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NASA Plans Robotic Lunar Scouts
bleckywelcky writes "NASA's plan to send robotic scouts to the moon in advance of astronauts is starting to take shape, but politics and the presidential election are stalling progress. Yet, NASA is already designing the first of the robotic explorers. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter would return a global topographical map of the moon, measure deep space radiation in lunar orbit and attempt to find water ice at the lunar poles. Read the whole story."
Since NASA, with Lockheed and Boeing, is spending a fair amount of money on developing radio-thermo generator for the Martian surface laboratory, in addition to the chassis, it would seem to make sense to attempt to share the technology (and associated costs) between the two missions. This could save some money and give NASA more long term experience in developing, using, and maintaining standardized systems. I'm sure some of the instruments could be useful. For example, I don't know about current plans, but there had been talk of equipping a Martian mission, I think the sample return, with a drill for taking a deep subsurface core sample, with hopes of finding a permafrost layer. I expect it could be adapted fairly easily to be used on the lunar surface as well.
Well that's cool. It's a lot less expensive to send robots than it is to send people. They'll do more science. It'd be really cool if the robots could manipulate objects and construct a green house or a solar array or a water generating plant to sotre resources for future visits.
Does the lunar soil have nutrients for plant life or would we have to send it up too?
Stuff that matters.
No private company is going to spend billions of dollars to send spacecraft into the solar system and beyond so that we can answer some basic questions in science. Ofcourse if you think that research into basic sciences is a waste of money than there is no argument. No private company or individual will invest in anything until they are convinced that they can make a few bucks for every buck they invest. And you must provide some evidence for which private company has superior capability than nasa for space right now. Infact a number of screwups that nasa had have been due to mistakes in manufacturing by these very private companies that you talk of.
This actually makes a lot of sense. The robots can do a lot of scouting ahead of time so that when we do send people back to the moon we can cut out the areas we are sure are of no interest. There are still a lot of things that humans can do that remote controlled robots can't though. At least using robots we can eliminate one of the problems we had with the original Lunar Landing. The original site was too rocky and they had to move over a bit (and wasted fuel) trying to get to a "smooth" landing point. With robots we can get more detailed maps and set down precise landing areas. This will save trouble later on.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Rover this and robot that; we sent a man to the moon in the 60's why cant we just send one now. It would be a lot more interesting.
Politics + Science = BS
So, when do they plan to send the teleoperated bulldozers and other construction equipment? Our Guys will need somewhere to stay below the lunra surface to avoid excessive radiation doses, so they'll want a lunar base that's ready for occupancy when they arrive.
Why aren't they working with Caterpillar and John Deere on this?
Chip H.