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Protecting the Apollo Landing Sites From Later Landings
R3d M3rcury writes "The Lunar X-Prize is a contest offering $20 million to the first private organization to land and maneuver a robotic rover on the moon. There is also a $1 million bonus to anyone who can get a picture of a man-made object on the moon. But one archeologist believes that 'The sites of early lunar landings are of unparalleled significance in the history of humanity, and extraordinary caution should be taken to protect them.' He's concerned that we may end up with rover tracks destroying historic artifacts, such as Neil Armstrong's first bootprint, or that a mistake could send a rocket slamming into a landing site. He calls on the organizers to ban any contestant from landing within 100KM of a prior moon landing site. Now he seems to think this just means Apollo. What about the Luna and Surveyor landers? What about the Lunokhod rovers? Are they fair game?"
I remember reading long ago, forget where, that official CCP policy was that if they were to arrive on the moon before the US returned, their first goal was to remove as much evidence of American landing sites as possible so as to claim the US had lied and in fact China was the first on the moon.
Probably some wharrgarbl from the intertubes stuck in my head, but who knows.
If you want to preserve Neil Armstrong's boot print, perhaps it's better to send a mission exactly there and put a pane of plexiglas over it.
"The sites of early lunar landings are of unparalleled significance in the history of humanity, and extraordinary caution should be taken to PREVENT EVER BEING ABLE TO PROVE THEY EVEN EXIST"
Other posters have already mentioned erosion via the expansion and contraction of the monthly day/night cycle's heating and cooling, and erosion by micrometeors. There's also moonquakes and electrostatic levitation of moon dust that come to mind as other natural sources of erosion.
On top of all that, there's artificial sources of erosion. Bear in mind that the footprint was made at the base of a ladder that a couple of astronauts spent hours coming and going from; it probably got stepped on a few times. And then the lander took off again by firing a powerful rocket engine, directly blasting the area with high-velocity gases. You can see in a video of Apollo 17's lander launch that quite a lot of dust and debris gets blown about in the process. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXs4tncQcAE
But frankly, even if that first footprint was still magically pristine, I don't think returning there and putting down new footprints would somehow "ruin" the historical significance. It would add to the historical significance. The site would no longer be just the site of the first manned lunar landing, it'd be the site of the first manned lunar landing and the first return to the site of the first manned lunar landing. That's pretty neat too.
We still have Armstrong's boot alongside other historically significant foot wear such as Dorothy's red shooes. We could attach the boot to the bottom of the probe and called it a restoration project.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
After all we explore wrecks on the ocean floors, the landers should be afforded the same status for scientific investigation.
As it is, We've still got Neil's boot, so we can make more footprints anytime.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons