The Seventh Landing: Going Back to the Moon, This Time to Stay

185 Pages·2009·10.28 MB·English

by  Michael Carroll (auth.)

The Seventh Landing
Going Back to the Moon, This Time to Stay
The Seventh Landing
Going Back to the Moon, This Time to Stay
Written and illustrated by Michael Carroll
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Michael Carroll
6280 W.Chesnut Ave.
Littleton CO 80128
USA
[email protected]
http://stock-space-images.com
ISBN 978-0-387-93880-6 e-ISBN 978-0-387-93881-3
DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-93881-3
Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York
Library ofCongress Control Number:2009927129
© Springer Science+Business Media,LLC 2009
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Printed on acid-free paper
Springer is part ofSpringer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
“Scientists study the world as it is.
Engineers create the world that has never been.”
–Theodore Von Karman
Acknowledgements
My thanks to Gary “SiloMan”Baker for Atlas ICBM photos,Tomomi Niizeki
ofJAXA,Bill Worman for NASCAR wisdom,Karl Dodenhofffor Soviet Moon
landers, Ben Guenther for his Orlon space suit shot, Ivy Zhang at National
Geographic’s China office for help in obtaining Qin Xian’an’s beautiful photo
of the launch of Shenzhou VI,Daniel Peters of the Hal Leonard Corporation
for musical help, Anatoly Zak for all things Russian-space, Ted Stryk and
Don Mitchell for beautiful revamped space panoramas,to Marianne Dyson,
John Hall,Dan Durda,Bryce Cox,Doug Haynes,critique buddies Rebecca Rowe
and Brian Enke, Mom and Dad for input and inspiration, and my writing
soul-mate, Caroline. Special thanks goes to Maury Solomon at Springer,
whoshared the vision of this book with me and saw it to fruition,and to the
engineers, scientists and astronauts and Public Information Officers (with
special commendation to Lynette Madison and Joan Underwood) who put up
with my nagging!
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About the Author
Artist/writer Michael Carroll has over 20 years experience as a science
journalist,which has left him well-connected in the planetary science com-
munity.He has written articles and books on topics ranging from space to
archaeology. His articles have appeared in Popular Science, Astronomy, Sky
and Telescope,Astronomy Now(UK),and a host ofchildren’s magazines.His
latest book,Alien Volcanoes,was published by Johns Hopkins University Press
in the fall of2007.His children’s book Dinosaurswas a finalist for the ECPA’s
Gold Medallion award for excellence in publishing.
Carroll has done commissioned artwork for NASA and the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory.His art has appeared in several hundred magazines throughout
the world, including National Geographic, Time, Smithsonian, Astronomy,
andothers.One ofhis paintings is on the deck ofthe PhoenixMars lander at
the Martian north pole.Carroll is the 2006 recipient of the Lucien Rudaux
Award for lifetime achievement in the Astronomical Arts,and is a Fellow of
the International Association for the Astronomical Arts.
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Foreword
In the early morning hours ofJuly 16,1969,I stood with several hundred NASA
and contractor employees and journalists outside of the crew quarters at
Kennedy Space Center.I watched as three young Americans,Neil Armstrong,
Buzz Aldrin,and Michael Collins,emerged,clad in their white spacesuits.They
walked by me,just a few feet away,to a waiting van that took them to Launch
Pad 39A for the first step in their journey to the Moon. It was almost as if
Ihadbeen present on August 3,1492,as Christopher Columbus set sail from
Spain to the New World.Almost four days later,Armstrong and Aldrin became
the first humans to land on Earth’s off-shore island.
I plan once again to be nearby,a decade or so from now,when four new
explorers set off from Florida for humanity’s seventh landing on the Moon.
Just as was the case in 1969, that expedition will be a milestone in human
history.
In The Seventh Landing, Michael Carroll gives us in well-chosen words
and vivid images both concise background on the initial round of lunar
exploration four decades ago and a clear sense of NASA’s current plans or
returning to the Moon. Although there are certain to be changes in the
specifics of these plans as they mature,NASA is well along in designing the
systems for getting people back to the lunar surface and for setting up a long
duration human outpost there.Carroll has talked with many ofthose who are
actively involved in this new effort,and he succeeds in communicating their
almost palpable excitement as they lay the foundation for sustained human
exploration beyond Earth orbit. He also interacted with representatives of
the first generation oflunar explorers and finds them equally excited that the
United States is finally heading back to the Moon,so many years after its first
tentative exploratory journeys.
The U.S.return to the Moon will be a very different undertaking than
was Project Apollo. Then, the goal—getting to the Moon before the
Russians—was linked to the broad political contours of the U.S.-Soviet
Cold War competition for world leadership.Apollowas a unilateral demon-
stration,peaceful in character,of American power.Maintaining American
leadership is also a goal this time around, but in a very different political
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xii FOREWORD
context. Many countries are now involved in space exploration, and the
United States hopes that they will join a U.S.-led, but global in scope,
undertaking.
The Apollo goal of being first to the Moon was achieved when Neil
Armstrong took that first “small step for a man.”There is no similar end point
this time around. The seventh landing on the Moon will be just the first
achievement in an open-ended effort to explore the Moon,and eventually Mars
and beyond—an enterprise that will last for decades,even centuries.
Carroll not only describes the hardware that will carry astronauts to the
Moon and allow them to stay there for extended periods.He also summarizes
the many reasons why lunar exploration beyond that carried out during
Apollo,the eventual exploitation of lunar resources,and using the Moon to
prepare for journeys to Mars or other distant destinations are worthwhile
objectives that should command the support of the American public and
political leadership. The United States has not yet made a final decision to
move forward with its human exploration plans; that decision requires the
allocation of the funds freed up by retiring the space shuttle in the next few
years to building the lunar lander and the launch vehicle for travel to the
Moon.I certainly hope that the president who takes office in January 2009
agrees that a return to the Moon should be part ofAmerica’s future.
NASA and thirteen other space agencies in 2006 began an effort to coor-
dinate their space exploration plans, and in May 2007 the group issued a
“Global Exploration Strategy.”It is worth quoting:“Opportunities like this come
rarely.The human migration into space is still in its infancy.For the most part,
we have remained just a few kilometers above Earth’s surface—not much more
than camping out in the backyard.”It is time to leave humanity’s “backyard.”
Michael Carroll in The Seventh Landing tells us in words and pictures how
that can happen.It is up to all ofus to make real this vision ofthe future.
–John M.Logsdon
John M.Logsdon is Professor Emeritus ofPolitical Science and International
Affairs at George Washington University,Washington, D.C., and author of
The Decision to Go to the Moon: Project Apollo and the National Interest.
Currently he is the Charles A.Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History at the
National Air and Space Museum.
Contents
Introduction Doing It Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xv
One The First Explorers:Learning from History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
Two Getting There the Second Time Around . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32
Three Shackleton,the Home Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62
Four Robot-Human Combo Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78
Five Scientific Reasons to Return . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98
Six Going to Mars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .120
Afterword To Boldly Stay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .149
Chapter Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .151
Appendix 1 The Evolving Space Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .155
Appendix 2 Moon Missions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .163
Appendix 3 Mars and Asteroid/Comet Explorers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .167
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .171
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