Grand plans

Grand plans

More than a third of a century has passed since the Apollo Program carried Americans to the moon between 1969 and 1972. While those flights and subsequent unmanned probes have brought back scientific data, they have not come close to answering questions about earth's natural satellite.

But the new discoveries have sparked off a moon rush. In 2004, us president George W Bush unveiled a 40-year programme for exploring outer space in which the lunar fantasy was predominant. Called the Earth-Moon-Mars-and-Beyond (emmb) Vision, this ambitious programme looks at the possibility of using the moon as a platform for exploring other planets in the solar system, apart from creating the first human habitat outside the earth. After the break-up of the ussr, Russia has refrained from reaching out for the moon because they don't have money. But China, Japan and India, as we have seen, are actively pursuing moon missions, while the eu, the us's biggest space rival, is debating a human space flight programme. But the eu programme is still to get off the blocks.

Chinese revolution

China made public its plans to explore the moon in November 2000. The plan said the first phase of the programme, consisting primarily of launching orbiters, would be over by 2010. The first of the lot, named Chang'e-1, weighing about 2.6 tonnes, will orbit the moon for at least a year. It will record three-dimensional images of the surface, measure the content and density of the moon's soil, and explore its environment, according to the China National Space Administration. The satellite, which will cost nearly us $170 million, will also probe the space environment between the moon and the earth and measure the solar radiation that incessantly hits the lunar surface.

The second phase of the Chinese lunar exploration programme, which should commence by 2010-2012, will be landing missions. According to the official Chinese news agency, Xinhua, researchers in China are currently working on a series of robot probes, which will land and explore the lunar surface. The rovers will have a camera, a telescope and seismological equipment to register quake activity on the moon. The rovers' main purpose will be to help locate a base on the moon. This will be followed by manned flights, exploring the possibility of exploiting precious resources on the lunar surface and possible colonisation.

China hopes to become the second nation in the world to put a man on the moon -- by 2018 or 2020.

Japanese ambitions
Japan became the third nation after the us and the Soviet Union to explore the moon. In 1990, an earth-orbiting satellite called Hiten carried a small satellite named Hagoromo which was released in the vicinity of the moon. Hiten itself was put into a highly elliptical earth orbit which passed by the moon 10 times during the mission, which ended in April 1993. The Hiten mission was more of a technology demonstration mission for future lunar probes.

In recent years, Japan has developed a heavy-lifting rocket that will enable it to conduct its own explorations of the moon, planets and sun. Japan has sent out a spacecraft that passed Mars and another that is on its way to an asteroid. Next, Japan will send two robot-manned missions to the moon -- lunar-a and selene. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is reportedly preparing a long-term space plan that will include constructing a research base on the moon around 2025.

lunar-a's launch has been rescheduled more than once due to technical and financial reasons. It is now slated to take off later this year. The 540-kg craft will use seismometers and heat-flow probes installed in ground penetrators to study the lunar interior. Two penetrators will be deployed on the lunar surface -- one on the nearside of the moon and one on the farside. The nearside penetrator will be located near the old Apollo 12 site or Apollo 14 site, allowing comparisons between lunar-a data and Apollo data. The farside penetrator will be positioned opposite that site on the back of the moon.

Each penetrator is expected to penetrate to a depth of one metre to two metres, depending on the hardness of the surface they strike. From that depth in the lunar soil, the penetrators will transmit data on the strength and travel times of deep moonquakes reverberating from the nearside to the farside. That should reveal the size of the moon's core, if it has one. Understanding the properties of the core is necessary to understanding the moon's origins. Data will be stored in a recorder in the penetrator to be transmitted up to the orbiter when it flies over every 15 days. The orbiter then will forward the data to earth. After releasing the penetrators, the orbiter will manoeuvre into a low circular path 200 km above the lunar surface. From there, it will use its 30-m resolution, monochromatic camera to snap shots of the topography on the lunar surface near the terminator.

Ambitious space programmes are being rolled out by a handful of countries. But many experts advise caution. There is, especially, a great deal of scepticism about sending human beings into outer space

selene, scheduled for launch in 2008, is larger and more complex than lunar-a. It will explore the origin and evolution of the moon, obtain data across the entire lunar surface to find ways of utilising the moon's resources, and develop lunar orbital systems to prepare for the continuous exploration of the moon. selene will consist of three separate satellites -- the main orbiter, a small relay satellite, and a small interferometry astronomy satellite called vrad. The orbiter is a rectangular box of scientific instruments. It is about 7 feet by 14 ft (2.14 m by 4.26 m) and weighs about 3,500 lbs (1,587 kg). This main orbiter will travel around the moon carrying out observations of the surface. The relay satellite is shaped as a small octagonal prism and used to relay communications from the orbiter to earth when the orbiter is out of sight on the far side of the moon. vrad is shaped like the relay satellite and will be used to measure precisely the position, precession and shape of the moon.

US vision
In January 2004, Bush told nasa to reorganise space exploration according to the emmb vision. The ambitious programme calls for an extension of human presence in the solar system beyond the low earth orbit. As it is planned, it aims to return humans to the moon by 2020 and set foot on a neighbouring planet by the middle of this century.

To this, nasa responded with a new model for returning to the moon. Over the next 15 years, it plans to spend us $104 billion for doing this. It plans to make the International Space Station the base to launch 13 passenger and nine cargo missions. According to Hermann Koelle of the Technical University, Berlin, however, the us's programme for permanent (or longer) human presence on the moon will not be sustainable in the present format. It is estimated that a single four-member lunar mission will cost $2.4 billion for a round trip and delivering a 20-tonne cargo will cost us $1.34 billion.

Several space scientists in the us have also criticised the programme. Prominent among them is James Van Allen, a space science pioneer. He created ripples when he raised the question about whether human space flight had become an outdated idea in the wake of the Columbia tragedy. He also raised doubts about Bush's grandiose plans for outer space. The risk is high, the cost enormous and the science insignificant, he said. "Does anyone have a good rationale for sending humans into space?" he asked.

The debate that followed showed that very little planning has gone into the conceptualisation of the programme. This made Roger Launius, a space historian with Smithsonian Institution, say: "At a fundamental level, I believe this is Apollo ii: The Sequel. Unfortunately, like many sequels in Hollywood it is something of a pale comparison to the original."

All these programmes are ambitious, as also the esa's plans, which are still on the drawing board. But the concerns about them are as massive as the ambitions. Perhaps the best way forward is even greater collaboration between nations, even if that does not lead to an international robotic lunar village as the Europeans have proposed. 12jav.net12jav.net