Lunar Spacecraft
Lunar landers and rovers
You Can’t Always Get What You Want (but if you try some time, you might find … you get what you need)
A plan for a human mission to a near Earth object (NEO; an asteroid), designed by engineers from Georgia Tech and the National Institute for Aerospace (GT/NIA), was recently posted online. Keying in on lowering program total costs, this architecture eliminates the need for a new heavy lift launch ...
March 31, 2011 |
By Paul D. Spudis
The Moon’s Role in Climate Science
A recent article about the role of global magnetic fields in the loss of planetary volatiles caught my attention. The article addresses planetary climate issues as they relate to Earth, Mars and Venus, but what struck me was this statement:
We don't have a direct record of the sun's history, but a...
March 22, 2011 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Volcanic Shields of the Moon
Come home with your shield, or on it – Spartan women to their husbands, marching off to war.From the giant Olympus Mons shield on Mars (600 kilometers across and 27 km high) to the large volcanoes of Venus, shield-building was thought to be a common expression of volcanism on all rocky Solar Syste...
March 19, 2011 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Vision statements for non-Visionaries
A seemingly trivial event has revealed some schadenfreude about NASA, along with a lot of irritation. Apparently (as is their wont) the fertile minds running our national space agency decided that the time has come (once again) for a new and improved vision statement – out with the old and in with...
February 23, 2011 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Journey to the Center of the Moon
A recently published science paper presented results of a re-analysis of seismic (moonquake) data sent to the Earth from a network emplaced by the Apollo astronauts 40 years ago. The scientists processing the old data found that the Moon may have more than a simple core – it may have a layered, pa...
February 04, 2011 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Regolith, The “Other” Lunar Resource
In civil engineering, one of the most important material resources on Earth is “construction aggregate” – the sand, gravel and cement building materials that make up the infrastructure of modern industrial life. Aggregate is easily one of the biggest, most valuable economic resources of all mined ...
January 05, 2011 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Can we afford to return to the Moon?
We are almost at the end of a year that has seen major changes in our space program. We have in hand a report from a “blue ribbon” Presidential committee that concluded that Project Constellation, the architecture NASA had chosen to implement the Vision for Space Exploration, was not affordable at...
December 21, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
New Light on the Lunar Poles
A new image released this week by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera Team shows the lighting conditions of the south pole of the Moon. This new data supports the conclusions of many previous studies that areas exist on the Moon that are illuminated by the sun for more than one-half the lunar ...
December 17, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
A Founding Father of Lunar Science
I learned that a titan of lunar science passed away last month. Dr. Ralph Belknap Baldwin (1912-2010) was a rare specimen – a gentleman scholar, businessman and pioneering student of the Moon. Beyond the impact of his books and papers, he influenced space history in several profound ways.Baldwin,...
December 04, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Chinese Moon
What impresses me most about the new photos of the moon taken by the Chinese Chang’e-2 orbiter is not their beauty (although they are pretty) nor their sharpness (NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter returns higher resolution images). It's the fact that they were unveiled by Premier Wen Jiabao (left...
November 10, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Can NASA Get Its Groove Back?
Remember when space exploration was “groovy” and excitement about seeing humans explore the Solar System within our lifetimes was palpable? What happened to NASA and America’s dream to boldly go? The pathway that assured us that space exploration is cool, amazing and pushes excellence has disap...
November 06, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Permafrost, Snow Cones and Fairy Castles
Although the discovery of ice on the Moon comes from a wide variety of different measurements, they are all “remote sensing.” We have not yet landed near these deposits and examined them up close. Thus, we do not know the physical nature of lunar polar ice. Having spent the last couple of weeks ...
November 06, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Strange Lunar Brew
A year ago, the LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite) mission team announced the detection of water in the impact plume produced after the Centaur separated from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and crashed into the Moon. We now have more detailed information on the water a...
October 22, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
The Authorized Version
NASA’s new authorization bill (S.3729) was passed by Congress before they cleared out of town and will soon be signed by the President, codifying into law the federal government’s formal abandonment of the Vision for Space Exploration. In its place is a mish-mosh of platitudes, entitlement program...
October 07, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
China Returns to the Moon
China's ambitions in space are often exaggerated and held up as a threat to U.S. preeminence in the field, mostly as a scare tactic to shake more money for NASA out of Congress. A lot of the huffing and puffing you can safely ignore. But the Chinese have made solid progress over the last decade in ...
September 30, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Look Ma! No Glasses!
A geologist uses topographic maps to measure slopes, depths, heights and the general shape of landforms. To aid in reconstructing the depositional and erosional history of a chosen landscape, the geologist needs to study the shape of features in the given area in quantitative detail in order to un...
September 29, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Building bridges
The camera aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, currently about to begin its second year of mapping the Moon, continues to reveal new and fascinating details of the geology of the Moon. A recent featured image at the LROC web site shows what appears to be a “natural bridge” on th...
September 11, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
The Incredible Shrinking Moon
Back in the 1970’s Paleolithic age of lunar studies, scientists were busy using images of the Moon in an attempt to understand lunar processes and history. In the rugged ancient cratered uplands of the Moon, they saw something curious. Many small scarps dotted the highlands and were visible in o...
August 19, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Nobody knows ….. how dry I am
The never-ending saga of water on the Moon continues apace. In the latest revelation, it is now claimed that the Moon is indeed “dry” after all and never had much water (this new finding is only in regard to endogenous lunar water contained inside the Moon, not to water that has been or is being ...
August 07, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
A&S Interview: Story Musgrave
The veteran astronaut is the only person to fly on all five space shuttle orbiters.
August 2010 |
By Diane Tedeschi
