A new flight plan: back to the moon

Science News, March 13, 2004 by Ron Cowen

While the basin might be good for planetary research, any location on the moon's far side would also be suitable for establishing an observatory that peers out into the universe, says Pieters. That's because the far side faces away from the radio noise and other electromagnetic disturbances emanating from our planet.

Even as the idea of returning to the moon kindles scientists' hopes for a new era of lunar science, President Bush's vision may relegate basic science to a back seat. "This is not the moon for the moon's sake but for [human space] exploration," notes Garvin.

For example, even though many scientists might opt to send astronauts to the South Pole--Aitken basin, other less scientifically intriguing regions might make more practical sense for producing fuel and setting up a base camp where astronauts could practice maneuvers future explorers might eventually do on Mars.

Such sites might include "the peaks of eternal light," which are mountains at the moon's south pole just outside the Aitken basin. They are bathed in sunlight for 85 percent of the lunar day and therefore offer a location particularly rich in solar energy, which could be used to power equipment.

A REALISTIC PLAN? The President's proposal calls for a $1 billion increase in NASA'S budget over the next 5 years, with an additional $11 billion coming from canceling the space shuttle program and ending outlays for the space station by 2010. But those moneys are just a start on realizing the entire vision of traveling all the way to Mars.

Many space scientists recall an earlier plan, announced in 1989 by President George H.W. Bush from the steps of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. The venture was soon abandoned after NASA put a $400 billion price lag on it.

Rick Searfoss was a rookie astronaut when that proposal came out. Jazzed by the plan, Searfoss' class incorporated pictures of the moon and Mars into the design of the insignia they wore on their space flight suits. "We had this starry-eyed view ... of how all this stuff was going to happen," Searfoss remembers.

In retrospect, he says, the elder Bush's proposal "called for too much. It called for the moon, Mars, and it called for the space station." By cutting the space station and the shuttle, he says, the current plan is a "much more measured approach."

"This is the poor man's [route] to human space flight," says Garvin.

Perhaps too poor. That's what Norm Augustine, the former chief executive officer of Lockheed-Martin in Sunnyvale, Calif., told President Bush's newly appointed space exploration advisory commission last month. In 1991, Augustine headed a similar commission. He estimates that NASA's entire budget--currently set at $15 billion a year--over the next decade might not be enough to fund the newly proposed plan.

If the ambitious proposed mission joins current plans without NASA receiving a greater financial boost, prospects for space science studies that have long been in the works become bleak, some scientists point out. For example, the President's recently proposed budget postpones a joint Department of Energy-NASA spacecraft to study dark energy--the mysterious entity that is accelerating cosmic expansion--and also a space-based experiment to search for gravitational radiation (SN: 11/30/02,p. 339).