Washington, DC March 9, 1998 – If water ice exists on the Moon in the quantities that scientists predicted last week, the history of space
exploration since 1972 might well have been different. The U.S. congress,
prodded by a disinterested and apathetic U.S. public then critical of
technology and weary of the so-called “high” cost of space exploration,
terminated the Apollo lunar landing project in December, 1972.
But two
landings were still in the planning stage, and a series of advanced
missions under design in two follow-on programs called Apollo Applications
and Apollo Extension System. The AAP earth orbital segment survived but
only to the extent of a single, prototype space station eventually named
Skylab. The lunar segment of AAP plus the extension project were cancelled.
The high cost of space exploration was a prime reason.
But some NASA officials now openly speculate that had scientists knew then
about the existence of lunar ice, lunar exploration might have continued.
“It (the ice discovery) might have changed the direction of the lunar
program, ” said NASA’s Lew Peach.
Peach, the head of advanced space
programs for the civil space agency, said last week that use of local
resources could drastically reduce the cost of both mounting extended
missions on the moon as well as the logistical nightmare of resupply.
Others echoed the same sentiment. “This is a significant resource that will
enable a modest amount of colonization for centuries,” said Dr. William
Feldman, head of the spectrographic research team for the Lunar Prospector
project last Thursday at Ames Research Center in California. And what does
it mean to living on the moon again, perhaps for extended periods? “What
does it mean – it means we can expand to the moon, ” said Prospector
science chief Dr. Alan Binder.
“We could sustain several thousand people
for several hundred years.” But don’t go asking for a lunar ticket just
yet, though Binder said last week given the right kind of national will a
return to humans on the moon could take under a decade. At present, neither
the U.S. nor Russia has a heavy lift launch vehicle in the Saturn V class
that could lift large payloads to the moon. The Saturn V was abandoned by
the U.S. in favor of the space shuttle 25 years ago.
The Russian Energyia
was also abandoned by the Russian government, although reconstruction of
the Energyia assembly lines might be possible. The booster flew but twice,
however, and failed to insert one payload on its maiden flight. The second
mission carried the Buran shuttle.
No manned spacecraft now exists that can
withstand the radiation from the Van Allen belts, through which a craft
must traverse to make it to the moon. And most importantly the U.S. Clinton
administration and congress as well has shown little interest in manned
flights beyond the space station program.
About all the tremendous Prospector find might trigger is an increase in
robotic missions to the moon, which will have to be inserted into a tight
budget environment that includes deep space exploration to Europa, a
Interometry research mission, a Planet Finder, and of course Mars sample
returns. “Is this the beginning of a Moon Rush?”, asked NSS chief Pat
Dasch.
“We expect possibly yes, but in ways that we might not have
envisioned when the NSS began its ‘Return to the Moon’ campaign five years
ago,” Dasch added. Who will do the rushing, though, remains more a matter
of politics than technology -just as it was in May, 1961, when President
John F Kennedy started the most recent ‘Moon Rush’. Of course, there is
always the commercial space sector.
