According to experts, Apollo lessons can help NASA return to the moon

As NASA prepares for the ambitious goal of landing a person on the moon in five years, a conference of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) discussed how the past will illuminate future lunar plans.

The conference, "Exploring New Space Frontiers," was broadcast live from Washington DC on Tuesday, April 23, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the USRA. This event brought together speakers who had worked during Apollo's time or were inspired by the Apollo era, drawing these achievements in a modern context.

One of the speakers worked behind the scenes for decades. Christine Darden received an ovation after telling her trip from Monroe, North Carolina (a small town with little mathematics) to the NASA Research Center in Langley in 1967, as Apollo began. She debuted at NASA as one of many black women working as computers, one of the few jobs open to people of color at the time.

Related: Vintage Tech of Apollo 11: Incredible Innovations on the Landing on the Moon

His career merges with the period described in the book 2016 "Hidden figures" (William Morrow, 2016) and the resulting film. Both followed, which was later adapted as a film. Both highlighted Langley's black women who were working as computers at the time.

After five years of work, Darden asked his boss to move to an engineering group and was refused. Darden thought carefully about her answer, then took a career risk: she asked her boss's boss, an administrator, why men could do this job and not women.

Darden was ready to return to her original job, teaching, if she was fired from NASA, but the director's answer was simple: no one had asked this question before. She was quickly transferred. Darden worked on many supersonic projects with the engineering group and, when she retired, she now gives speeches to public school students on how to pursue their dreams.

She explained that it was by taking additional courses and attending far-flung courses while teaching full-time that she had acquired the necessary qualifications to work at NASA. She called for as many opportunities as possible for young people.

"We need our bright young people to be willing to work in space, and that's all our students," she said. "We need to include our public schools, we need them to be first class, and our teachers need to be qualified."

Science in evolution

Another speaker was at the forefront of Apollo science: Harrison (Jack) Schmitt, a geologist-astronaut who traveled to the highlands of the Moon with Eugene Cernan in 1972 as part of the Apollo 17 mission. Schmitt is the only scientist to practice his profession directly on another world. He recounted this mission, sometimes evoking the lessons that NASA could use today.

Schmitt found an orange floor on the moon which consisted of volcanic glass beads; Decades later, scientists analyzing samples from this region discovered that there were also water molecules, invisible to the instruments in the 1970s. Schmitt, 83, continues to work on science. Recently, with the help of friends having the habit of extracting subtle color information from images, he has released a brand new image of orange soil showing hues vivid orange and red never captured in NASA images.

"I've finally got the right colors," Schmitt said.

(Image: © USRA)

In his speech, he provided many tips for future explorers of the moon: make sure you own a big rocket like the Saturn V, engage a young management and ready to adapt quickly to the situation, and continue to look back old samples that the Apollo astronauts were picked up between 1969 and 1972. "I do not recommend it as the only mission," said Schmitt, explaining that he would also like new samples to be taken.

Scott Pace, Executive Director of the National Space Council, gave some recommendations to explorers. But before that, he crushed the old argument that we were already on the moon and therefore did not need to come back. "Maybe your grandfather did it, or your PhD thesis director did, but a new generation did not travel beyond a very long Earth orbit, "he said.

The key to a successful lunar return will be thinking intelligently and building a sustainable architecture, he added. One step would be to create a fuel depot in orbit – a possible function for Gateway space station NASA planned – For missions on the Moon and Mars, he said. He also called for the establishment of a network of private entrepreneurs, universities and governments working together, each contributing through his own field of expertise. .

"We need community-driven science," said Pace, referring obliquely to the decennial surveys and other methods that NASA and other scientific agencies use to guide the planning of their programs. One of the recommendations that he communicated to the community was to build a station at the south lunar pole, where the sunlight is continuous and therefore less stress on the machines of the day-night cycles.

Pace acknowledged that a five-year delay for a human landing It's tight, but he adds that he has an advantage over a decades-long launches pace: "You need concentration and priority – you can not be trapped in options. clarify having a stressful goal in the short term, "he said.

USRA was established in 1969 to help scientists and specialists study lunar rocks and regoliths (ground) that astronauts repatriated from the moon between 1969 and 1972. This year, the group's fiftieth anniversary coincides with the fiftieth anniversary the first landing on the moon. falls on July 20th. The mandate of the USRA today is greatly expanded to include issues such as education programs, aerospace policies, as well as the operation and management of a certain number of facilities through partnerships.

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