The last time a human being stepped on the surface of the Moon was in December 1972, during the mission Apollo 17. Over the ensuing decades, the Nasa planned the return of man to our natural satellite, however, many difficulties postponed possible missions. These obstacles are not technological but political and economic.
despite the apollo mission having been closed in 1972, the Moon still remains an object of study of great interest to the Nasa. Thanks to manned missions there, NASA was able to send more than 500 soil and rock samples from the satellite to various institutions around the world. Scientific analyzes of these samples have yielded important new knowledge for us to understand the history, structure and composition of our only natural satellite.
Read too: Apollo 11: all about the mission that took man to the moon
Although we have not returned to the Moon, today we know, in detail, its surface relief, as well as its mineral composition. The most notable examples of human interest in the Moon are the
unmanned robotic probes sent to photograph and gather information about the lunar surface.Among these rigs, we highlight the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), launched by NASA in 2009. Currently, this probe is in the Moon's orbit, with a speed of 1.6 km/s and 50 km from the lunar ground.
Artistic conception of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a lunar probe launched in 2019. (Image credits: NASA)
Through LRO, an enormous amount of information is being extracted from the Moon. In some of the photos taken by the probe, it was even possible to recognize the landing site, footprints and some objects left by astronauts from the Apollo project missions.
Thanks to the presence of robotic probes and various technological devices left on the moon, mankind has gained a great deal of knowledge about this one. And at least until then, it was not necessary to invest again the same massive amount of financial resources to know its details.
According to NASA, the company has been making efforts to lead a program of space explorationsustainable and innovative, with the help of entrepreneurs from all over the world. However, the agency's main focus is not the Moon, but the exploration of the Solar system. You start with the Moon, so that you can then reach Mars.
Therefore, it can be said that the man hasn't returned to the moon yet because there is no longer as much interest in exploring it as before. Today we already possess and continuously produce a quantity of relevant knowledge, only with the current equipment and procedures, without the need to be there.
However, man will soon be back on the Moon again, around 2024, but with another purpose: to install a space exploration outpost on lunar soil.
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See too: Space race: context, main events, how it ended
Artemis Project
NASA recently released its new mission, which is scheduled to start in 2024: Artemis. According to the mythology, Artemis is the Greek goddess representing the Moon and Apollo's sister, whose name, referring to the discoveries and colonization, served as the bastion for the program that took man to the moon for the first time.
The main objective of this next mission is to study the possibilities of colonizing the Moon, to that, in the future, around 2030, it will be possible to launch rockets towards Mars that will depart from our satellite.
Some of the Artemis project's goals include take the first woman to the moon and also the development of a spacecraft capable of taking humans back to the satellite, as well as exploring the farthest reaches of the Solar System. This spaceship, named as Orion, will be equipped with a large amount of highly reliable resources and technologies that will enable voyages of up to six months in duration manned by up to six astronauts.
O Artemis project it is ambitious, but has the participation of private companies. Boeing, for example, will produce the largest rocket ever built by mankind, the Space Launch System (SLS). length and will be able to transport up to 45 tons of equipment off Earth, as well as being responsible for launching the Orion spacecraft towards the moon. According to NASA estimates, the mission will cost approximately $30 billion.
Artistic design of the SLS rocket.
The Artemis quest will be divided into three distinct steps. The first stage, unmanned, will be held in 2020 and will serve to carry out various preliminary tests. The second flight, scheduled for 2022, will take a small crew on a trip that will orbit the Moon. The last stage of the mission will be the delivery of parts, made by the spacecraft Orion, for the construction of the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (LOP-G).
The LOP-G, aka Gateway, will be a large space station that will be in lunar orbit and will receive the necessary resources so that human beings can temporarily settle on the Moon in a sustainable way. Resource collection will be performed by spacecraft Orion, which will bring Gateway's resources to the surface of the Moon.
THE LOP-G space station it will cost about 450 million dollars and will be financed by the US government, in addition to several private companies. The LOP-G will describe a six-day elliptical orbit around the Moon, at heights ranging from 1500 km to 70,000 km. The station will work with solar energy and will generate about 50 kW of energy based on the photoelectric effect. The propulsion of this space station will work based on electricity generated by the solar panels installed on it..
This propulsion system — the Advanced Electric Propulsion System (AEPS) — will consist of four electric thrusters of approximately 12.5 kW of power each. Electric thrusters work based on the acceleration ofions gaseous (like the xenon) by applying an intense electric field. When the gases are expelled out of the thrusters, a reaction force acts on the rocket, producing an opposite force that is capable of accelerating the spacecraft.
The mission that will take humans to the moon again is directly linked with the mars exploration. The manned missions to the Moon will allow tests to be carried out with new technologies that could someday be used on Mars, such as habitat artificial humans and new life support systems. In this way, in the future, we may be able to build self-sustaining exploration outposts, even far from Earth.
See too:Meet the probe that will "touch" the Sun
By Me. Rafael Helerbrock
