US Scientists Plot Return to the Moon's Surface

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NASA astronaut Eugene Cernan led the Apollo 17 mission to the Moon in 1972.

PLANETARY SCIENCE US scientists plot return to the Moon’s surface Lunar researchers seize on Trump administration’s political interest in exploration.

BY ALEXANDRA WITZE February, he proposed a 2019 budget that is the first chance for an extended research would allow the agency to begin planning programme since President Barack Obama can- hen Apollo astronaut Gene Cernan a US$200-million lunar exploration pro- celled exploration plans in 2010. “It’s an exciting stepped off the Moon in Decem- gramme. In the weeks since, NASA officials time to be a lunar scientist,” says Ryan Watkins, ber 1972, it marked the end of US have started sketching out how that effort a Moon expert at the Planetary Science Institute Wresearchers’ access to the lunar surface. Since might unfold — from a series of small com- who works in St Louis, Missouri. then, no US mission has touched down there to mercial landers, to larger NASA landers, to a Congress has yet to approve either the presi- collect scientific data. multinational space station near the Moon that dent’s budget request or his nominee to lead That could soon change. In December, could serve as a base for robots and astronauts NASA, Representative James Bridenstine US President Donald Trump ordered NASA travelling to the lunar surface. (Republican, Oklahoma). But for now, the agen- to send astronauts back to the Moon. On 12 For US Moon researchers, Trump’s plan cy’s acting administrator is moving ahead

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BACK TO THE MOON For the first time, NASA might use NASA may send landers to the lunar surface for the rst time since the 1970s, as part commercial landers to reach the lunar surface. of a renewed exploration programme. Possible spacecraft include: Companies such as Moon Express of Cape

Canaveral, Florida, and Astrobotic of Pitts- SOURCE: NASA burgh, Pennsylvania, have been developing small landers. Neither they nor their com- petitors were able to claim the $30-million Google Lunar XPRIZE, a private effort to put landers and rovers on the Moon by the end of this month. Still, many expect NASA to call in MX-1 LANDER PEREGRINE LANDER LUNAR ROVER LUNAR ORBITAL the coming months for proposals that rely on PLATFORM-GATEWAY Builder: Builder: Builder: small commercial landers. Moon Express of Cape Astrobotic of Pittsburgh, NASA Builder: “This is the right place. This is the right time,” Canaveral, Florida Pennsylvania International space agencies Destination: NASA’s Sarah Noble told a planetary-science Destination: Destination: Anywhere on the lunar Destination: advisory committee on 21 February. “We are Anywhere on the lunar Anywhere on the lunar surface Lunar orbit really poised to take advantage of this next era surface surface Capabilities: Capabilities: of lunar exploration and the opportunities these Capabilities: Capabilities: Study or collect rock Provide laboratory and storage Carry small payloads Carry small payloads samples from di erent space for samples, a refuelling commercial companies are going to open up” selected through a selected through a geological formations point for surface operations and The first lander missions would probably be NASA competition NASA competition a communications relay Time frame: short-lived trips to sites on the Moon’s near side. Time frame: Time frame: Early 2020s Time frame: But scientists could piggyback on those trips to As early as 2019 As early as 2019 Mid-2020s study topics such as the plasma environment around the lunar poles, or to begin establishing with the lunar push (see ‘Back to the Moon’). into the atmosphere. “We didn’t even know to a network of geophysical landers that would lis- Over the past decade, NASA has sent the ask those questions before,” Hurley says. ten for moonquakes. By the mid- to late 2020s, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to map the She and other US scientists, in a collabora- NASA might be able to bring samples back to Moon; the Lunar Crater Observation and Sens- tion known as the Lunar Exploration Analysis Earth via the space station orbiting the Moon. ing Satellite to crash land near the south pole Group, have been studying how future missions Other nations will grab the lunar limelight in search of water; the Gravity Recovery and might answer key science questions. Getting much sooner. India is slated to launch its Chan- Interior Laboratory to plumb the Moon’s grav- better dates for impact craters on the Moon, drayaan-2 rover later this year to explore near ity field; and the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust for instance, could help establish whether the the Moon’s south pole. And China is planning to Environment Explorer (LADEE) to study its Solar System experienced a cataclysmic mete- send its Chang’e-4 rover to the lunar far side — a tenuous outer atmosphere. orite bombardment 4 billion years ago. first for any space agency — by the end of 2018. These and other missions have opened new “To take the next really big leaps in lunar NASA’s challenge will be to keep its latest ini- areas of research, says Dana Hurley, a planetary science is going to take landing on the ground tiative from falling by the wayside, as did its last scientist at the Johns Hopkins University and getting at it with instruments in a way big lunar programme — which ran from 2004 Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Mary- very similar to what we’ve done for Mars,” says to 2010. “I’m excited about the lunar explora- land. “Our understanding has evolved so much Barbara Cohen, a planetary scientist at NASA’s tion campaign, but concerned we’re not making in the last decade,” she says. Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, enough investments to get to the surface,” says Take LADEE, which detected traces of water Maryland, who has developed methods for David Kring, a planetary scientist at the Lunar in the Moon’s atmosphere that were probably dating planetary samples on the surface of and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas. He carried there by meteorites. Researchers need other worlds (B. A. Cohen et al. Geostand. notes that Trump directed astronauts to the more detailed data to better understand how Geoanal. Res. 38, 421–439; 2014). “We have a Moon; robotic landers do not achieve that goal, water moves around on the lunar surface and lot of pent-up demand.” no matter how much data they collect. ■

POLICY — after an EFSA assessment raised concern about the insecticides’ effects. Since then, researchers have amassed more evidence of harm to bees, and the European Commission EU pesticide review last year proposed banning all outdoor uses, while still allowing the pesticides in green- houses. The latest EFSA assessment strength- could lead to ban ens the scientific basis for the proposal, says Anca Păduraru, a European Commission spokesperson for public health and food safety. Major assessment concludes that neonicotinoids harm bees. EU member states could vote on the issue as soon as 22 March. BY DECLAN BUTLER the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Neonicotinoids (often abbreviated to neo in Parma, Italy, increase the chances that the nics) are highly toxic to insects, causing paraly- n a long-awaited assessment, the Euro- EU will soon move to ban all uses of the insec- sis and death by interfering with the central pean Union’s food-safety agency has ticides on outdoor crops. nervous system. Unlike pesticides that remain concluded that three controversial neo- In 2013, the EU prohibited use of the three on plant surfaces, neonicotinoids are taken up Inicotinoid insecticides pose a high risk to chemicals on crops attractive to bees — such throughout the plant — in the roots, stems, wild bees and honeybees. The findings by as sunflowers, oilseed rape and maize (corn) leaves, flowers, pollen and nectar.

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