Protecting the Apollo Landing Sites From Later Landings 339
R3d M3rcury writes "The Lunar X-Prize is a contest offering $20 million to the first private organization to land and maneuver a robotic rover on the moon. There is also a $1 million bonus to anyone who can get a picture of a man-made object on the moon. But one archeologist believes that 'The sites of early lunar landings are of unparalleled significance in the history of humanity, and extraordinary caution should be taken to protect them.' He's concerned that we may end up with rover tracks destroying historic artifacts, such as Neil Armstrong's first bootprint, or that a mistake could send a rocket slamming into a landing site. He calls on the organizers to ban any contestant from landing within 100KM of a prior moon landing site. Now he seems to think this just means Apollo. What about the Luna and Surveyor landers? What about the Lunokhod rovers? Are they fair game?"
The bootprint is might be getting fuzzy by now (Score:2, Interesting)
Heating and cooling once a month would expand and contract the soil, obliterating footprints eventually.
if man ever sets foot on the moon again (Score:3, Interesting)
it will darn near be just as special as the first time. it's been SO long since we've been there, in person.
the next footprint should be just as protected.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Chinese Policy (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember reading long ago, forget where, that official CCP policy was that if they were to arrive on the moon before the US returned, their first goal was to remove as much evidence of American landing sites as possible so as to claim the US had lied and in fact China was the first on the moon.
Probably some wharrgarbl from the intertubes stuck in my head, but who knows.
Re:The bootprint is might be getting fuzzy by now (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want to preserve Neil Armstrong's boot print, perhaps it's better to send a mission exactly there and put a pane of plexiglas over it.
translation (Score:5, Interesting)
"The sites of early lunar landings are of unparalleled significance in the history of humanity, and extraordinary caution should be taken to PREVENT EVER BEING ABLE TO PROVE THEY EVEN EXIST"
Re:That's retarded (Score:2, Interesting)
stop wasting your time worrying about whether a footprint is going to disappear someday.
Indeed. We can't even protect our own planet's historical sites, lets get some perpective on what's important . . .
Re:Why Worry? (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, remember that the landing site was also the starting site. Therefore a rocket motor was ignited right next to the original first boot-print. Even though it was a comparable small rocket, I would be mightily surprised if the exhaust wouldn't mess up the soil/dust around the landing site.
Re:Why Worry? (Score:5, Interesting)
Other posters have already mentioned erosion via the expansion and contraction of the monthly day/night cycle's heating and cooling, and erosion by micrometeors. There's also moonquakes and electrostatic levitation of moon dust that come to mind as other natural sources of erosion.
On top of all that, there's artificial sources of erosion. Bear in mind that the footprint was made at the base of a ladder that a couple of astronauts spent hours coming and going from; it probably got stepped on a few times. And then the lander took off again by firing a powerful rocket engine, directly blasting the area with high-velocity gases. You can see in a video of Apollo 17's lander launch that quite a lot of dust and debris gets blown about in the process. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXs4tncQcAE [youtube.com]
But frankly, even if that first footprint was still magically pristine, I don't think returning there and putting down new footprints would somehow "ruin" the historical significance. It would add to the historical significance. The site would no longer be just the site of the first manned lunar landing, it'd be the site of the first manned lunar landing and the first return to the site of the first manned lunar landing. That's pretty neat too.
Re:The bootprint is might be getting fuzzy by now (Score:5, Interesting)
How many GLXP teams will actually make it? (Score:2, Interesting)
Between now and the 2012 deadline we're likely to hear more and more of the developments and adventures or the various GLXP teams.
http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/teams [googlelunarxprize.org]
A more appropriate question is of all the GLXP teams, how many will actually get to the point of getting off the ground and doing a successful Trans Lunar Injection, and of that number, how many are actually going to attempt to meet the "imaging man made artefacts" criteria.
Official GLXP team; White Label Space has recently written of it's Lunar landing intentions and the focus seems to be more on finding water (another bonus) than finding Apollo, Lunokhod, Surveyor et al. They're considering the peaks of eternal light near the Moon's south pole which would also provide nearby landing sites with rover routes into the permanently shadowed zones.
http://www.whitelabelspace.com/2009/05/preliminary-landing-site-considerations.html [whitelabelspace.com]
Here we go again (Score:4, Interesting)
I hope that I'm not the only one that is fed up with this modern approach to trying to preserve everything we ever do. Why can't we be happy with the knowledge that we did it? If I got a chance to see the first boot print on the moon I'd jump at it but would my life be any worse if that boot print accidentally got driven over, hardly. I'm not advocating that we should go out of our way to erase history just let it take care of itself.
I'd bet that 99.999% of the population probably didn't even realize that there was a first boot print still up there and now they will get all up in arms because it might at some point in the future get erased. Sigh. Give me a solution to world hunger, fusion power and a decent internet connection first and then I'll care.
Re:That's retarded (Score:2, Interesting)
It's made of dust, people!
Re:That's retarded (Score:2, Interesting)
What would be more interesting is: What would happen if a Lunar X-Prize contestant did actually land near the Apolo landing site and didn't find anything at all? no foot prints, no landing site, nothing!
I'm sure that'll add fuel to a certain conspiracy theory!
Hmmmm, maybe this guy is an undercover NASA "agent" ;)
Footprints? meh! keep the tech? yes (Score:5, Interesting)
After all we explore wrecks on the ocean floors, the landers should be afforded the same status for scientific investigation.
As it is, We've still got Neil's boot, so we can make more footprints anytime.
First footprint (Score:2, Interesting)
As has already been mentioned, the very first footprint has likely been damaged/destroyed already since it was (obviously) positioned right in the path Neil and Buzz would have to traverse to get into and out of the LEM.
Furthermore, people are talking about a photo of the first footprint, but I'm guessing they are thinking of the famous photo that Buzz took of his own boot impression (as part of analyzing the soil characteristics):
http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5877HR.jpg [nasa.gov]
http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5878HR.jpg [nasa.gov]
This was taken quite some time after Neil first stepped onto the lunar surface.
The first footprint might be hiding somewhere in thid photo that Neil took of Buzz coming down the ladder:
http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5869HR.jpg [nasa.gov]
Not so easy to tell which one it would be though, and it's in shadow...
Re:That's retarded (Score:2, Interesting)
Anybody who's been to an Asian country will recognize how authoritarian said countries are by the total lack of graffiti.
Just sayin'.
Re:That's retarded (Score:4, Interesting)
Besides, it's stupid to think that Armstrong and Aldrin wouldn't have messed up the first footprint since it was, you know, right at the bottom of the ladder and in a high traffic area.
To say nothing of being right underneath a rocket that was launched less than 24 hours later! Doesn't anyone remember the images that came back from a camera left on the moon during one of the later missions, with dust blowing everywhere as the ascent stage engine of the LM fired? The whole area around the site will almost certainly be scoured clean.
I can see some scientific value in the sites: having pristine stuff exposed to lunar conditions for fifty years will probably provide a wealth of data on materials behaviour in space. But anyone who talks about Armstrong's first bootprint as if it's still there is preaching unicorns.
Re:That's retarded (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree that it should be preserved, but there is room for discussion on how to preserve them.
Consider the case of Plymouth Rock [wikipedia.org]. Taught in American schools as where the Pilgrims first set foot in the New World, it's really a shadow of its former self. Not only is it much smaller than it was, due to a few hundred years of people chipping off souvenirs, but it's even been dragged across town, so it's not in its original location!
Worse still, Plymouth isn't even where the Pilgrims first landed. They landed in Provincetown, and did some exploring along Cape Cod before settling in Plymouth.
How will the future see the significance of Apollo 11? Is only the base of the lander significant? Will it end up in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum? Or will the lunar soil and footprints bee seen as significant as well?
Re:That's retarded (Score:3, Interesting)
Alan Bean had brought up a timer for the Hasselblad, and they were going to take a picture of the two of them next to the Surveyor.
But he couldn't find the timer in the equipment box, until just before liftoff, so it never got taken.
Just imagine what the conspiracy theorists would have done with that picture!
Re:That's retarded (Score:1, Interesting)
Not to mention that when any of the ascent modules ignited their engines, they blew all of the dust in the vicinity of the lander quite severely. The footprints close to the lander were probably erased.