50 years after NASA managed to land men on the Moon, has science
always taken the proverbial “back seat” when it comes to lunar exploration?
By: Ringo Bones
As humanity celebrates the 50th Anniversary of
the Moon landing, it seems that – then and now – science has always taken the
proverbial “back seat” when it comes for reasons for the multi-billion dollar
lunar exploration missions. With NASA and the powers that be at Capitol Hill
already has serious plans for returning to the Moon, it seems that the “science
part” of the upcoming missions – like checking out those water deposits that were
spotted by visiting unmanned robotic spacecraft during the past few years are
usually mentioned last during a typical press interview. Though it is quite
refreshing that during a somewhat “misogynistic” U.S. administration that there
has been emphasis on sending the first woman astronaut to the Moon as part of
the team who will be landing there as soon as 2024, when it comes to the
science part of the mission, the intrepid researcher has typically has to “Google
deeply” or check out books that were first published back in 1970.
During my elementary and high school days back in the late
1970s and the 1980s, the “scientific instruments” bought by the first trio of
NASA astronauts to the Moon – i.e. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael
Collins – were not quite general knowledge. It wasn’t until one delves deeply
in their local library to find out that the first trio of astronauts did carry
a tinfoil made shade to capture “solar wind” particles, a portable seismograph
to test for “Moon quakes” and a quartz laser retro-reflector to measure the
distance between the Earth and the Moon to an accuracy of less than 1
centimeter. The first trio of astronauts who land on the lunar surface may not
be “professional scientists” but their mission is for all intents and purposes
is a “scientific mission” that’s shrouded in Cold War era politics.
