NAS suggests scientific context for Moon exploration

The National Academies Press : Repairs to the space shuttle program and the Presidents vision for returning humans to the Moon and onwards to Mars is causing budget cuts to the science program at NASA. One aspect that is not suffering cutbacks are science missions related to the Moon/Mars vision. The National Academies of Science has taken a look at NASA’s lunar precursor and robotic program to help formulate a comprehensive, validated and prioritized set of scientific research objectives for the Moon for the next 15 years. Their interim report, with a full report to follow in 2007, recommends that the primary science goals be related to a history of the Moon and Earth-Moon system; implications for the origin and evolution of the solar system, including the sun; and implications of all these for the origin and evolution of life on Earth and possibly elsewhere in the solar system. Many of the scheduled missions over the next 10 years by the China, US, India, Europe and Russia meet these research objectives. The committee recommends prioritizing research at the South lunar pole-Aitken basin, which is a proposed NASA mission that has yet to receive funding despite being a high priority in the 2003 NRC Decadal survey report. It also recommends creating a science research unit within the human exploration division to help better coordinate research goals with the objectives of returning humans to the Moon. The committee foresees an expansion of ground-based facilities that can receive lunar samples from robotic return sample missions as current facilities are inadequate. Finally the committee recommends that even if humans do return to the Moon, they should have an extensive array of robotic assistants to help with the science part of the mission, a tact acknowledgment that many of the missions related to the groups suggested research priorities are best done by robots. Related Physics Today content Countries Race to Launch Moon Missions February 2005 The Genesis of Earth’s Natural Satellite May 2004 Origin of Terrestrial Planets and the Earth-Moon System April 2004