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Back to the Future: International Lunar Decade Proposed

Mon Jul 19, 4:41 PM ET  Add Science - Space.com to My Yahoo!

By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
SPACE.com

BOULDER, COLORADO -- Worldwide efforts to explore the Moon with robotic probes and then humans is stimulating interest in establishing an International Lunar Decade. Along with the United States now piecing together its back-to-the-Moon agenda, Europe, Japan, India and China are also aggressively working on their lunar research plans.

An International Lunar Decade (ILD) is being viewed as a vehicle to promote multi-nation space cooperation.


The ILD would be modeled on the International Geophysical Year (IGY) -- a comprehensive and coordinated series of global geophysical research tasks that were carried out between July 1957 and December 1958 in order to let researchers pool their talent, work and insights. Initially 46 countries agreed to participate in the IGY, but by the end of the study, 67 countries had become involved. For the IGY, a variety of scientific tools were used, including the introduction of Earth-circling "artificial satellites" lofted by the Soviet Union and United States.


Idea favorably received


The notion of an International Lunar Decade was broached last month at a gathering here of the influential Space Studies Board (SSB), a research arm of the National Academies, advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine. The SSB provides an independent, authoritative forum for information and advice on all aspects of space science and applications.


The idea of an IGY-type activity for the Moon "was very favorably received," said David H. Smith, an SSB Study Director.


While still in the formative stages of discussion, the proposed ILD would be a program of separate, but coordinated, lunar exploration activities during the period 2008-2018 or 2010 to 2020.


According to an SSB document provided to SPACE.com, planned U.S., Chinese and Indian missions could anchor the program. While these independent programs continue autonomously, they are repackaged as individual national contributions to a larger global undertaking under the banner of an International Lunar Decade.


Antarctica-Moon link


NASA (news - web sites)'s human exploration aspirations suggest an even stronger analogy between IGY and an International Lunar Decade.


For example, the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and many other Antarctic bases were established during IGY. It was not the first time people had been to Antarctica and the South Pole, but IGY was the beginning of a new period of scientific exploration of Antarctica.


This time the Moon would play the role of Antarctica, the SSB document suggests, perhaps heralding a new era of human exploration activities at the off-Earth site.


True collaboration


The ILD suggestion is appealing given the commitments of many nations to send robot orbiters and landers to the Moon. Data gleaned from those activities helps set the stage for human exploration, said James Garvin, Lead Scientist for Mars Exploration and the Moon in the Office of Space Science at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.


"I like this idea, personally, since it might help foster true collaboration with respect to the Moon," Garvin told SPACE.com . It could involve information being returned by NASAs Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2009, he said.


"NASA's robotic lunar exploration program would be able to provide some continuity, especially if the new NASA Exploration Vision is funded by Congress and sustained beyond the upcoming election," Garvin explained.


Lunar Poles apart ... worlds together

 



American lunar data sets would find company given the expected results from Japans Selenological and Engineering Explorer (SELENE), now planned for 2006; Indias Chardrayaan-1 now targeted for 2007; and Chinas Moon program that stretches out to 2017 -- a multi-pronged initiative that starts in a few years with the liftoff of the Change I lunar orbiter, followed by a Chinese robotic lander, as well as another craft that snags and returns lunar samples to Earth.

Garvin also pointed out that there is an International Polar Year (IPY) targeted for late 2007 to early 2009. There are discussions about using the IPY to not only celebrate the Moons polar regions, but those on Mars too, since 2008 will be a big year for these important planetary polar areas, he said.

NASAs expansive Mars exploration campaign calls for the Phoenix Scout lander to touch down in May 2008 at a high northern latitude locale on the red planet.

Human exploration at both Moon and Mars

"My view is that with the lunar poles being a focus of the [NASA] Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission...the potential [NASA] New Frontiers South Pole-Aitken Basin sample return, and part of the goals of the Japanese SELENE mission...it makes sense to broaden the IPY to include this solar system locality," Garvin said.

Surveying the lunar poles for resources and understanding environments on the Moon is germane to human exploration both at the Moon and at Mars, Garvin added.

"So, if the IPY were to be broadened to feature the lunar and martian polar regions, given that NASA alone has several missions that focus on these areas during the time period in question, 2007-2009, then this would make sense," Garvin concluded.

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