

“A robust program to build, launch and operate this initial outpost would be built on NASA’s and our international partners’ experience gained in long-duration human space flight on the International Space Station and would make use of the agency’s new Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion deep-space transportation system.”

The idea is to assemble an initial crew-tended habitat with pressurized work and living volume for the astronauts based on a Cygnus derived vehicle, and have it pre-positioned and functioning in lunar-orbit by 2020.

As envisioned by Orbital ATK, the habitat would be visited during NASA’s first manned mission of SLS and Orion to the Moon known as Exploration Mission-2 (EM-2).

The three week long EM-2 lunar test flight could launch as early as August 2021 – if sufficient funding is available.

The goals of EM-2 and following missions could be significantly broadened via docking with a lunar outpost. And Orion mission durations could be extended to 60 days.

NASA hopes to achieve a launch cadence for Orion/SLS of perhaps once per year.

Therefore autonomy and crew tended capability has to be built in to the lunar habitat right from the start – since crew visits would account for only a fraction of its time but enable vastly expanded science and exploration capabilities.

The initial lunar habitat envisioned by Orbital ATK would be comprised of two upgraded Cygnus pressurized vehicles – provisionally dubbed as Exploration Augmentation Modules (EAM). They would be attached to a multi-port docking module very similar in concept and design to the docking Nodes already flying in orbit as integral components of the ISS.

A Cygnus cargo spacecraft named the SS Rick Husband is being prepared inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center for upcoming Orbital ATK CRS-6/OA-6 mission to deliver hardware and supplies to the International Space Station. The Cygnus is scheduled to lift off atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on March 22, 2016. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com — A Cygnus cargo spacecraft named the SS Rick Husband is being prepared inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for upcoming Orbital ATK CRS-6/OA-6 mission to deliver hardware and supplies to the International Space Station. The Cygnus launched atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on March 22, 2016. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com

The lunar Cygnus vehicles would be upgraded from the enhanced cargo ships currently being manufactured and launched to the ISS.

“There are additional capabilities that we can put into the Cygnus module. We can make them longer and bigger so they can carry more logistics and carry more science,” DeMauro elaborated.

A variety of supplementary subsystems would also need to be enhanced.

“We looked at what systems we would need to modify to make it a long term habitation module. Since we would not be docked to the ISS, we would need our own Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) out at lunar orbit to support the crew.”

“The service module would also need to be improved due to the high radiation environment and the longer time.”

“We also need to look at the thermal protection subsystem, radiation protection subsystem and power subsystems to support the vehicle for many years as opposed to the short time spent at the ISS. More power is also needed to support more science. We also need a propulsion system to get to the Moon and maintain the vehicle.”

“All that work is getting looked at now – to determine what we need to modify and upgrade and how we would do all that work,” DaMauro told me.

The habitat components would be launched to the Moon on a commercial launch vehicle.

High on the list of candidate launchers would be the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket which recently already successfully delivered two Cygnus cargo ships to the ISS in Dec. 2015 and March 2016.

Other potential boosters include the ULA Delta IV and even ESA’s Ariane V as a way to potentially include international participation.

Inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a Cygnus cargo spacecraft is being prepared for the upcoming Orbital ATK Commercial Resupply Services-6 mission to deliver hardware and supplies to the International Space Station. The Cygnus was named SS Rick Husband in honor of the commander of the STS-107 mission. On that flight, the crew of the space shuttle Columbia was lost during re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003. The Cygnus is scheduled to lift off atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on March 22. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com — Inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a Cygnus cargo spacecraft is being prepared for the upcoming Orbital ATK Commercial Resupply Services-6 mission to deliver hardware and supplies to the International Space Station. The Cygnus was named SS Rick Husband in honor of the commander of the STS-107 mission. On that flight, the crew of the space shuttle Columbia was lost during re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003. The Cygnus launched atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on March 22. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com

The habitat components could be manufactured and launched about three years after getting a ‘Go Ahead’ contract from NASA.

Orbital ATK already has an established production line flowing to manufacture a steady stream of Cygnus cargo freighters to fulfill their NASA commercial resupply contract with NASA for the ISS – accumulating know how and cost reduction efficiencies.

“Since many aspects of operations in deep space are as yet untested, confidence must be developed through repeated flights to, and relatively long-duration missions in, cislunar space,” says Culbertson.

“Orbital ATK continues to operate our Cygnus cargo logistics vehicle as a flagship product, so we are ready to quickly and affordably implement an initial Cygnus-derived habitat in cislunar space within three years of a go-ahead.”

Over time, the outpost could be expanded with additional habitat and research modules delivered by Orion/SLS, commercial or international rockets. Perhaps even Bigelow expandable commercial modules could be added later.

Cygnus is suitable for wide ranging science experiments and gear. It could also launch cubesats – like the current Cygnus berthed at the ISS is equipped with a cubesat deployer.

Potential lunar landers developed by international partners could dock at the cislunar habitats open docking ports in between surface science forays.

“We are doing science now on Cygnus and we would expect to carry along science experiments on the new Cygnus vehicle. The vehicle is very attractive to science experiments,” DeMauro explained.

“There really is no limit to what the outpost could become.”

“What we put out is very exciting,” DeMauro noted.

“As a company we are looking forward to working in this arena. Our suggested plans are in line with where NASA wants to go. And we think we are the right company to play a big part in that!”

By incorporating commercial companies and leveraging the considerable technology development lessons learned from Cygnus, NASA should realize significant cost savings in implementing its human exploration strategy. Although Orbital ATK is not divulging a cost estimate for the lunar habitat at this time, the cost savings from a commercial partner should be considerable. And the 3 year time frame to launch is very attractive.

Orion is designed to send astronauts deeper into space than ever before, including missions to the Moon, asteroids and the Red Planet. Cygnus derived modules and/or other augmenting hardware components will be required to carry out any round trip human missions to the Martian surface.

NASA is now building the next Orion capsule at the Kennedy Space Center. It will launch unpiloted atop the first SLS rocket in late 2018 on the EM-1 mission.

Lockheed Martin engineers and technicians prepare the Orion pressure vessel for a series of tests inside the proof pressure cell in the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett — Lockheed Martin engineers and technicians prepare the Orion pressure vessel for a series of tests inside the proof pressure cell in the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and Planetary science and human spaceflight news.

Ken Kremer

Orion crew module pressure vessel for NASA’s Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) is unveiled for the first time on Feb. 3, 2016 after arrival at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. It is secured for processing in a test stand called the birdcage in the high bay inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout (O&C) Building at KSC. Launch to the Moon is slated in 2018 atop the SLS rocket. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com

May 7, 2016 by Jason Major

Enceladus’ Jets Selectively Power-Up Farther From Saturn

Icy water vapor geysers erupting from fissures on Enceladus. Credit: NASA/JPL

A crowning achievement of the Cassini mission to Saturn is the discovery of water vapor jets spraying out from Enceladus‘ southern pole. First witnessed by the spacecraft in 2005, these icy geysers propelled the little 515-kilometer-wide moon into the scientific spotlight and literally rewrote the mission’s objectives. After 22 flybys of Enceladus during its nearly twelve years in orbit around Saturn, Cassini has gathered enough data to determine that there is a global subsurface ocean of salty liquid water beneath Enceladus’ frozen crust—an ocean that gets sprayed into space from long “tiger stripe” fissures running across the moon’s southern pole. Now, new research has shown that at least some of the vapor jets get a boost in activity when Enceladus is farther from Saturn.

The gravitational pull of Saturn changes the amount of particles spraying from Enceladus at different points in its orbit. When it's farther from Saturn (left) the plume contains more icy particles and thus appears brighter. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Cornell/SSI. — The gravitational pull of Saturn changes the amount of particles spraying from Enceladus at different points in its orbit. When it’s farther from Saturn (left) the plume contains more icy particles and thus appears brighter. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Cornell/SSI.

By measuring the changes in brightness of a distant background star as Enceladus’ plumes passed in front of it in March 2016, Cassini observed a significant increase in the amount of icy particles being ejected by one particular jet source.

"Baghdad Sulcus," one of Enceladus' plume sources, imaged by Cassini during a close pass in Nov. 2011. (NASA/JPL/SSI) — *“Baghdad Sulcus,” one of Enceladus’ plume sources, imaged by Cassini during a close pass in Nov. 2011. (NASA/JPL/SSI)*

Named “Baghdad 1,” the jet went from contributing 2% of the total vapor content of the entire plume area to 8% when Enceladus was at the farthest point in its slightly-eccentric orbit around Saturn. This small yet significant discovery indicates that, although Enceladus’ plumes are reacting to morphological changes to the moon’s crust due to tidal flexing, it’s select small-scale jets that are exhibiting the most variation in output (rather than a simple, general increase in outgassing across the full plumes.)

“How do the tiger stripe fissures respond to the push and pull of tidal forces as Enceladus goes around its orbit to explain this difference? We now have new clues!” said Candice Hansen, senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute and lead planner of the study. “It may be that the individual jet sources along the tiger stripes have a particular shape or width that responds most strongly to the tidal forcing each orbit to boost more ice grains at this orbital longitude.”

The confirmation that Enceladus shows an increase in overall plume output at farther points from Saturn was first made in 2013.

Whether this new finding means that the internal structure of the fissures is different than what scientists have suspected or some other process is at work either within Enceladus or in its orbit around Saturn still remains to be determined.

“Since we can only see what’s going on above the surface, at the end of the day, it’s up to the modelers to take this data and figure out what’s going on underground,” said Hansen.

Sources: Planetary Science Institute and NASA/JPL

Enceladus' water ice plumes were first observed by Cassini in 2005. (NASA/JPL/SSI) — *Enceladus’ now-famous water ice plumes were first observed by Cassini in 2005. (NASA/JPL/SSI)*

April 14, 2016February 23, 2017 by Fraser Cain

Are there Storms on the Moon?

Here on Earth, we’re always concerned with the weather.

“OK Google, am I going to need an umbrella tomorrow?”

[Google] No, rain is not expected tomorrow in Curtney. The forecast is 20 degrees and partly cloudy.

Uh, it’s pronounced “Courtenay”.

Fine, what if I lived on the Moon? OK Google, am I going to need an umbrella tomorrow on the Moon?

[Google] …

Let’s take Google’s silence for uncertainty.

The names of geological features on the Moon sure evoke mental images of weather. There’s the Ocean of Storms, also known as Oceanus Procellarum, or the Ocean of Clouds – aka Mare Nubium. In fact, most of the regions of the Moon are named after oceans. That’s got to count for something, right?

Many of the features on the moon are named as oceans. Credit: NASA — Many of the features of the moon were thought to be oceans. Credit: NASA

They got these names because the early astronomers thought they were seeing actual oceans on the Moon. They imagined vast seas, where heroic 6-legged creepy bug people plied the icy waves seeking fame, fortune and lunar plunder. I don’t know, like gold cheese or something. Seriously, they were making a lot of this stuff up until telescopes were invented.

But when the NASA astronauts finally set foot on the Moon, they knew they wouldn’t need to pack their snorkeling gear because there weren’t any oceans on the Moon, or really any atmosphere. The Moon is almost as dead and lifeless as space itself.

The storms we see battering the astronauts on every Mars science fiction story just can’t happen on the Moon because there’s no air there.

There’s an ongoing lethal radiation solar wind blowing from the Sun and deep space, but nothing that you’d be able to windsurf too.

So why isn’t there an atmosphere on the Moon? It all comes down to gravity. The Moon has about 1% of the mass of the Earth, which means that it doesn’t have enough gravity to hold onto any gas atmosphere. Anything that it did have would have been blown away by the solar wind billions of years ago.

We did a whole episode on what it would take to terraform the Moon, and it turns out you’d need to constantly replenish the atmosphere.

In fact, this is one of the reasons why the Martian atmosphere is so thin. It was probably thicker in the past, but the solar winds stripped off all the lighter atmosphere long ago. Now it’s just 1% the thickness of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Now, I’ve said that the Moon has almost no atmosphere. But almost no means partly yes. There is in fact an incredibly thin atmosphere surrounding the Moon which measures about a hundred trillionth the thickness of the Earth’s atmosphere.

There are a few sources of this atmosphere. First there’s volcanic outgassing that comes from the Moon. this contributes a little helium and radon. Then there’s the constant micrometeorite bombardment that kicks up pulverized lunar regolith.

Lunar sunrise sketches drawn by Commander E. A. Cernan during the Apollo 17 mission. Credit: NASA

But perhaps the strangest atmospheric feature is a storm that does rage across the surface of the Moon right at the terminator, the exact line between the Moon’s day side and its night side. It turns out the day side of the Moon is positively charged, and the night side is negatively charged.

As the terminator moves, the polarity of the dust flips and it drives it sideways. In fact, the astronauts who walked on the Moon actually reported seeing this. They saw bands or twilight rays in the sky around lunar sunrise/sunset.

Without a thick atmosphere, the surface of the Moon just doesn’t have any appreciable weather and definitely doesn’t have storms like we have on Earth. Mark Watney will need some other reason than weather to be stuck behind on the Moon.

April 11, 2016February 23, 2017 by Fraser Cain

When Will Earth Lock to the Moon?

We always see the same side of the Moon. It’s always up there, staring down at us with its terrifying visage. Or maybe it’s a creepy rabbit? Anyway, it’s always showing us the same face, and never any other part.

This is because the Moon is tidally locked to the Earth; the same fate that affects every single large moon orbiting a planet. The Moon is locked to the Earth, the Jovian moons are locked to Jupiter, Titan is locked to Saturn, etc.

As the Moon orbits the Earth, it slowly rotates to keep the same hemisphere facing us. Its day is as long as its year. And standing on the surface of the Moon, you’d see the Earth in roughly the same spot in the sky. Forever and ever.

Forever and ever and ever... unless we finally manage to destroy the Moon. Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University — Because of tidal locking, you’d see Earth in roughly the same spot from the Moon forever. For-eh-ver. For-EH-VER. Credit: NASA / Goddard / Arizona State University

We see this all across the Solar System.

But there’s one place where this tidal locking goes to the next level: the dwarf planet Pluto and its large moon Charon are tidally locked to each other. In other words, the same hemisphere of Pluto always faces Charon and vice versa.

It take Pluto about 6 and a half days for the Sun to return to the same point in the sky, which is the same time it takes Charon to complete an orbit, which is the same time it takes the Sun to pass through the sky on Charon.

Since Pluto eventually locked to its moon, can the same thing happen here on Earth. Will we eventually lock with the Moon?

Before we answer this question, let’s explain what’s going on here. Although the Earth and the Moon are spheres, they actually have a little variation. The gravity pulling on each world creates love handle tidal bulges on each world.

And these bulges act like a brake, slowing down the rotation of the world. Because the Earth has 81 times the mass of the Moon, it was the dominant force in this interaction.

In the early Solar System, both the Earth and the Moon rotated independently. But the Earth’s gravity grabbed onto those love handles and slowed down the rotation of the Moon. To compensate for the loss of momentum in the system, the Moon drifted away from the Earth to its current position, about 370,000 kilometers away.

But Moon has the same impact on the Earth. The same tidal forces that cause the tides on Earth are slowing down the Earth’s rotation bit by bit. And the Moon is continuing to drift away a few centimeters a year to compensate.

It’s hard to estimate exactly when, but over the course of tens of billions of years, the Earth will become locked to the Moon, just like Pluto and Charon.

Pluto and Charon are tidally locked to each other. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI — Pluto and Charon are tidally locked to each other. Credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI

Of course, this will be long after the Sun has died as a red giant. And there’s no way to know what kind of mayhem that’ll cause to the Earth-Moon system. Other planets in the Solar System may shift around, and maybe even eject the Earth into space, taking the Moon with it.

What about the Sun? Is it possible for the Earth to eventually lock gravitationally to the Sun?

Astronomers have found extrasolar planets orbiting other stars which are tidally locked. But they’re extremely close, well within the orbit of Mercury.

Here in our Solar System, we’re just too far away from the Sun for the Earth to lock to it. The gravitational influence of the other planets like Venus, Mars and Jupiter perturb our orbit and keep us from ever locking. Without any other planets in the Solar System, though, and with a Sun that would last forever, it would be an inevitability.

It is theoretically possible that the Earth will tidally lock to the Moon in about 50 billion years or so. Assuming the Earth and Moon weren’t consumed during the Sun’s red giant phase. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

April 8, 2016February 9, 2021 by Fraser Cain

Weekly Space Hangout – Apr. 8, 2016: Space News Roundup

Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain)

Guests:

Kimberly Cartier (@AstroKimCartier )
Morgan Rehnberg (MorganRehnberg.com / @MorganRehnberg )
Dave Dickinson (www.astroguyz.com / @astroguyz)

Their stories this week:

Blue Origin, take three! (And a SpaceX launch today)

Japanese X-ray satellite

NASA Announces new planet hunting instrument

Weekend Occultations

US Navy Resumes Celestial Navigation Training

What Hit Jupiter?

We’ve had an abundance of news stories for the past few months, and not enough time to get to them all. So we’ve started a new system. Instead of adding all of the stories to the spreadsheet each week, we are now using a tool called Trello to submit and vote on stories we would like to see covered each week, and then Fraser will be selecting the stories from there. Here is the link to the Trello WSH page (http://bit.ly/WSHVote), which you can see without logging in. If you’d like to vote, just create a login and help us decide what to cover!

We record the Weekly Space Hangout every Friday at 12:00 pm Pacific / 3:00 pm Eastern. You can watch us live on Google+, Universe Today, or the Universe Today YouTube page.

You can also join in the discussion between episodes over at our Weekly Space Hangout Crew group in G+!

March 31, 2016December 5, 2021 by Matt Williams

How Do We Terraform The Moon?

Artist's concept of a terraformed moon. According to a new study, the Moon may have had periods of habitability in its past where it had an atmosphere and liquid water on its surface. Credit: Ittiz

Welcome back to our ongoing series, “The Definitive Guide To Terraforming”! We continue with a look at the Moon, discussing how it could one day be made suitable for human habitation.

Ever since the beginning of the Space Age, scientists and futurists have explored the idea of transforming other worlds to meet human needs. Known as terraforming, this process calls for the use of environmental engineering techniques to alter a planet or moon’s temperature, atmosphere, topography or ecology (or all of the above) in order to make it more “Earth-like”. As Earth’s closest celestial body, the Moon has long been considered a potential site.

All told, colonizing and/or terraforming the Moon would be comparatively easy compared to other bodies. Due to its proximity, the time it would take to transport people and equipment to and from the surface would be significantly reduced, as would the costs of doing so. In addition, it’s proximity means that extracted resources and products manufactured on the Moon could be shuttled to Earth in much less time, and a tourist industry would also be feasible.

March 24, 2016April 12, 2016 by Evan Gough

The Moon’s Other Axis

A six degree True Polar Wander occurred on the Moon due to ancient volcanic activity. Image: University of Arizona/James Tuttle Keane

It’s tempting to think that the Moon never changes. You can spend your whole life looking at it, and see no evidence of change whatsoever. In fact, the ancients thought the whole Universe was unchanging.

You may have heard of a man named Aristotle. He thought the Universe was eternal and unchanging. Obviously, with our knowledge of the Big Bang, stellar evolution, and planetary formation, we know better. Still, the placid and unchanging face of the Moon can tempt us into thinking astronomers are making up all this evolving universe stuff.

But now, according to a new paper in Nature, the Moon’s axis of rotation is different now than it was billions of years ago. Not only that, but volcanoes may been responsible for it. Volcanoes! On our placid little Moon.

The clue to this lunar True Polar Wander (TPW) is in the water ice locked in the shadows of craters on the Moon. When hydrogen was discovered on the surface of the Moon in the 1990s by the Lunar Prospector probe, scientists suspected that they would eventually find water ice. Subsequent missions proved the presence of water ice, especially in craters near the polar regions. But the distribution of that water-ice wasn’t uniform.

You would expect to see ice uniformly distributed in the shadows of craters in the polar regions, but that’s not what scientists have found. Instead, some craters had no evidence of ice at all, which led the team behind this paper to conclude that these ice-free craters must have been exposed to the Sun at some point. What else would explain it?

The way that the ice in these craters is distributed forms two trails that lead away from each pole. They’re mirror images of each other, but they don’t conform with the Moon’s current axis of rotation, which is what led the team to conclude that the Moon underwent a 6 degree TPW billions of years ago.

The paper also highlights the age of the water on the Moon. Since the TPW, and the melting of some of the ice as a result of it, occurred some billions of years ago, then the water ice that is still frozen in the shadows of some of the Moon’s craters must be ancient. According to the paper, its existence records the “early delivery of water to the inner Solar System.” Hopefully, a future mission will return a sample of this ancient water for detailed study.

But even more interesting than the age of the ice in the craters and the TPW, to me anyways, is what is purported to have caused it. The team behind the paper reports that volcanic activity on the Moon in the Procellarum region, which was most active in the early history of the Moon, moved a substantial amount of material and “altered the density structure of the Moon.” This alteration would have changed the moments of inertia on the Moon, resulting in a TPW.

It’s strange to think of the Moon with volcanic activity viewable from Earth. I wonder what effect visible lunar volcanoes would have had on thinkers like Aristotle, if lunar volcanic activity had occurred during recorded history, rather than ending one billion years ago or so.

We know that events like eclipses and comets caused great confusion and sometimes upheaval in ancient civilizations. Would lunar volcanoes have had the same effect?

March 24, 2016March 24, 2016 by Mark Mortimer

Book Review: The Chang’E-1 Topographic Atlas of the Moon

I like hiking. Particularly, I like wandering in places I’ve never been before. Sometimes only a map, a compass and a good sense of direction gets me returning to where I began.

Many people on Earth enjoy this simple pleasure. But what to do if you’re on the Moon?

Well, assuming you’ve got the right equipment, like a spacesuit, then all you’d need is a good map because, of course, compasses aren’t of much use. So which map do you use? Well, take a look at “The Chang’E-1 Topographic Atlas of the Moon” by Chunlai Li, Jianjun Liu, Lingli Mu, Xin Ren and Wei Zuo. This lovely, featured book will have you easily finding your way about the lunar surface.

“An atlas?” I hear you asking. “Who’s going to sit down and read an atlas?” Good question, as I didn’t think I would either, but I definitely will use this book.

For me, a good atlas allows me to understand the shape of the land; almost to feel the topology without actually being there. When I hike, I use maps to find interesting outlooks, amazing drop-offs or dry land between swamps. On the Moon we certainly don’t have to worry about water features. But there are many other features that are at least interesting enough to warrant a particular nomenclature according to the International Astronomical Union. This book includes eleven of such nomenclatures.

For instance, there are the very dry Oceani, the Maria that hint at water courses, circular craters with astoundingly sharp edges and the knife edge rimae that slice along. How do I know of these descriptions? Simple. I look at the maps in the book. There are 188 maps each on their own page; all of them presenting an equal and fine finishing. And they include the complete Moon surface, with a space resolution of 500m, a horizontal accuracy of 192m and vertical of 120m. Actually, that’s most of the book. There’s an appendix. It includes a list of 3,698 features placed on the maps with each feature having; its name, its latitude, its longitude, its size in kilometres and its page. With this appendix, one can quickly and easily find the common lunar geographic features. There are a few pages of introduction. And that’s all. It’s just like an atlas should be; straightforward, simple and to the point.

I bet you’re wondering about where the data came from? The title says it all. It’s from China’s Chang’E-1 probe. This book is a re-issue in English of their initial production of 2012. Nicely located in the preamble is a description of the data processing. This includes specifications of the CCD camera, the characteristics of the probe’s orbit and the actual data processing. It’s apparently no mean feat, as the data came from a three-line array CCD stereo imager and resulted in the Mercator or Azimuthal projections. Some additional information is at this link (in English).

However, what’s most impressive for me is that this book shows that China is actively and capably adding to the scientific knowledge of space. Yet, in acknowledgement to lunar mapping already done, the authors included a very informative history of lunar mapping in the book’s preface. So you get to know both where this mapping data came from and where other data may be found.

In any case I suspect that you nor I will be going hiking on the Moon anytime soon. But perhaps you want to study lunar topography, lunar morphology or lunar geologic structures? Maybe you want to know where is the water that’s hiding on the Moon. I recommend “The Chang’E-1 Topographic Atlas of the Moon” by Chunlai Li, Jianjun Liu, Lingli Mu, Xin Ren and Wei Zuo. It may guide you to all sorts of interesting features and finds.

The book is available through Springer.

March 9, 2016March 18, 2016 by Evan Gough

First Tomatoes, Peas Harvested From Simulated Martian Soil

Researchers at Wageningen University in the Netherlands have harvested tomatoes and other vegetables grown in simulated Martian soil. Image: regan76 CC BY 2.0 — Researchers at Wageningen University in the Netherlands have harvested tomatoes and other vegetables grown in simulated Martian soil. Credit: regan76 CC BY 2.0

We’re a long ways away from colonizing another planet—depending on who you talk to—but it’s not too soon to start understanding how we might do it when the time comes. Growing enough food will be one of the primary concerns for any future settlers of Mars. With that in mind, researchers at the Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands have created simulated Martian soil and used it to grow food crops.

This is actually the second experiment the team has performed with simulated soil, and the results were promising. The team harvested not only tomatoes and peas, but also rye, garden rocket, radish, and watercress. But it’s not just the edibles that were promising, it was the overall ability of the simulated soil to produce biomass in general. According to the researchers, the soil produced biomass equal to that produced by Earth soil, which was used as a control.

The team also grew crops in simulated Moon soil, to understand how that soil performed, but it produced much less biomass, and only the humble spinach was able to grow in it. The simulated Martian and Lunar soils were provided by NASA. The Martian soil came from a Hawaiian volcano, and the Lunar soil came from a desert in Arizona.

The soil used was not exactly the same as the soil you would scoop up if you were on the Moon or Mars. It was amended with organic matter in the form of manure and fresh cut grass. While this may sound like a ‘cheat’, it’s no different than how gardens are grown on Earth, with gardeners using manure, compost, grass clippings, leaves, and even seaweed to provide organic matter.

Of course, none of these soil amendments will be available on the Moon or Mars, and we won’t be sending a supply ship full of manure. Colonists will have to make use of all of the inedible parts of their crops—and human feces—to provide the organic material necessary for plant growth. It’ll be a closed system, after all.

The crops were grown in a controlled environment, where temperature, humidity, and other factors were kept within Earthly parameters. Any crops grown on Mars will be grown in the same controlled environments, at least until genetic modification can create plants able to withstand the increased radiation and other factors.

A problem facing colonists trying to grow food on Mars is the heavy metal content of the soil. Mars soil contains mercury, lead, cadmium, and arsenic, which are all toxic to humans. The presence of these elements doesn’t bother the plants; they just keep growing. But any crops grown in this soil will have to be tested for toxicity before they can be consumed. This is the next experiment that the team has planned.

Researchers at the Wageningen University are currently crowdfunding for this next experiment. If you’d like to contribute, check out their page here.

March 4, 2016March 18, 2016 by Evan Gough

J.J. Abrams Heading To The Moon With Google Lunar X-Prize

As the director of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” and “Star Trek Into Darkness”, J.J. Abrams is no stranger to space narratives. But now he’s leaving behind light saber battles and warp drive chase sequences to tackle something a little more realistic.

Abrams’ newest project is a 9 part documentary series, called “Moon Shot,” that showcases 16 different teams of people competing for Google’s Lunar X-Prize. The teams of entrepreneurs, scientists, and inventors will have to engineer a spacecraft, have it land a rover on the Moon, travel 500 meters, and then transmit HD video and images back to Earth. And they have to have their launch contract verified by the end of 2017. This is a daunting task.

Though the Moon might appear rather placid, and even safe compared to some of the hostile environments Earthlings and their spacecraft have ventured to, it’s not an easy place to do business in. We’re getting used to seeing rovers and landers and orbiters visit the Moon in what seems like a work-a-day process. But the Moon is still a hostile place.

The temperature on the Moon fluctuates wildly. At its coldest, the temperature drops to a frigid -246 C (-412 F.) At its hottest, the temperature jumps to a scorching 100 C (212F.) A 350 C swing in temperatures is hard on equipment and requires robust designing and engineering.

Temperature fluctuation aside, there is also the increased radiation to contend with. The Moon lacks the magnetosphere and atmosphere that protects Earth from the full onslaught of the Sun, so sensitive electronics have to contend with that. And then there’s the dust, which can also be hard on equipment. Remember, the Google Lunar X-Prize is a competition to land a privately-funded robot on the Moon. Dealing with these formidable challenges as a small team is much harder, considering that the teams don’t have the resources that NASA and other groups have. But with $30 million in prize money at stake, we can expect to see some highly-motivated people competing.

Competitors include a German team backed by Audi (teams have to prove that they are 90% funded by private money,) a father and son working from a bedroom in Vancouver, a team of IT specialists from India, and a Japanese team from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Tohoku University.

Though the science aspect of the series will no doubt be fascinating—the Japanese team has revealed that they will use VR to control their innovative camera system—it’s the stories of the people trying to win the prize that should be even more gripping. Who are these people? What drives these people to do such a thing?

The series will be available for viewing on YouTube on March 17, 2016, and on Google Play on March 15, 2016. Can’t wait to check it out.