Post by Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe on Feb 8, 2006 12:56:03 GMT -6
Experts poles apart over Moon landing sites
A healthy debate over whether humans should go to the Moon’s well-studied equatorial regions or its more enigmatic but sunny poles is emerging among lunar researchers, as NASA pushes towards a return to the Moon.
Reminiscent of debates seen during the planning stages of the Mars rovers mission, its central question asks whether robotic landers and later human missions should focus on the known equatorial regions or the promising, but still largely unknown, polar regions of the satellite.
Recently, David McKay, chief scientist for astrobiology at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, US, circulated a white paper suggesting at least one landing site should be located on dark volcanic rock deposits – called pyroclastic deposits – mainly found away from the Moon's poles.
The deposits are thought to run deep and contain extremely fine-grained particles likely to be rich in material that could be used for in situ manufacturing. Besides raw materials, McKay says, the overall advantage is that "producing oxygen and hydrogen from lunar pyroclastics may be significantly simpler and cheaper than from any other lunar feedstock." These components could be key for life support and fuel production.
But many researchers argue that the polar regions should be the top priority. A number of current and planned international lunar orbiting missions will help fill the knowledge gaps. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, planned for launch in late 2008, aims to identify resources around the Moon that later missions might investigate.
The lunar research community is truly split over where to send future landers, says Butler Hine, deputy program manager for the Robotic Lunar Exploration Program at Ames Research Center in California, US.
"Half of the science community says the most interesting place to go is the polar regions and half of the community says it's the equatorial regions," he says. "But my prediction is that the first lander will go to the polar regions." he told New Scientist
Full story here: www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8683
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I say we go to the poles. Virgin territory, unknown mysteries and quite a cool place to be.