Short Vid of the Yutu Rover Seperating From Lander

China's Yutu rover separated from it's lander platform Chang'e 3 and successfully rolled several feet away showing that the system is healthy and ready to begin exploration of the Lunar surface. 

Here is a video of the translation from lander to ground.

RIP:Frederick J. Doyle, photographic mapping specialist for NASA

I will have to admit that I knew very little about Frederick Doyle past the point of doing high resolution space/luna mapping for NASA / Apollo. As well as helping develop some very sophisticated and advanced spysat photographic equipment.

  From the Washington Post article  

• In 1969, Mr. Doyle became chairman of NASA’s Apollo Orbital Science Photographic Team, and he planned the camera systems and directed orbital science photography for Apollo lunar missions 13 through 17. 

• In 1971, Mr. Doyle received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for development of the Apollo orbital photographic system. He later directed photography projects on Mariner and Viking missions to Mars, Venus and Mercury

Mr Doyle died at 93 April 17th.

Company to Offer Expeditions to the Moon

The Golden Spike Company announced on the anniversary of Apollo 17 (the US's last Apollo mission to the moon) that it would begin offering as they put it, " routine exploration expeditions to the surface of the Moon."

Using existing rocket systems  and emerging commercial-crew spacecraft,  the company  plans to market the resulting system to "nations, individuals, and corporations with lunar exploration objectives and ambitions.  Plus offer them at a fraction of the cost of any lunar expedition envisioned so far. 

Golden Spike estimates the cost for a two-person lunar surface mission will start at $1.4 billion.  Golden Spike says that this price point is very competitive as many of the countries are already spending for robotic equipment.

Boing Boing article

I was going to also include the Golden Spike web address but I received a 404 error....

Mysteries of Moon Dust...Finally Solved?

Kallamis sent in an interesting note that I found facinating reading, so appologies K. I think others might enjoy the article as well.



From 69 - 72 our astronauts were bringing home cool things from the moon for study. But even before this, they noticed after landing how strange the dust acted on the moon. It seemed to hang too long above the surface after being disturbed, it got into everything and stuck there like it was sticking to tape, and was filled with super fine green and orange glass beads formed from the super heating and cooling following impacts.

Houston discovered that the dust was unusually chemically reactive for what is essentially a hunk of rock. They also found that it was lousy at conducting heat. So bad that the surface on the sun side could be at the boiling water level, and only a few feet below be far below freezing.

Thanks to new technology Geologist Marek Zbik of Queensland university may have figured out what gives the moon dust it's so called pixie dust like qualities. And now it gets good again. He wanted to look closely at the glass beads. These should have been filled with gas or vapor as any other bubble is.

"Instead of gas or vapor," says Zbik, "the lunar bubbles were filled with a highly porous network of alien-looking glassy particles that span the bubbles' interior."
Since nano particles can become statically charged, that would also explain the clinging effect of the dust.

Really interesting reading article.

Now I say we need to go back, and do some drilling. Lets just see what else we don't know yet.

Read more:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2117143,00.html#ixzz1yGpGgNpc

Also check out the WIKI article on Luna regolith and collection here  (editor)

The Luna Rover Manual?!

What's 221 pages of geekie reading nirvana? The Apollo Luna Rover Manual that's what! And now, what's even better....you can down load it as a pdf! The pdf not only shows an exploded view of the remarkable battery driven vehicle, but also how to unload it from the LEM and unfold it and plug the sub assemblies together in order to a working ride.

The PDF can be downloaded as a single file or an eight part booklet, all from the NASA site here

The Rover was included as part of the last three Moon 15, 16 and 17. The vehicle was stowed in the decent module of the L.E.M. and each one was abandoned in place at the end of each mission.

Four rovers were built for the last 4 missions. Since the program was canceled before Apollo 18 flew, the final rover was used for spare parts.

Apollo 17's rover traveled a total of 22.30 miles, its' longest single trip was 12.50 miles. Total operating time was 4 hours and 26 minutes and traveled a maximum distance from the LM of 4.7 miles.

Huge Luna Cave Discovered

In a recent Gizmodo article there is a report that the Indian Space Research Organization has discovered a "giant underground chamber" near the Moon's equator, in the Oceanus Procellarum area.

Discovered by the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft the structure is more than one mile long and 393 feet wide.

The ISRO is speculating on good uses for the huge cave. It is sufficiently well protected to block harmful radiation from damaging long term occupants as well as constant temperatures of around -4 Fahrenheit where the surface experiences huge variations in temperature.

The Moon has an Earthlike core?

From Discovery.com and Science Now comes news that researchers have discovered a here to fore unsuspected Luna characteristic.

During the Apollo Luna missions during 1969-1972, astronauts installed Passive Seismic Experimental packages. Four in all. The sensors were put in place to record motions of the Luna surface due to moon quakes and other activities. These impacts generating sound waves which were received and archived until late 1977. Recently, seismologists took another look at data collected by these four sensors. Using seismic analysis equipment with the Apollo data, scientist were able to craft a picture of the moon's interior.

Those models turned out to be pretty accurate leading the researchers to conclusions that they were not prepared for. Because it seems that the center of the Moon is very much like that of Earth!

From the article:

• The new research confirms the existence of a solid inner core and liquid outer layer, similar to Earth's. Unlike Earth, the moon also has a partly melted, mushy layer over that.
• The study supports the commonly held theory that the moon formed after a large object smashed into Earth about four billion years ago, creating a cloud of debris that gradually coalesced into our satellite companion.

Read the complete article here

Courtney's link to the Science Now article on the subject

Hey....wanna buy a lem?

Hey, check out what 89 large gets ya! Oh yeah, it IS a model. So why does a model cost 89000? It's a 1 to 1 model of the Apollo era Luna Excursion Module all 20.9 feet of it! Available from Spacetoys.com it comes with or without a complete interior oh and no you can't rent it! lol.

Moon Dust, NASA's Dirty Little Secret

The trouble with not doing something for 30 some odd years and then doing it again is that facts that were obvious then have been forgotten due to lack of use now. Take for example an article in Science Daily. Apollo astronauts has a major issue with Moon dust. It was as fine as flour and rough as sandpaper, Moon dust caused ‘lunar hay fever,’ problems with space suits, and dust storms in the crew cabin upon returning to space. During the Apollo 17 mission, for example, crewmembers Harrison “Jack” Schmitt and Gene Cernan had trouble moving their arms during moonwalks because dust had gummed up the joints. The dust was so abrasive that it actually wore through three layers of Kevlar-like material on Jack Schmitt's boot. The material is also so static laden that it sticks and coats everything it touches. Because of the dust's high iron content, preliminary studies suggest that the inhalation of lunar dust may pose a health hazard, possibly including iron toxicity. These and many other problems with the Lunar environment need to be addressed for any long term occupation can take place.

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The first official image of a Russian-European manned Luna spacecraft

The BBC via Gizmodo has released the first "official" images of the proposed Russian/Euro manned follow on to the Soyuz space capsule. Designed to replace the Soyuz vehicle currently in use by Russia - it will allow Europe to participate directly in crew transportation. Ultimately the reusable ship may well be utilized to carry four people towards the Moon. That's right, Four - bettering the US Ares/Orion system. Among other improvements besides the crew complement size is the emphasis on re-usability. Plans for the capsule entale making a soft landing using rocket engines unlike the Soyuz predicessor. Resembling America's next-generation spacecraft Orion. (though it could be said that Orion bears a striking resemblance to a Soyuz) The Russian-European vehicle is designed to carry six crew into low-Earth orbit and four on missions to lunar orbit. Also in the planning stages are possibilities of using the new Vostochny Cosmodrome being developed in Russia's eastern Amur region.

What Ever Happened to the Apollo Moon Rocks?

Barry sends in an article from the Times if not pressing, is interesting and thought provoking. The question is, what is the present status of the Luna samples brought back by the Apollo astronauts. Since Apollo 11 landed July 20 1969, Apollo crews brought back over 800 pounds of Moon rocks and soil. Far from laying fallow for the past 39 years, this material has been the focus of constant scientific scrutiny. The samples are divided into 2,200 samples. Each are numbered and sorted by expedition starting with Apollo 11’s historic mission in 1969 and ending with Apollo 17 in December 1972. Each sample is kept in nitrogen-filled boxes in a stainless steel vault on the second floor of the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility. A 14,000-square-foot repository at the Johnson Space Center. Each time any one of the samples are moved they are transferred to other parts of the lab in airlocks. Technicians who prepare small pieces of each sample for shipments have to use glove boxes containing sterile tools and containers. Each year an independent peer review panel evaluates new research proposals, and curators mail out about 400 lunar samples to 40 to 50 scientists worldwide. Almost all are less than one gram in size. Even these are considered loans.

For the complete article in the New York Times about the ongoing research on Luna material, click here

How to Win the Google Lunar X Prize and Beat NASA to the Moon

The year is 2012. A quarter-million miles from Earth, a small spacecraft is nearing the surface of the moon. When the unmanned craft touches down in a cloud of rocket-blown dust, it becomes the first man-made object to arrive intact on the lunar surface in 32 years. But the logo on the side of the spacecraft doesn't belong to NASA or any other government space agency. Instead the spacecraft reveal a familiar multicolored corporate logo: Google's.

David Noland writing for Popular Mechanics in the June 2008 issue weaves a scenario reminiscent of biblical David and Goliath, where the common man could conceivably take on corporate and governmental giants to be the first private person to land a craft on another world. Click the article title to go to the Popular Mechanic's article

Illustration is PM’s vision of a lunar lander on arrival. (Illustration by Jeremy Cook)

Future Luna Bases Might Walk to Their Next Location

Shaun Saunders came across a very neat article in space.com. A robotic Luna base with legs no less. called the ATHLETE (All-Terrain Hex-Legged Extra-Terrestrial Explorer) the robot or robotic mobile platform could play an essential role in new lunar bases. The platform would have new habitats mounted to it and it would quite literally walk (or roll, should the terrain -is that the right word for the moon? lol - be flat enough) to where the habitat is to be set up. Athlete can be controlled by the astronauts themselves, mission control and it is likely that autonomous functions would be incorporated.

Of course to implement Athlete one major obstical needs to be addressed. That of the mindset of NASA which has always in the past favored fixed position habitats. So even though the prototypes are being tested, the major break-though is going to have to be in the minds of people who set the missions up. Also as Shaun points out, the downside of solar radiation has to be addressed as well.

'Lunar Ark' Proposed

Wow, does this bring a 70s science fiction movie to mind or what!!!!! name that film!!!
From nationalgeographic.com via the fine folks at Boing boing: David Pescovitz writes:

Researchers at the International Space University (ISU) in France propose that NASA's planned lunar base should also include a "biological and historical archive" of human civilization. The idea is that this "ark" would preserve humanity's history if the Earth is destroyed by an asteroid or comet. From National Geographic.

Give up? What movie am I talking about?

Drum roll please

Silent Running

Bruce Dern + Huey, Dewey and Louie

A Plan to Build a Giant Liquid Telescope on the Moon

from WIRED:

Roger Angel a leading astronomer at the University of Arizona, is proposing an enormous liquid-mirror telescope on the moon that could be hundreds of times more sensitive than the Hubble Space Telescope. Using a rotating dish of reflective liquid as its primary mirror, Angel's telescope would the largest ever built, and would permit astronomers to study the oldest and most distant objects in the universe, including the very first stars. LMT's or liquid mirror telescopes, have been built on Earth -- the Large Zenith Telescope in British Columbia is the third largest telescope in North America -- but the moon's low gravity and lack of atmosphere would allow for a truly gigantic instrument. Angel dreams of a 100-meter mirror, which would be larger than two side-by-side football fields and would collect 1,736 times more light than the Hubble. Even a 20-meter instrument, which is more likely in the near term, would be 70 times more sensitive than the Hubble and could detect objects 100 times fainter than those that will be seen with the James Webb Space Telescope, a next-generation orbiting observatory scheduled for launch in 2013.

Thanks to Shaun Saunders for the post

Lunar dust 'may harm astronauts'

Scientists are investigating the possible threat posed to astronauts by inhaling lunar dust.

A study suggests the smallest particles in lunar dust might be toxic, if comparisons with dust inhalation cases on Earth apply.

Teams hope to carry out experiments on mice to determine whether this is the case or not.

Nasa has set up a working group to look into the matter ahead of its planned return to the Moon by 2020.

The health effects of inhaling lunar dust have been recognised since Nasa's Apollo missions.

Astronaut Harrison H (Jack) Schmitt, the last man to step on to the Moon in Apollo 17, complained of "lunar dust hay fever" when his dirty space suit contaminated the habitation module after an energetic foray on the lunar surface.

submitted by Shaun A. Saunders