Lunar Missions: End of Celestial Tranquility

While for most people the quiet evening and night hours begin with the rise of the moon, for the astronomer Johann Friedrich Julius Schmidt the work really began. In countless nights he observed, measured and sketched the surface of the moon and thus created the most accurate map of the side of the moon facing the earth at the time: almost 33,000 individual craters are shown in detail in the work “Chart of the Mountains of the Moon” published in 1878 Contemporaries have extensive material to admire or (for the insomniac) to recount.

Selenography, also known as lunar mapping, had a long tradition. The first known sketches came from Galileo Galilei, who used a telescope to observe and record the structures of our companion. And in the 19th century, manual drawing was still superior to the newly emerging photography, as initially very long exposure times could not be combined with the movement of the moon and the depth of detail in the early photographs was hardly sufficient for meaningful images. The first confirmed image of the moon, a daguerreotype from 1840, taken by John Draper, shows our satellite in a rather simple, almost craterless beauty.

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Despite all the scientific enthusiasm for mapping the moon, it remained of a symbolic nature – because the usual use of (earthly) maps did not exist: no ruler sought to determine his territorial claim and no traveler sought his destination.

But the latter was about to change in the 1950s – and quickly! The “space race” between the USA and the Soviet Union turned into a “race to the moon” after Soviet successes. And the USA achieved this goal – with three astronauts, including Neil Armstrong, who triggered storms of earthly enthusiasm with his big step in the lunar lowland “Sea of ​​Tranquility”. Since then, twelve people have set foot on the moon; in December 1972, Eugene Cernan became the last lunar traveler to close the spacecraft door behind him on the Apollo 17 mission. Since then, there have been no more human visitors, but a large number of unmanned missions have targeted the moon: a total of five government space organizations have carried out successful soft landings on the lunar surface. After the USA and the Soviet Union, China, India, Japan followed, and with the “Odysseus” probe from the private US company “Intuitive Machines”, the first commercial moon landing was recently successfully achieved (even if it subsequently tipped over).

After all the successful but rather impersonal visits to the moon, NASA’s space project “Artemis” will again focus on manned trips to the moon in the next few years – and with it, sooner or later, the question of “luggage”. Although there are currently no concrete plans to build permanent lunar bases, the availability of resources such as water and raw materials would be of fundamental importance. With its “Commercial Lunar Payload Services” program, NASA relies on contracts with private companies and other institutions such as universities or space agencies of other nations, which can bring payloads to the moon in search of resources. Although the “Outer Space Treaty” of 1967 regulates fundamental aspects of activities in the exploration and use of outer space, including the moon, it does not provide any information on the exploitation of resources or even mining activities.

With a nice, soft landing, numerous robots and rovers could search the moon for useful objects in the future. And with so much activity, astronomers now fear that the sea of ​​calm could soon be over and that unique opportunities for science will be lost.

For example, the lunar craters lying in eternal shadow are of interest as possible locations for large amounts of water ice. At the same time, the regions can also provide a unique and previously unchanged insight into the distribution and origin of water in the solar system – and thus also answers to the question of how the Earth got its enormous water reserves. In addition, the ice-cold craters are also considered a possible location for a new generation of infrared telescopes. The wavelength range of the James Webb Telescope (JWST), limited by the size of the mirror and in particular the temperature of its components, could be expanded with a lunar telescope to wavelengths that have hardly been studied to date, thus complementing the already spectacular images taken by the JWST. This could also expand the search for small rocky planets that orbit particularly cool, very faint stars.

And the moon could also serve as an astronomical outpost in the radio wave range: a radio telescope on the side of the moon facing away from Earth would be completely shielded from the permanent earthly noise and could thus “hear” what had previously been hidden from astronomers – such as information from the time when the first galaxies were formed. If satellites orbit the moon in the future to send signals to vehicles on the lunar surface, the “celestial peace” could quickly come to an end.

And then all the rolling, drilling and rumbling! Since the Apollo 17 mission, the moon has been considered as a possible base for gravitational wave detectors. The “Lunar Surface Gravimeter” at the time was not sensitive enough to actually detect gravitational waves – but since the moon is considered one of the seismically quietest places in the solar system, our satellite is still a possible location for future detectors. However, extensive ground activity could cause such an experiment to fail.

So it remains to be hoped that the 33,000 craters on the Earth-facing side alone will provide enough space for astronomers and lunar “miners”.

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