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As America approaches the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo 11's historic visit to the moon – in less than a year now – moviegoers will contemplate the achievements of Neil Armstrong and the Apollo program more widely through Damien's thoughtful biopic Chazelle. First manIt is natural to wonder: is there a future for crewed missions on the moon? And if so, what form could they take?
These are the many intriguing questions addressed in the Smithsonian Book, a compatriot of the Royal Astronomical Society, How to live in space, which addresses, in the almanac style, a host of topics that any future astronaut will have to face sooner or later, ranging from the effects of spatial life on the human body (attention to cosmic background radiation) to the personal hygiene to edge of the International Space Station – shampoo and deodorant ball).
The speculative segments of NASA's space tourism book and future missions should, however, spur dialogue, particularly in an America uncertain of its space exploration objectives. Stuart is considering the possibility of bringing humans to Mars along the line (Elon Musk is already peddling one-way tickets), or even terraforming it using all the carbon dioxide now trapped in the ice caps of the red planet. But Mars is a distant target, both literally (34 million kilometers away) and metaphorically. It would take decades, if not a century, for human astronauts to establish a substantial presence. The moon, however, is already within our reach.
The 1969 moonwalk of Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin was undoubtedly a momentous moment in the space race with the United States, a triumph of American ingenuity. But it was not a definitive scientific evaluation. More eager than data, Apollo 11 put the human race in physical contact with the moon, leaving many scientific questions. Some of these were cleaned by the following Apollo missions, who used rovers to explore the surface further and reduced the total amount of lunar rock recovered to 80 pounds. Still, we still have a lot to learn about the composition, history and relationships of our closest neighbor to Earth.
Stuart explains that the most obvious follow-up mission would be another Apollo-style landing. No human has walked on the lunar surface since the end of Apollo's Apollo Gene Cernan, member of the crew of the Apollo 17 in 1972. If America was returning on the Moon with modern scientific instruments, NASA could draw much more precise conclusions. as to its composition and physical properties. Such a mission would be particularly exciting, notes Stuart, if humans were to go to the other side of the moon, which has not yet been explored.
Tide locking ensures that the same face of the moon is always oriented away from the Earth – half of the moon in darkness varies continuously, but not its overall orientation to the Earth. "As a result," Stuart writes, "the hidden face of the moon represents a largely unexplored treasure. "If a human crew could retrieve rock samples from this untouched hidden face, as opposed to the side visited by the 12 members of the" dozen Apollo, "the return of science would indeed be appreciable.
Mars is a distant target (above, the artistic design of an astronaut working on the red planet), both literally – at 34 million kilometers away – and metaphorically.
(NASA)
The next, more ambitious step would be to erect a life-size lunar base, probably at the south pole of the body, bathed in light 90% of the time. "This solar energy is a precious commodity," Stuart writes, "and it would be swallowed up by the solar panel batteries we would build to power our Moon colony." In addition, the water ice trapped in the shadows Some of the larger craters in the area could be hydrolyzed to give oxygen to the breath and hydrogen to the rocket fuel synthesis.
It might even be possible, Stuart notes, to exploit the Moon from such a base. Such an industrial enterprise would probably focus on the rare helium-3 isotope, coveted by the pioneers of nuclear fusion reactors.
One way to easily access a theoretical lunar base would be a "space elevator", made from an economical "super material" like graphene, which is a thick carbon layer of an atom (above).
(Getty Images / Science Photo Library)
Maintaining a lunar base would be an expensive and difficult exercise; It is unlikely that the United States can go it alone, as was the case during the Cold War era. Fortunately, the last decades have been marked by a spirit of multinational collaboration in the field of space exploration: astronauts from different cultures have gathered onboard the International Space Station in search of discoveries with global benefits. Today, Stuart reports that "NASA, the European Space Agency and Roscosmos (the Russian Space Agency) are already studying the possibility" of a jointly operated lunar encampment.
One of the easiest ways to access a theoretical base of the moon would be one of the most fascinating concepts described in Stuart's book: a so-called "space elevator" extending from the surface of the Earth and covering more than 100,000 km altitude. At the end of the huge lift cord (which should be made from an economic "super material" such as graphene and anchored to an ocean base not yet built) would constitute a Counterweight keeps him tight. "Just like the dynamics of [a ball attached to a length of string] Stuart writes: "Thus, the movement of the counterweight creates the necessary tension in the cable of the space elevator."
A view of what could be the space tourists who travel beyond the earth's atmosphere in the Virgin Galactic spacecraft.
(Getty Images / Daniel Berehulak)
Stuart estimates that building such a colossal elevator (which he equates to Roald Dahl's fantastic big glass elevator) would probably cost more than $ 10 billion and would probably require a global camaraderie that does not exist at all. 'actual hour. But if such a daring project materializes (so to speak), it could revolutionize space exploration by carrying a new spacecraft out of the atmosphere every day. And "everything from cable over geosynchronous orbit would already travel at a speed faster than orbital speed," Stuart notes, "making travel to the Moon and Mars very easy."
What the future holds exactly for the lunar adventure – a visit to the other side, the creation of a lunar base, the construction of an unprecedented lift or any of these solutions – remains for the moment uncertain. But between First man, the next Apollo 11 jubilee and the resurgence of crewed spaceflight as a pillar of American political rhetoric, the Moon is again in the conversation and seems more than ever that it is not a question of if humanity will never come back into the lunar landscape, but a question of How, and when.
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