Image (Credit): Mare Tranquillitatis pit crater revealing boulders on an otherwise smooth floor. (NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University)
If you are looking for a comfortable spot on the Moon, you could do much worse than a lunar pit. These pits have shaded portions that maintain a comfortable temperature of about 63 F. That is much better than the surface temperatures of 260 F in the day and minus 280 F at night. Such pits can also be useful to visitors by protecting them cosmic rays, solar radiation, and micrometeorites.
You may ask why we are looking at building space habitats when such locations exist. A good question, but I expect the location, size, and stability of these pits will also be important. Maybe they can at least serve as a safe shelter should the be needed.
More study is necessary, of course, before any big decisions on human settlement can be contemplated.
You can read more about the lunar pits here. You can also check out this video.
Image (Credit): China’s Yutu 2 rover explores the far side of the moon shortly after its Jan. 2, 2019, touchdown. (China National Space Administration)
“As two scholars who study space security and China’s space program, we believe that neither China nor any other nation is likely to take over the Moon in the near future. It is not only illegal, it is also technologically daunting – the costs of such an endeavor would be extremely high, while the potential payoffs would be uncertain.”
-Statement by Svetla Ben-Itzhak, Assistant Professor of Space and International Relations, Air University and R. Lincoln Hines, Assistant Professor, West Space Seminar, Air University in the Astronomy magazine article “Why China is unlikely to claim the Moon anytime soon.” It follows an earlier statement by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who said, “We must be very concerned that China is landing on the Moon and saying: ‘It’s ours now and you stay out.‘”
Image (Credit): Neil Armstrong outside the Eagle lunar module on the surface of the Moon. (NASA)
On this day in 1969, two Apollo 11 crew members – commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin – became the first men to walk on the Moon. The two landed in NASA’s Eagle lunar module in the Sea of Tranquility and remained on the Moon’s surface for about 21 hours and 36 minutes collecting samples, placing scientific equipment, and photographing/filming the terrain. The astronauts also spoke with President Nixon while on the Moon.
You can rewatch the ABC News video feed here showing Neil Armstrong as he steps on the surface of the Moon and famously states, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
You can read more about the Apollo 11 mission here.
On this week’s podcast program Sway, you can re-listen to a September 2020 interview between host Kara Swisher and Elon Musk. This was long before all the Twitter nonsense, when Mr. Musk was still focused on cars and space (mostly). The discussion covers plenty of topics, including the need to settle Mars (Mr. Musk disagress with Jeff Bezos who he said believes a space station will be enough to save humanity from an existential crisis), neural implants, and a return to the Moon.
You can tell the program is dated because Mr. Musk complains that NASA cannot find a way to return to the Moon, whereas today we have the Artemis lunar program that includes SpaceX as one of its contractors. Nonetheless, it is good to hear from the old Musk when he was a little more focused.
Then again, the neural implants still seem odd. Neuralink, a company he co-founded, is focusing on those with disabilities at the moment, but the application is expected to be more widespread:
Neuralink is currently focused on making medical devices. These devices have the potential to help people with a wide range of injuries and neurological disorders, and we hope to develop treatments for many of these conditions in the coming years. We expect that as our devices continue scale, and as we learn to communicate with more areas of the brain, we will discover new, non-medical applications for our [brain-machine interface] BMIs. Neuralink’s long-term vision is to create BCIs that are sufficiently safe and powerful that the general population would want to have them.
Helping paraplegics walk and curing brain disorders are certainly noble goals. And, hey, ordering a pizza just by thinking about it sounds cool. But many experts are concerned that Musk is seriously overhyping what Neuralink’s implants will be able to accomplish.
Elon Musk overhyping an idea? Never!
Check it out. You can download the podcast at the New York Times, the Apple Store, and elsewhere.
Image (Credit): June 28th launch of CAPSTONE aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from the Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 on the Mahia Peninsula of New Zealand. (Rocket Lab)
While we are awaiting the launch of the uncrewed Artemis phase-one rocket later this summer to test the waters for a crewed mission, other related missions are ongoing. NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) was launched earlier in the week from New Zealand and will take about four months before it orbits the Moon for another six months. The miniaturized satellite, or CubeSat, is designed to test the future lunar orbit of Gateway, a lunar space station being planned by NASA and its commercial and international partners to support NASA’s Artemis program, including astronaut missions.
Here are CAPSTONE’s mission objectives:
Verify the characteristics of a cis-lunar near rectilinear halo orbit for future spacecraft;
Demonstrate entering and maintaining this unique orbit that provides a highly-efficient path to the Moon’s surface and back;
Demonstrate spacecraft-to-spacecraft navigation services that allow future spacecraft to determine their location relative to the Moon without relying exclusively on tracking from Earth;
Lay a foundation for commercial support of future lunar operations; and
Gain experience with small dedicated launches of CubeSats beyond low-Earth orbit, to the Moon, and beyond.
In a press release, Elwood Agasid, project manager for CAPSTONE at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, stated:
CAPSTONE is a pathfinder in many ways, and it will demonstrate several technology capabilities during its mission timeframe while navigating a never-before-flown orbit around the Moon…CAPSTONE is laying a foundation for Artemis, Gateway, and commercial support for future lunar operations.
We forget about all of the smaller missions (literally, in this case) that make the full mission possible. CAPSTONE is a key mission to test some ideas and reduce risk for future astronauts.
Image (Credit): Artist’s impression of CAPSTONE in orbit near the Moon. (Illustration by NASA/Daniel Rutter)
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