Tuesday, February 27, 2007

More Space





I wanted to know more about The LCROSS mission and wonder; is it possible for astronauts to use moon water to fuel their rockets?
A fleet of soft-landing, automated spacecraft could begin lunar astronomy missions to the
moon to offers advantages for astronomy. Ultra-thin liquid mirrors on giant optical telescopes that hold their shape could scan the skies for pulsars and other radio sources since the moon's far side completely blocks Earth's radio transmissions. This could reach areas that are permanently shaded from sunlight where the moon is as cold as outer space. Infrared telescopes could peer through dust clouds masking other solar systems and galaxies as slow rotation would give them days of uninterrupted observing time without tricky spacecraft maintenance.
Full-scale lunar observatories are expensive, but reaching the moon within just a few years is America‘s goal. Next year, two spacecraft will piggyback aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission. The LCROSS mission will probe crash into a crater at the moon's south pole to see if water ice is lurking there, and the other will measure solar and cosmic radiation, while adhesive strips attached to its skin will help determine how much lunar dust gets lofted up from the surface. If there is substantial ice in the craters of the Moon’s poles astronauts plan to make rocket fuel with it!!!
A 1-meter telescope with no moving parts could be placed on the moon's surface within a few years. There, it could scan up to 7500 stars simultaneously for the light-dimming effects of transiting extrasolar planets.
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/219/1
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/multimedia/images/2006/lunarorbiter.html

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