Picture of the Week: A Titanic Discovery (News)

That is a picture of a place the Moon could one day be seen as an important stepping stone to: Titan, the largest of the many moons of Saturn. Long suspected to have water, today it was announced that Titan is officially the second celestial body ever found to have stable liquid on its surface (the first being the one you're sitting on, of course).

The lake, also officially the first non-Earthen lake ever found, is called Ontario Lacus and is comprised of liquid ethane. It shares a similar shape and size to Lake Ontario here on Earth; hence the name.

Someday, the many Titan colonists will harken back to the old days when the lunar pioneers set the stage for them. Moon colonization may seem like a blip at a point when we've began settling bodies with the potential of Titan and Europa.

One Giant Leap for Plantkind?

According to a nifty Wired.com blog article, NASA scientists put forward the idea this week of launching plants to the moon and watching their growth carefully, as a way of studying the potential effects of long-term habitation (low gravity, radiation, etc.).

The brave plant suggested for the job is Arabidopsis thaliana, part of the mustard family:

Moon colonist?

Check out the linked article for a full rundown of thaliana's moon-faring resume.

Interesting things could potentially happen when you mix plants and lunar radiation/soil/etc., but regardless, this is an idea that is a potential wonder of effectiveness through simplicity.

Russian/European Joint, Manned Spacecraft Design Unveiled (News)

The replacement for the oft-used Russian Soyuz craft was unveiled today, and it is a joint project by the European Space Agency and the Russian Federal Space Agency(Roscosmos):


Designed by Russian space firm RKK Energia, this is a craft planned to be used for lunar missions, effectively being the counterpart to NASA's Ares/Orion lunar-mission tag team (which I profiled briefly here at Luna C/I back in May). In NASA's case, the Ares is the launch module and the Orion the manned portion; this new craft is a manned craft, with the launch vehicle undetermined and (as noted in the linked BBC news article) possibly being either an entirely new vehicle or a modified existing Russian rocket.

The Russian-European plans to collaborate are not a set-in-stone agreement, and so the ESA does have a backup plan to continue should the partnership with Roscosmos fall through. Still, it's promising to see signs of this sort of high-level collaboration working, as opposed to, say, tense and outright competition that could lead to cynical (perhaps silly?) 'war in space' scenarios. In my view, if there's a time for humanity to start moving on from the more petty social-geopolitical problems of Earth, this is it. Do we really need to go start churning out terms like "lunapolitical conflict"?

But, for the time being, we have developments like this tentative Euro-Russian agreement (and other cooperation efforts) to nudge things towards what I see, at least for now, as a positive direction.

Magnetic Attraction

One concern that gets voiced about lunar colonization is the levels of radiation colonists could be exposed to, and how much of a threat that is (and whether there is sufficient methods of protection against it).

"We really need to know more about the radiation environment on the Moon, especially if people will be staying there for more than just a few days."
-Harlan Spence, astronomy professor at Boston University

Mapping out and investigating the levels of radiation is one the central goals of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission, the first tentpole mission of the landmark Vision for Space Exploration/Constellation era.

Various remedies and shields have been suggested, including isolated magnetic fields (like Reiner Gamma, pictured above; these are speculated to be a result of crater- and other ejecta), spherical man-made shields (pictured below), and even the Earth itself.

I personally trust in human ingenuity to come up with something, and the lack of effects on the Apollo astronauts seems promising (though many seem to think that indicates the whole Apollo landing was actually a hoax). At the very least, the commercial motivation for a company to come up with something that could enable colonization (and therefore utilization of groundbreaking resources) could eventually (or very quickly) become too strong to be ignored.

To cap, here's a segment on the subject from a NASA video (Destination Tomorrow), courtesy of Youtube:

MoonPop: "WALL-E" (News)

"Outlet Mall, coming soon!"
-A 'Buy N Large Corp'. billboard on the Moon, next to the American Flag at Mare Tranquillitatis, in the film "WALL-E"

I had a chance last week to finally catch Pixar's latest masterwork, "WALL-E". Much like with "Iron Man" earlier this summer, a movie that a whole heck of a lot of people ended up seeing happened to also be a movie with a look at the Moon; and in WALL-E's case, a look specifically at the Moon colonization and the potential outcomes of it.

It's a simple, and brief, moment in the film, but a memorable one: In a fly-by of the Moon, the site of the American flag in the Sea of Tranquility is seen as having a billboard adjacent to it advertising a future outlet mall (which, given the circumstances and setting of the film, the builders apparently never did get around to).

The placement of the sign directly next to the flag site could suggest that the fictional Buy N Large Corporation in the film was intending to plow right over the site for their new mall; or that they simply plopped that sign down there for attention.

The strange thing about all of this is that this isn't really that far from the truth, as things are developing now. The Sea of Tranquility is rich in Helium-3, a resource extremely rare on Earth but plentiful on the Moon that could be valuable for fusion power. So within 15-20 years, we could very well be seeing mining operations going up right next to the Apollo landing sites.

With the generation of kids seeing WALL-E today being the ones who will have the newscasts of their lives dominated by Moon colonization, it should be interesting to see how this one moment in an extremely visible film gets referenced and remembered, as commerical development of the Sea of Tranquility and the rest of the Moon becomes an imminent reality (and potentially, a major public debate).

Picture of the Week: That's No Space Station...

Reversing the astute observation of Obi-Wan Kenobi, this Death Star-like image is not of a space station (of course), but of Shackleton crater near the Moon's south pole.

Along with Malapert mountain, this is considered one of the leading candidates for the location of an initial moon colony; while it's interior is in perpetual shadow, the rim is a Peak of Eternal Light, which is (as you can probably imagine) a solar panel's dream, providing an ideal source of energy for a base.

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's...a Lunar Penguin?

Like the plot of Batman Returns going out and having a wild affair with a Harsh Mistress, rocket-powered Penguins may soon be bounding across the moon.

According to this and the article referenced there, though, this Penguin actually looks nothing like a penguin. Everyone loves penguins though, and with all the Antarctic work being done related to the moon it only makes sense that penguins should have their place on Luna, allegorically or not.

The lunar penguin is a robotic explorer, developed by defense contractor Raytheon, with the ability to jump as high as a kilometer (and over great distances) as it completes missions (searching for frozen water, etc.).

With the moon's landscape being unusually harsh, hopping may very well be a prime mode of robotic lunar travel. One thing is for sure: we're going to be seeing a wide variety of proposals (and actual rovers/robots) over the next 10 to 20 years.

Youtube: Sergey Brin on the Google Lunar X Prize

I have now, as you see, emerged out of the blogging stone age and have figured out how to embed videos in here. (It wasn't hard.)

The gentleman speaking in the video is Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, talking about the Google Lunar X Prize and sort of the inspirations and motivations for the sponsorship/prize.

Talking to people I know and always getting blanks on Moon Colonization/Integration, I sometimes forget that important people are out there that take this seriously, and it's not as fringe as my other interests sometimes are, despite the seemingly 'radical' nature of the subject. So, it's always a cool and interesting reminder to see someone like a Sergey Brin, a Stephen Hawking, or a John McCain actually out there talking about this.

Picture of the Week: Fetch, Rover

In a little toss to WALL-E's opening this past week, the Picture of the Week is a mock-up of what a Google Lunar X Prize rover might end up looking like (EDIT: See comments for the full skinny, but the good folks at Odyssey Moon Ltd. note this is an actual prototype, with the photo being from their media conference about being named the first Lunar X prize team. Thank you Mr. Richards for the comment and the further details :) ). Such a rover would have to be capable of completing a 'Mooncast', consisting of 360º photos, both HD and near-real time video, and transmission of specific data in order for the competing group to earn the $20 million prize. Additional $5 million prizes can be earned by coming in second and/or completing additional challenges, such as roving certain distances and surviving a frigid lunar night.

I personally find the giant model of the moon there to left of it almost as exciting as anything else. Put me in the same room as that thing, and I'd be all over it.