(ORDO NEWS) — The last time humans landed on the moon was in 1972. American astronaut Eugene Cernan left his Hasselblad 500 camera on the surface before flying home.
He hoped that the next crew would take the camera (thus it would be possible to find out how radiation affects the film), but for more than 50 years no one has been flying along the Apollo route.
Everyone ran and I ran…
The Moon was again remembered after large reserves of ice were discovered at the very beginning of the 21st at its South and North Poles.
It became clear that the colonization of the satellite is quite possible: right there on the spot you can extract drinking and technical water, as well as get energy from hydrogen.
Nine countries have already announced their projects to explore the moon
1- China is the leader of the second lunar race. Beijing has landed a lander on the far side of the moon for the first time in history. Successfully implemented a project for the collection and delivery of lunar soil to Earth. The Chinese lunar rover Yutu has been traveling on the surface for 3.5 years. A manned expedition is scheduled for 2030.
2- The United States intends to resume astronauts visiting the moon in 2025. In 2024, the construction of the orbital station will begin. Japan and the European Space Agency also participate in this project.
3- In the fall of 2023, Russia will launch the Luna-25 automatic apparatus, which will search for water at the South Pole. The expedition with the sampling of soil and its delivery to Earth is scheduled for 2027. The landing of astronauts is expected in the 30s. At the same time, together with China, we are going to start building a habitable base on the lunar surface.
4- India is launching the Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission in June 2023. It includes a lunar rover and a lunar lander, which will perform the functions of communication with the Earth.
5- Japan sent the Hakuto-R lander, it should land on the moon in April. In 2024, Hakuto-R Mission 2 will deliver the first lunar rover of the Land of the Rising Sun to the surface of the Queen of the Night.
6- The European Union intends to explore the lava tubes and caves of the night star. Lava tubes are an extremely promising place for arranging a habitable base. ESA is currently working with Airbus to develop a large cargo lander capable of delivering 1.5 tons of equipment and payload anywhere on the Moon. The first flights are scheduled for the end of the 20s.
7- South Korea launched its first Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter last year. The probe will look for suitable landing sites, look for ice deposits in craters and test the wireless Internet. The Koreans plan to land the robot on the surface in 2031.
8- Israel, as part of the Bereshit-2 project, will launch three spacecraft to the Moon in 2024: two of them will descend to the surface, one will work in orbit.
9- The United Arab Emirates last year launched the Rashid mini-lunar rover (weighing just 10 kilograms). Landing is scheduled for April 2023. The mission of the second Arab lunar rover is scheduled for 2026.
What are you doing there?
What is it that attracts superpowers to our satellite?
1- The moon is the gateway to deep space
Our planet is a deep gravity well. To overcome the gravity of the Earth, a huge amount of energy is needed. What is a modern disposable rocket?
At the start, this is a huge barrel weighing 100,000 tons, which is 90 percent filled with fuel. A structure that weighs 50 tons flies to the Moon, and a burnt 3-ton shell with a crew returns to Earth.
In general, it turns out extremely uneconomical. Therefore, a manned flight to Mars is now possible only one way.
Lunar astronautics will be completely different from what we are used to seeing, – explains Vladimir Surdin. – There is no atmosphere on the Moon, which means there is no friction force.
The force of gravity here is 6 times less, so even rockets are not needed for flight.
You can launch spacecraft not vertically upwards, but parallel to the surface: put the ship on a trolley and accelerate along the rails using an electric motor.
Such a scheme reduces the cost of space flights hundreds of times and makes Mars and Venus accessible.
2- Fuel for thermonuclear reactors
Analyzes of the lunar soil showed that a lot of the light isotope Helium-3 had accumulated in a thin surface layer.
It is planned to be used as fuel for thermonuclear reactors (scientists are close to controlling thermonuclear fusion). Helium-3 is also found on Earth, but in extremely small quantities.
The cost of one liter of gas reaches 1200 US dollars. On the Moon, the concentration is much higher, the minimum estimate of reserves exceeds 500 thousand tons.
The market value of this resource is more than 10 quadrillion dollars, about 500 annual GDP of a country like the United States.
Scientists have calculated: in order to provide the entire population of the Earth with energy during the year, 30 tons of helium are enough.
3- Solar panels and electricity.
There is no atmosphere or clouds on the Moon, so the efficiency of solar panels, according to calculations, is twice as high as ours.
And if you install the panels on the back of the month, then the sun will illuminate them constantly.
There have even been projects that involved the transmission of lunar electricity to Earth using laser beams or directed microwave radiation.
But it is easier to use this electricity directly on the moon. After all, they plan to deploy a large construction there: inhabited bases, spaceports, scientific complexes and much more.
“For example, radio astronomers dream of building a huge radio telescope on the Moon,” says Surdin.
Because on Earth, an antenna with a diameter of more than 100 meters cannot be made because it will break under its own weight.
And on the Moon, a plate can be made a kilometer and a half in size and it will be light and weightless.
Remote sensing data says that there are a lot of metals in the soil. There are projects to create fully automatic metallurgical plants.
For which the conditions of the moon, where there is no atmosphere, this is the ideal place for production.
The quality of metal produced in vacuum is much higher, because there are no gas bubbles in such a casting, which weaken the material.
What secrets have already discover?
There are traces of Jurassic Park on the satellite
One of the most amazing discoveries was made during the study of a portion of lunar soil brought by the Chinese apparatus Chang’e-5 in 2020.
Carefully examining the lunar grains of sand, scientists have found a substance from the Earth. The grains are 65 million years old.
Namely, 65 million years ago, a global catastrophe happened on Earth: a 10-kilometer meteorite collided with our planet, which destroyed dinosaurs and many other animal species.
It turned out that the explosion was so strong that part of the ejected matter flew to the moon.
And now the surface of the night star is sometimes covered with a thin layer of terrestrial matter, which remembers the last day of tyrannosaurs, triceratops and other inhabitants of the real Jurassic Park.
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