NASA Prepares for Return to the Moon
07:23 a.m. Jan 05, 1998 Eastern
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - The U.S. space agency made
final preparations for the launch of a low-cost, water-seeking
robot probe to the moon, its first mission to earth's closest
celestial neighbor in 25 years.
The Lunar Prospector probe was scheduled to blast off from Cape
Canaveral Monday at 8:31 p.m. EST and to arrive in orbit around
the moon five days later.
Scientists were hoping the year-long mission would answer
questions left unanswered by the six Apollo moon-landings and
about a dozen robotic missions in the 1960s and 1970s,
especially the question of whether there is water on the
Earth's only natural satellite.
''You won't see a lunar lake with moon penguins skating around
on it,'' Scott Hubbard, Lunar Prospector mission manager, told
a prelaunch news conference. ''What you will have here is water
ice mixed in within the lunar soil.''
Lunar Prospector does not carry a camera, but its five
scientific instruments will probe the moon's surface for
minerals, magnetic fields, gravitational anomalies and
frozen water.
''I think a lot of people have the idea that perhaps we know
all there is to know about the moon, but the reality is we have
only just scratched the surface,'' said Michael Drake, director
of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of
Arizona. ''There is a lot that we still have to learn.''
Program scientist Joseph Boyce said finding ice in the pole
region would boost any plan to build an Earth outpost on the
moon. ''Finding ice in the pole regions is very important if
someday we want to have a lunar base,'' he said.
For decades, scientists have speculated that water ice could be
hidden within the rims of craters at the moon's south pole,
permanently shaded from the brilliant sunlight that has baked
dry the rest of the lunar surface.
Up to a billion tons of water from icy comets could have
accumulated at the lunar poles, but scientists are not
expecting to find a vast expanse of water.
Results from a U.S. Department of Defense experimental
spacecraft called Clementine provided evidence that water ice
does exist at the moon's south pole, but many scientists remain
skeptical.
Lunar Prospector's electronic divining rod, which detects the
hydrogen atoms in water, could provide a conclusive answer
within a month of reaching the moon.
''If there is a cup of water in a cubic yard of lunar soil we
will see it,'' Hubbard said.
Lunar Prospector is the latest of NASA's new low cost missions,
built under NASA's new ''faster, cheaper, better'' philosophy.
With a price tag of $63 million, it cost a tiny fraction of the
multibillion dollar Apollo program.
The small spacecraft will be launched atop a new low-cost
rocket built by Lockheed Martin Corp, from a launch pad at Cape
Canaveral originally designed to test-fly missiles carrying
nuclear warheads.
''We wanted to show that for the cost of a typical Hollywood
movie you can explore interplanetary space, I personally feel
this is the best $63 million mission money can buy,'' Hubbard
said.
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