New Moon Map

This week, scientists released the best topographical map of the Moon ever created.  The new map, which covers 98.2 percent of the Moon's surface, gives detailed topo information down to the 100 meter scale.  This is an impressive feat that could only have been accomplished with NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).

The new, detailed, topographic map of the moon (NASA Goddard).

LRO, launched in 2009 and costing a little over $500 million, has been a resounding success.  In addition to the camera and on board altimeter that helped create the new topographic map, LRO has a number of other high-tech devices; the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment (DLRE) has created a thermal map of the Lunar surface, while the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) is helping to determine how detrimental cosmic rays might be to biological organisms on the Moon's surface.

The completion of this map comes at an opportune time.  Early next year, NASA's twin GRAIL spacecraft will arrive in lunar orbit, and create the most accurate gravity map of the Moon to date.  This combination of topographical, thermal, and gravity mapping will give scientists truly new insights into all aspects of the Moon's formation and subsequent development.

It's good to see that while NASA's manned program is shifting away from the Moon toward asteroids and Mars, a healthy robotic exploration of the Moon continues.  And it isn't just NASA that shows continued interest in the Moon.  As I've discussed before, China has distant plans to land human beings on the Moon - and while that might be a while off, they have launched two orbiters to our natural satellite, Chang'e 1 and Chang'e 2, as part of their own robotic exploration program.  India, also, launched and operated the highly successful Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft in orbit around the Moon.

There are also a number of private companies and individuals showing interest in lunar exploration.  Bigelow Aerospace wants to build inflatable habitats on the surface of the Moon to compliment their planned inflatable orbital station.  Shackleton Energy is looking into the possibility of extracting hydrogen and oxygen from the lunar surface, processing it into fuel, and building a fuel depot in lunar orbit.  And the Google Lunar X Prize, a $30 million contest to put a rover on the Moon, has some serious entries from cutting edge engineering teams from across the nation.  These are all ambitious plans, but the greater number of entities interested and involved in lunar exploration, the more the cost will come down, and the greater the chances of success of one or more of these projects.

Artist's rendition of a Bigelow Aerospace lunar base (Bigelow Aerospace).

Lunar exploration will go forward, and NASA's continued remote exploration of our closest neighbor will be absolutely vital.  My hope is that lunar programs don't lose steam with the coming robotic and manned explorations of other bodies in the solar system.