While Lockheed Martin begins work on the next manned spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit, engineers at NASA?s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt are already working on an expedition to scope out a moon base.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, an unmanned pod carrying a variety of instrumentation, will search the moon?s poles for a stable place to land and, hopefully, find some trace of frozen water the base?s inhabitants could use.
Previous moon landings in the Apollo series chose spots closer to the moon?s equator because they were easier to reach by rocket, David Everett, mission systems engineer said.
Practice will make perfect.
“If you buy a whole bunch of new camping equipment, the first thing you do is set it up in your backyard, before you go out on some backpacking expedition,” Everett said.
A manned moon mission using Lockheed Martin?s new lander design could be in the works as early as 2010, according to NASA documents. After several short- and longer-term stays on the moon, the lander could be considered for a manned flight to Mars.
However, any kind of long-term base there would have to carry extensive insulation and heat shielding to withstand daily temperature shifts of as much as 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is scheduled to depart for its flyover in October 2008, Everett said. Once it completes its survey and mapping mission, part of the module can be driven into the moon?s surface to measure the composition of any dust it kicks up.
