The Hindu : National : ‘Renewed interest in moon is to expand knowledge’

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Friday, Sep 28, 2007
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‘Renewed interest in moon is to expand knowledge’

Y. Mallikarjun

HYDERABAD: The renewed interest in exploring the moon from the NASA’s point of view is to further expand physical, knowledge, technological, human and applications frontiers before going to Mars, Edward C. Stone, president, International Academy of Astronautics, told The Hindu here on Wednesday.

Mr. Stone said the current plans for returning to the moon were aimed at having a human presence there for an extended period. That would drive technology and innovation. The gravitational pull was one-sixth G on the moon and there was a need to know what kind of effect a longer stay would have on human beings.

Five frontiers

Mr. Stone listed five frontiers of space — physical (sending robots and eventually people); knowledge (learning about the things there); technology and engineering (inventing technology and engineering systems needed to operate in space - it is the frontier that drives innovation); human (the physiological and psychological effects on human beings) and the applications.

The applications frontier was pioneered by India for improving the quality of life. However, a lot needed to be learnt on all the frontiers. For, “we just started learning …”

Mr. Stone, who was the Chief Scientist of Voyager at the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), asserted: “A time will come when we will have technology [and] a human mission to the Mars will become inevitable. How long that will be I can’t say. It will happen … I can’t tell you when.”

Referring to various exploratory missions to the red planet, he said it was a whole new world to explore. Part of that exploration was being done now by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. (It has a camera called HiRise — High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment). It took high resolution images of the Martian surface to look at the most interesting place to land by rovers that would be launched in the coming years.

Phoenix launch

Right now it was known that above 60 degrees north and south latitude, the top metre probably had half water-ice and half mud. NASA’s Phoenix, which was launched in August, would land on Mars in May next. It would scoop out on Martian soil and try to understand the mineralogy and look for evidence of organic molecules which have carbon-base.

Referring to the importance of finding liquid water on Mars, he said: “water is the key to life.” If liquid water were to be found, one could determine if there was any microbial life.

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