European Scientists Make a Case for a Return to the Moon

While the official target of NASA’s space exploration program remains exploring Earth approaching asteroids, the case for a return to the moon has been made from a variety of quarters.

The most recent attempt to make a case for the moon is in a paper, entitled Back to the Moon: The Scientific Rationale for Resuming Lunar Surface Exploration soon to be published in the journal Planetary and Space Science, as reported in the Atlantic.

Authors of the return to the moon paper come from a variety of countries

The authors of the paper come from a number of European academic institutions. They include Ian Crawford, of Birkbeck College in London and colleagues from the Open University, the Natural History Museum, King’s College, and the University of Edinburgh in the U.K., Radboud University and Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy in the Netherlands, and the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie and the Institute of Planetary Research in Germany, and the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris in France.

The paper makes the scientific case for a return to the moon

The paper suggests the moon’s geology provides clues to the origin of the Earth-moon system as well as the geologic development of rocky planets in general and the Earth-moon cosmic environment. In addition, the moon provides opportunities for research in a variety of fields, including “astronomy, astrobiology, fundamental physics, life sciences and human physiology and medicine.”

The paper divides up the scientific merit of the moon into three categories. They are science of the moon, i.e. study of its geology, etc, science on the moon, i.e. using the moon as a platform for science research (biomedical research for example), and science from the moon, using the moon as a platform for astronomical observatories.

Robots vs. humans

While the paper mentions that many of the scientific objectives it relates could be achieved by robotic exploration, it emphasizes that human explorers are also vital for achieving a scientific understanding on the moon and its relationship with the rest of the solar system. This conclusion is similar to the one that was reached in a 2005 study of space exploration by the Royal Astronomical Society that also concluded that human explorers are vital.

Paper parallels some American thinking on lunar exploration

Paul Spudis, a research scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, made some of the same arguments that the European return to the moon paper is making. Spudis took on the asteroids vs. moon argument and found that not only does the moon win on scientific merits, but also for ease of operation and for resource utilization.

Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker. He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the L.A. Times, and The Weekly Standard.

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