A growing but irregular lunar economy
The bumpy path of this race to the Moon's south pole shows that developing a lunar economy will be complex, and will take decades to become a reality. That part of the Moon is particularly tantalizing because its water ice would be mined for oxygen or rocket propellant, and it has “eternal light peaks,” areas that receive nearly constant solar illumination.
Getting a spacecraft safely to the Moon, and especially to the difficult terrain of the South Pole, poses many challenges. "You know the saying 'space is hard.' It's because the environment in which we are trying to operate is not the one in whi Phone Number List ch most of our technology has progressed,” says Phil Metzger, a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida who studies space economics. To name just a few of the technical factors that have to work absolutely right, the vehicle must survive the jolt of launch, the vacuum of space, and the obstacles of heat transfer and space radiation, as well as communicate with Earth, despite a significant delay. “All these conditions add up,” he highlights.
Landing attempts on Mars, with NASA's Perseverance rover , and on a comet with the European Space Agency's "Philae" module in 2014, proved incredibly arduous, and the Moon's unique topography comes with its own difficulties. "It is a complex engineering task not only to design the vehicles to reach the Moon, but also to develop the control systems that have to operate autonomously and be able to respond to the limited atmosphere, the rugged terrain, the variation in the lightning. All of this has to be taken into account together,” explains Ron Birk, development executive at the Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit think tank, and president of the American Astronautical Society.
Safe landing areas, without too much shadow or steep slopes, are rare. The Moon's south pole spans about 100,000 square kilometers, roughly the size of the U.S. state of Kentucky. Ideally, space agencies would choose a location close to another where they could establish a lunar base or mining operation. Although the Outer Space Treaty prohibits nations from owning territory on the Moon, the Artemis Accords allow them to demarcate exclusive “safety areas” around equipment or facilities.
And nations should not clutter those sites with mechanical waste, which would complicate future missions. Like hikers heading into the woods, it's important to think carefully about what you bring and what you take out into the woods, Birk points out.
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India's success does not mean the end of the race to the Moon's south pole , but it does strengthen its position. “This will undoubtedly contribute to its status as an emerging power with technological capacity. “What happens in space is a reflection of what happens geopolitically on Earth,” says Cassandra Steer, an expert in space law and security at the Australian National University in Canberra. And although Roscosmos suffered a setback, it is not the end of its lunar program, nor of its role in the new competition for the Moon. The Soviets beat the United States in every phase of the 20th century space race, Steer recalls, except for landing astronauts on the Moon. Now, Russia intends to collaborate with China on a lunar research station.
Over the past decade, China's space program has achieved considerable success in landing spacecraft on the Moon, including its Chang'e 3, Chang'e 4 and Chang'e 5 missions in 2013. , 2019 and 2020. India's Chandrayaan-2 and Israel's Beresheet lander failed in 2019. Japan's Ispace lander also failed in April.
In fact, until China made its first moon landing, the Moon had arguably been neglected for decades. NASA ended its “Apollo” mission in 1972, and the Soviet Union’s “Luna-24” mission in 1976 was the last successful lunar landing. This would mean a limited track record, especially for Russia, which would make it difficult to develop and execute new lunar missions, Metzger maintains.
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