Much excitement followed the announcement by NASA late last week that one of its probes that smashed into our Moon in October found a decent amount of water on our nearest natural satellite. And suddenly the moon, in past decades rendered dreary, has become cool again – not quite the barren rock we had dismissed it as. Will coming generations decamp?

Our dreams, it seems, are now being refocused on the Moon, as we ponder whether it really is, after all, feasible to live in the lunar environment. With our own environment imperilled by human activity, even one that is not currently conducive to human population suddenly appears very conducive. It is a measure of how desperate our locust-type species has become: having ravaged our own planet of recourses, even a bare Moon looks appealing.

All this new speculation and refreshed optimism comes almost 40 years to the day that the first person walked on the Moon, an inspirational time of flux and change that generated new hope for mankind that so far that century had been torn apart by global wars and battles in far-flung places such as Vietnam. But the dream died almost as quickly as the last of the 12 American astronauts left the Moon’s surface, and we haven’t been back since.

If funding is approved, however, NASA astronauts may be winging their way through the 384,402 kilometres of space by 2020 to again land on the lunar soil. That’s if the Russians and Chinese don’t get there first, as both countries have announced their own missions to the Moon.

Whether the new space pioneers are astronauts, cosmonauts or taikonauts, all will be seeking to further explore any other resources on the Moon that would lead to its colonisation by man.

Our satellite has other secrets in its depths, however. In our eternal quest for answers to life’s most perplexing questions, it turns out that the Moon may offer solutions. Already brought back are piles of rocks and soil among which is material that has been called “genesis” by scientists – the matter is around 4.5 billion years old, formed at the same time as the solar system.

“The moon still has a great deal of scientific information left to be discovered that relates directly to… our understanding of the history of the Earth and early history of other planets,” geologist Harrison Schmitt, who landed on the moon in 1972, has said.

It turns out that part of the Moon is made up of helium-3, an element found in the sun; it is also carried around our solar system on streams of solar winds. Here on Earth, helium-3 is a rarity, as it is repelled by the planet’s protective magnetic fields, but it is nevertheless sought after – for nuclear fusion.

This offers another answer to Earth’s dwindling carbon-based fuels that power economies and in doing so pollute the environment. Estimates of the amount of helium-3 contained in the Moon range around one million tonnes, while just 25 tonnes of the stuff would power Western nations for a year.

Meanwhile, this week NASA astronauts were busy ferrying microscopic worms – as well as vital spare parts and supplies – to the International Space Station (ISS) in orbit around Earth. People, having until relatively recently never been in space, are not designed for a gravity-free environment and in such a state, muscles begin to disintegrate.

These minute creatures, we are told, suffer the same kind of muscle loss in zero gravity and they are to be probed and subjected to a battery of experiments aboard the ISS to determine ways to redress muscle degeneration. If we are intent on exploring deep regions of space, we must evolve our muscle development.

Back on Earth, much of the talk about future space exploration remains focused on hard cash: Is there enough of it, and, at an economically sensitive time, is it realistic to allocate billions more? The US shuttle programme is due to wrap up, with just five launches left before the 2010 retirement date – unless President Obama decides to extend the life of the craft.

Many detractors of countries’ space programmes say the massive amounts spent on them would be put to better use feeding the starving among us. But we can’t halt progress in one sphere to address issues in another. As a nomadic, curious species, we will always seek knowledge; and travelling to other places – other worlds – is the magnet that fuels our desire to know.

If after all our scratching around on the Moon’s surface and below, it’s decided the place is in fact unsustainable for human life, it can be used as a staging point for a loftier goal, also on the cards: human travel to Mars. With a little help from our microscopic friends.

william@thebalitimes.com

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