1 - quotes to brian 2 - paraphrases to brian 3- questions for brian




Is NASA "Bombing the Moon?"


NASA's recent re-interest in the Moon is hardly sentimental; There's hydrogen, and possibly even water up there.


Whether or not the hydrogen concentrations on the moon can be converted to a source of water or fuel (or both, since water is a byproduct of the fuel reaction), and how easily, will have a huge impace on the future direction of NASA's Space Program.


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A/B - Hydrogen found on the moon and how we know




There's no need to mine for hydrogen on the moon. Hydrogen is everywhere.





In a nutshell, NASA's ready to analyze the Moon using the same kind of precision it used on Mars.

We currently know more about the surfact of Mars than we know about our own Moon.


These robotic precursor missions will assist in providing a fundamental understanding of the moon that we don't have yet.



"We first need to answer some fundamental questions about the moon before we determine what our next steps are going to be."



To many, it seems that we're certainly going to have to have bases on the moon one way or another, so let's figure out quickly if we are going to have to bring the water with us, or how to make it after we get there.

But Day insists that the question of bases on the moon is something that is still only being discussed right now - rather than any decision that has already been made. "Quite frankly, we're at a stage in our understanding of the moon, where we know the surface of Mars far better than we know the surface of our own moon. We've sent very very sophisticated probes in orbit around Mars for a number of years now, and they have mapped and detailed the surface of Mars very nicely."





LCross is to try to resolve this question: "Is what we are seeing water ice, or is it something else?"  NASA will consider the mission a success if they are able to resolve the question one way or the other.


Several of NASA's past missions have informed us that there are large concentrations of hydrogen on the north and south poles of the moon (verify this online**)


The Clementine Mission, which was bouncing radar off the surface of the moon, gave NASA its first piece of evidence, when a radar beam come back polarized in a way that is consistent with having gone through crystals of water ice.

The Lunar Prospector also detected hydrogen at the poles using a Neutron Spectrometer, which looks at the flux of neutrons bouncing off he surface of the moon to identify it's chemical composition.


It can identify "hydrogen," but it can't tell you what form the hydrogen it has located is taking; molecule or a free-floating hydrogen, etc.

"Both Clementine and the Lunar Prospector gave us evidence of what can be interpreted as 'this could be water ice at the poles of the moon,'" explains NASA's Brian day. "But it's far from certain, and So, what we need was a mission that would allow us to get our hands wet."


What Lunar Prospector wasn't able to tell NASA, is exactly what form the hydrogen that is located in the Moon's polar regions manifest itself in. It's unlikely that it's a gaseous hydrogen, because that would just float off into space. According to Day, it's probably some kind of ice, or hydrated minerals, or hydrocarbons. (hydrides?)


A bevy of hydrogen located in the moon's dark craters has a number of implications. For humans to live for any extended period of time in space, we will need to have a water source. But bringing water from home is very expensive. As Day explains "Water is very heavy," explains Day. "Getting a gallon of water from the surface of the earth to the surface of the moon, depending on whose estimates you look at, it's around $100,000 dollars a gallon (verify). Lunar exploration would be greatly facilitated, by being able to generate water resources right there on the moon -- and there could be a couple ways of doing that."

As Day explains, there is a debate as to which form of hydrogen would be the "best" for us to find. If it's water ice, we'll still have to go to these ridiculously cold places and get the water ice out. If it's not water that's there, there are methods for making water using hydrogen and oxygen -- the building blocks of water -- that exist there naturally. For example, NASA already knows that there's oxygen in the mineral latticies in many of the moon's rocks. The Sun is constantly delivering a stream of Hydrogen to the moon that is buried in the soil from the constant bombardment of the solar wind.

"Before we can begin to plan to send humans to the moon for any extended periods of time, we need to know for certain which one of these circumstances we're going to encounter. In this way, what LCross is doing could definitely have an impact on future exploration."



C/D LCross and LRO



The goal of NASA's LCross mission is actually relatively simple: to take some of the material from the bottom of a permanently shadowed crater of the Moon's south pole and raise it into the sunlight to be analyzed.

crater in a crater: That's correct, we will be creating a small (~20 meter) crater inside a much larger (multiple kilometers) permanently-shadowed crater. Just which crater we will target is to be determined. LCROSS is going to spend over three months in these wide sweeping orbits around the Earth-Moon system. During that time, LRO will be sending back data about the Moon and, of particular interest to us, the Moon's south pole. With that data, our science team will then refine our choice for a precise impact target. That decision will be finalized approximately 30 days prior to impact.



"It is basically the simplest, easiest, cheapest way to raise some of this material up out of the shadow and into the sunlight."


"To land a rover or something similar there would be very costly, while this is a very inexpensive, relatively easy way of temporarily raising that material into the sunlight, where we can see it and analyze it, before it falls back down."

There's also the potential to create water using the hydrogen and the oxygen that has been confirmed to exist naturally in the mineral lattices of many of the moon's rocks.




So if LCross helps us find out that it is in fact water ice that's giving off this hydrogen signature, then LRO, with its mapping abilities, will be able to show us where these hydrogen concentrations are in fine detail.



The Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter (LRO) is going to map the moon in very fine photographic detail. (Better than submeter resolution.) We'll be able to see the hardware that was left behind by the Apollo Missions. It will also characterize the topography of the moon with a laser altimeter. It will characterize the radiation and thermal environments of the moon.



"LRO and LCross are going to give us an understanding of the composition of this particularly interesting permanently shadowed area, and let us understand how what type of potential critical resource it represents. But really, before we start making plans about outposts or bases on the Moon, we need to get this fundamental understanding of the Moon that we don't have now. So that's what LRO and LCross are all about. These are our precursor missions to the moon. These are robotic precursor missions that will help us determine how we are going to explore the moon in the future." - quote brian

Day was also clear that sending a rover down into one of the moon craters was considered, and ruled out for several reasons. For one thing, softlanding something on the moon is already very very difficult and expensive, and controlling a rover remotely is also, already, a technical challenge, much less getting a rover to work in a permanently shadowed area where temperatures get to be about 300 degrees farenheit below zero. (**VERIFY: -300 F is Correct Brian?)]



The Centaur upper stage of one of NASA's rockets.

On the 18th of June, two probes were launched together - the LRO (Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter) and LCross. They were both launched aboard an Atlas 5 Rocket out of Cape Kennedy. Typically, after the upper stage of this rocket blasts you out into outer space and out towards the moon, you jettison it, as it's considered "dead weight." However, in this case, "dead weight" was what we wanted.

E/F  What's being dropped/plume details


When the Centaur is dropped on the selected crater, approximately 200 metric tons of material will be displaced and lofted about 10 kilometers (x miles) into the air, where it will, where it will remain in the moon's orbit (while LCross and LRO do their readings).


Q: How hard does it hit?

The Centaur upper stage will come in with a mass of roughly 2200 kilograms moving at 2.5 kilometers per second, (about 5,600 miles per hour). It will be coming in very steep, at about 80 degrees, so it will make a large enough impact to raise some of the crater's material up out of the shadow.




What's being dropped?


This is not an in-tact rocket with explosives or any payload whatsoever onboard, but rather an empty "upper stage" of a rocket centrifuge. -explain exactly what it is - and provide a picture -go look at the graphics that Brian sent you.


There will not be any explosives on board, as the upper stage will be completely empty, so it's just a piece of metal.



G - Meteroid comparison details



A small (~20 meter) crater inside a much larger (multiple kilometers) permanently-shadowed crater will be created as a result.

"Just which crater we will target is to be determined. LCROSS is going to spend over three months in these wide sweeping orbits around the Earth-Moon system. During that time, LRO will be sending back data about the Moon and, of particular interest to us, the Moon's south pole. With that data, our science team will then refine our choice for a precise impact target. That decision will be finalized approximately 30 days prior to impact."





When you look at the Moon, you can see that it's already covered with craters caused from the 50 or so meteriods that strike it every year (about 4 a month).




How hard is the impact?

The largest of these "impact structures" on the moon, is named the Akin Basin (check name), and is about 2,000 kilometers across. In contrast, the crater NASA is creating for LCross is only 20 meters across.

The impact that NASA is creating with its experiment is on a much smaller scale than the kind of impact that the moon is used to getting all the time. If they could predict when a naturally occurring meteriod with any kind of precision, they would, but its just to difficult to predict.



Typically, craters the size of what LCross is making or larger are formed naturally through meteriod impacts on the average of 4 times a month. From the moon's point of view, what NASA is doing is in no way special.

The thing that makes it unique is that we're going to know in advance exactly when and where to plant our telescopes, so that we will be able to observe this. Normally you don't have that option. Four of these meteriods hit the moon every month or so, and at far greater velocities - but we never know when or where exactly they'll hit.

And we're hitting in an area that we think has the potential to be especially scientifically interesting.

re: crater sizes http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/CraterSizes.htm








We know more about Mars because we had rovers and a series of orbiters over there. The Mars Reconaissance Orbiter, for instance, that has been taking phenomenal pictures.




from day re: fuel: Very much so! Water in and of itself is valuable as water. But with the abundant solar energy available on the Moon (especially on some south-polar peaks that experience nearly constant sunlight) it is simple to split water molecules into their constituent hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen is obviously another valuable resource for any humans wanting to breathe on the Moon. The hydrogen is an excellent fuel. If we do find water on the Moon, it could be valuable in many ways.



from day re:

But this time, after they launched (verify: the Centaur was part of the Atlas 5 Rocket - can iverify online?)


QUESTIONS:

Hi Brian -  I need some help here understanding what you were talking about, as there was some kind of interference briefly on the recording.

I'm having trouble understanding exactly which spacecraft you are referring to when you say "us" and "we" and things below. thanks in advance for some pedantic clarification - once I understand what's going on, I can write it up in a more casual descriptive style. thanks! :)

(I often will take a couple days to whittle a paragraph down to a couple good sentences, once I understand completely --  thanks for bearing with me :)


The exact details of the plan

Five days after the launch (the Atlas 5 launch with LRO and LCross, right?) NASA did a fly by of the moon (with what), using the moon's gravity to sling us (sling who?) up into this very tilted, very steeply-inclined, very large looping orbit around the entire earth moon system. When they (who, what) re-encounter the Moon again, they plan to come in at a very steep angle, relative to the Moon's south pole.

After completing three large loops around the moon, we (what) will re-encounter the moon, coming in very very steep. 9 hours before impact, we will release that centaur upper stage, after very carefully aiming it so that it will fly right into one of those permanently shadowed craters.

After 4 minutes, we will pull back and execute a breaking maneuver, at which point the Centaur will fly into that permanently-shadowed crater, going 5,600 mph.

The impact will loft a plume of debris about 6 miles up into the Lunar Sky, where it can be illuminated by sunlight, and analyzed by the instruments on board our spacecraft  (LCross and LRO?) to determine what the chemical composition is of that material, and whether it contains, water, ice, or anything else.



Q: I wanted to talk about exactly what it is we're looking for. Water, of course. Is there anything else? or is this all about water?




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Ecosystem on the moon?


You may have heard that "the moon has no atmosphere." Day says that's "almost true," in that it does have an atmosphere, but a very tenouous one, and that's another concern.

"If we establish a significant human presence on the moon, then we have a very good chance of impacting or changing that atmosphere. So, before we really start operations on the Moon on any kind of a scale, if we want to really study and understand that existing very tenuous lunar atmosphere that does exist, now's the time to do it.

*****editing stopped here****

Q: Would you say there's an ecosystem on the Moon?

No. Because "ecosystem" implies life. We have absolutely no reason to believe that there's life on the Moon. In fact, we were talking early about Planetary Protection. If you send a probe to Mars, where there could conceivably be an environment that could foster life. Okay, it's a pretty harsh environment, but, compared to the moon, Mars is a very nice environment. There are certain extremophiles, if you listen to chris mckay, that prove that there are certain extremophiles, ya know, Conan the Bacterium, and so forth, that are able to adapt conceivably to very harsh UV, very extremes in temperature, very extremes in iridity. It is not out of the question that there could be some form of Martian life, and it is also not out of the question that we could send something onboard a spacecraft to Mars, from the earth, that could actually survive for a while, and could actually become a contaminant - could become a danger to life on Mars.

So there's the whole concept, and NASA is very aware of this, and they have a whole program of planetary protection. If you are going to send a spacecraft to Mars that has the potential not just sitting on the surface, perhaps digging down, anywhere near an area where you think life could be, then have to consider protective measures, such as conducting sterilization techniques on that spacecraft so that the astronauts, or even the robote, are not taking earth bound bugs with them that could conceivably thrive and infect Mars.

Now, the things you would do to a spacecraft to sterilize it is essentially the conditions that are found on the Moon. One of the best sterilizers we can think of would be the Lunar environment. Ya know, extremes in heat. Extremes in cold. Extremes in radiation. Vacuum.


Q: But isn't one of Chris' points is that if we were to come across a non-carbon based life form, we wouldn't necessarily know it when we saw it. -- email chris directly!!

"You can never say never, but based on our current understanding of the life, the Moon is really a very unfriendly place."



That's right, you might not recognize it for being life. But one of the things that we can see in looking at the Moon is whether you're looking at carbon-based or silicon-based ____. By our understanding of life, the Moon is really a very unfriendly place. You never say never, but in looking at all the places in the solar system where you might think you can find life. Titan's awfully cold, but it's got a lot going on there, it could be pretty interesting. Life such as you and I would not necessarily enjoy it there, but people who are thinking way outside the box can come up with ideas where certain forms of life might be able to live on Titan. It's still kind of in the realm of science fiction.

Europa - another of these moons between Jupiter and Saturn - it has potential.

Mars has potential.


Q: Didn't the astronauts see "a presence" or something when they were up there on the moon?

Well, when they were looking out the window, several astronauts did report a kind of glow or haze. So the question is: "is that indicitive of perhaps a very thin lunar atmosphere? There's also the dust environment on the Moon, so another explanation for this haze could be the sunlight hitting the moondust. If you look on the "terminator" bewteen sunlight and darkness on the Moon (the line that moves across the surface of the moon as the sun's light and energy move across it -- causes a slight a levitation of some of that dust above the surface. How high does that go? That's something we want to know.

Looking at the dust and atmospheric environment of the moon, although very tenuous, but worth looking at.


Q: So this idea that people have that NASA is going to the moon and wants to colonize the moon and start mining planets willy nilly and all that kind of thing is like not the big plan?  (especially now because we wouldn't know where to go or what to do or - we wouldn't even be able to set up a base?

(wince)