The moon has lured those who have gazed upon our cosmic neighbour in wonder for centuries, and remains the only other cosmic body which has to date seen manned missions land on its surface. After the first landing on the lunar surface in 1969, and subsequent missions up till 1972, NASA aims to go back to the moon by 2024. This time, the Artemis missions aim to send the first woman and the next man to the lunar surface, in a bid to start a new era in space exploration.
Going back to the moon will only be the first objective of the Artemis missions. The next step will be the setting up of a lunar base, which will serve as the first manned outpost in our solar system. The lessons learnt from landing on the lunar surface and setting up a base will be taken forth in the future, when manned missions to other planets will transpire.
In anticipation of manned lunar missions, several required supplies will be sent to the moon, with Artemis III being the anticipated manned landing in 2024, following the Artemis I and Artemis II test missions. After sending the first group of astronauts to the moon, NASA aims to continue manned landings annually.
Main objectives for the Artemis missions include an investigation of the lunar surface itself, thus learning more about our cosmic neighbour and its formation, and, by extension, about the Earth itself.
The lunar base will serve as a test bed for humans living on the surface of another body for the first time in human history. This will allow testing of the required technologies to send humans to Mars, and eventually, beyond.
In addition, the possibility of launching future missions from the surface of the moon can offer a significant advantage in terms of resource cost. Launching missions from the moon would result in significantly reduced launch costs, since the lunar gravity is only a fraction of the gravity of the Earth. Thus, the cost of launches to other planets and moons in our solar systems can be significantly reduced if such a launch system and vehicles can be assembled on the moon itself for future missions.
Artemis can very well be the start of a new future for humankind – a future of exploration on a scale never witnessed before.
The project will require cooperation between different space agencies and partnerships between scientists on a global scale – a true global effort for our first true attempt to become a multi-planetary species.
Josef Borg is a PhD student at the Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy at the University of Malta and also the president of the Astronomical Society of Malta.
Did you know?
• Three lunar landing sites have now been imaged with the Lunar Reconnaissance orbiter. Apart from an image of the Apollo 17 landing site, images of the Apollo 14 and Apollo 12 landing sites have also been released. These images are the highest resolution images obtained to date of the landing sites of these three Apollo missions.
• Astronaut Harrison Schmitt is the most recent person, still alive, to have walked on the moon. Schmitt was the second before last person to board the lunar module for Apollo 17, with the late Eugene Cernan being the last person to step on the moon to date.
• The lunar surface may contain significant amounts of Helium-3. This isotope of helium is likely abundant on the lunar surface, since it is not protected by a magnetic field, unlike the Earth. Solar winds have driven this isotope, a possible source of nuclear energy for a fusion reactor, to the moon’s surface, possibly providing a safer energy source.
For more trivia, see: www.um.edu.mt/think
Sound bites
• NASA’s next Mars rover carries tribute to healthcare workers fighting coronavirus: NASA’s next Mars rover will take to the red planet a tribute to brave healthcare workers fighting a pandemic here on Earth. The Mars 2020 rover Perseverance, which is scheduled to launch on July 20, has been outfitted with a small aluminium plate honouring the doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers fighting to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus and treating the people suffering from COVID-19.
https://www.space.com/nasa-mars-rover-perseverance-coronavirus-tribute.html
• SpaceX wants to build offshore spaceport near Texas for Starship Mars rocket: Elon Musk’s space company is hiring “offshore operations engineers” to help develop floating spaceports for Starship, its next-generation transportation system designed to take people to and from the moon, Mars and anywhere on Earth they want to go.
https://www.space.com/spacex-mars-starship-offshore-launch-landing.html