El contexto científico de la Exploración de la Luna: Informe final

En esta semana estuve leyendo un par de informes acerca de la Exploración de la Luna y me pareció importante escribir sobre uno de ellos. Lo interesante de este reportaje es que siendo que estos conceptos son importantes para la NASA , también son conceptos importantes para la exploración espacial privado y nuestro conceso Google Lunar X PRIZE puede llegar a contribuir al desarrollo de estos conceptos. EL informe es conocido como; “ El contexto científico de la Exploración de la Luna”. Este informe está basado en el contexto científico para la exploración de la Luna, especialmente en las primeras fases de aplicación de la Visión para la Exploración Espacial (VSE). ( La Visión para la Exploración Espacial es un documento el cual fue creado el día 14 de Enero del 2004, que explica a gran detalle los planes de exploración espacial para el gobierno Americano ). Las cuatro arias principales de investigación en este informe son las siguientes, Principios de los sistemas tierra-luna, Planeación y evolución, El impacto del sistema solar y por último el record Lunar.

El informe después expande esos cuatro temas a 8 conceptos mucho más detallados encuarto al tema de la exploración de la Luna. Estos ocho conceptos son los siguientes:

1. La historia del sistema solar interno está especialmente puesto de manifiesto en la Luna.
   
2. La estructura y la composición del interior de la luna es esencial para obtener información fundamental sobre la evolución de un cuerpo planetario.
   
3. Principales procesos planetarios se manifiestan en la diversidad de rocas de la corteza lunar.
   
4. Los polos lunares son entornos especiales que pueden dar testimonio de la volatilidad de flujo durante la segunda parte de la historia del sistema solar.
   
5. Volcanismo lunar puede ser la ventana en la evolución térmica y la composición de la Luna.
   
6. La Luna es un laboratorio para el estudio en escalas planetaria.
   
7. La Luna es un laboratorio natural para estudiar el polvo lunar en los procesos de meteorización y anhidro airless órganos.
   
8. Los procesos que intervienen en el medio ambiente y el polvo de la Luna son accesibles para el estudio científico.

Estos temas son bien interesantes y aunque son proyectos de largo plazo y alta tecnología, son proyectos que no solo deberías ser realizados por entidades gubernamentales sino también por el sector privado. Al fin y al cabo tanto el gobierno como las entidades privadas tendrán que trabajar juntos para mantener la exploración espacial viva!!! Me gustaría sobre notar que, la mayoría de estos temas no son proyectos que alguno de los equipos del Google Lunar X PRIZE pudieran realizar durante la misión requerida para este concurso. Pero lo importante a notar es que estas misiones robóticas de bajo costo que se realizaran durante es te concurso, podrían ser un primer paso para la misión de los diseños y arquitecturas necesarios para la ejecución de los conceptos identificados en este informe.

Cuando se escribió este informe, 4 extraordinarias misiones lunares fueron identificados para ayudar a recopilar valiosos datos sobre los 8 principales conceptos presentados ante la ciencia. Las misión fueron los siguientes: Reconocimiento Lunar de la NASA (LRO), Chandrayaan -1, la Organización de Investigación Espacial de la India Orbiter, Chang'e Orbitador Lunar de la Administración Nacional China del Espacio y SELENE de la Agencia Japonesa de Exploración Aeroespacial. Estas misiones cargan sensores altamente sofisticados que pueden producir una gama sin precedentes de datos de valor excepcional para la Luna. Algunos de estas misiones tienen una serie de instrumentos similares los cuales proporcionaron una excelente oportunidad para la calibración y validación de datos entre las misiones. Una cosa importante a notar en el informe es que la mayoría de estos participantes internacionales en la exploración de la Luna han expresado la intención de liberar los datos devueltos en un formato compatible que ayude a la planificación general de la exploración lunar, lo cual en mi opinión puede ser puede ser un concepto que debe ser asimilado por las misiones del Google Lunas X PRIZE. Si más de un de estos equipos que participan en el concurso es exitoso, el concurso dará pie a la oportunidad de no sólo compartir más datos científicos si no que demostrara que la exploración robótica Lunar se puede llevar acabo de una manera rápida y eficaz. A pesar de que estos objetivos están difíciles de encontrar ,una vez alcanzados la ciencia será uno de los principales beneficiarios. La NASA no es la única entidad que tiene la oportunidad de proporcionar el liderazgo en esta actividad, la fundación X PRIZE, junto con su concurso Google Lunar X PRIZE demostrara que también puede obtener muy buenos si no mejores resultados en cuanto al tema de la exploración Lunar.

Por último me gustaría concluir este escrito con el siguiente párrafo: “ La Luna no tiene precio para los científicos planetarios, "la luna de hoy presenta un registro de los procesos geológicos de la primera evolución planetaria en la forma más pura. Ciencia lunar proporciona una ventana a la historia temprana del sistema Tierra-Luna, puede arrojar luz sobre la evolución de otros planetas terrestres como Marte y Venus, y puede revelar el registro de los impactos en el sistema solar interior.”

Para los que les interece leer el reporte original, lo pueden bajar de este link!

Friday Funday #FFD Photo Scavenger Hunt

For today's Friday Funday activity, we'll be searching for cool space stuff in Google Sky. Follow @glxp on Twitter to play along.

#1. This one shouldn't be too hard....



The winner is: @spacekiwi

Saturn
Coordinates: RA: 11h28m31.28s DEC: +05d47m21.01s




#2. A little trickier



The winner is: @chris_radcliff

Eagle Nebula
Coordinates: RA: 18h19m13s DEC: -13d45m33s



#3. Now we're getting difficult



The winner is: @spacekiwi (again!)

NGC 346
Coordinates: RA: 0h59m07s DEC: -72d10m08s



#4. Find this vantage point on the surface of Mars using the Google Earth Mars feature. Extra mega special bonus points if you can send me a screencap recreating this image using the 3D Mars model.




Sure enough, if you give someone a challenge, they'll take you up on it. @spacekiwi sent in this recreation of the photo above (taken by Spirit on sol 489) made with Google Earth/Mars:



And just for fun, I made this. Isn't Google Earth incredible?



#5. How about this one?



And the winnner is..... @snibble

These two colliding galaxies are called NGC 2207 and IC 2163. Here is the Spitzer telescope imagery that is included in one of the Google Sky layers:



#6. And now one of my favorites...



And we have two winners: @snibble and @gonz037

We have here Eta Carine. How cool is this image from Google Sky?



Thanks everybody for playing along today, and congratulations to the winners.

Will talking with Rod Brooks of MIT/iRobot

Peter Diamandis speaking at X PRIZE TED breakfast

Sorry for photo quality, I'm in the back of the room :)

That's right, folks, we have the best fans on Earth.

I just wanted to share a few things that have been sent in by our fans from all over the world. Some are old, but just as good as ever. Enjoy....

Lunar Exploration in 140 Characters or Less

Here is the presentation I filmed for the FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference. This was shown at the "Wired for Space" panel. Wish I could have been in attendance, but this should do....

Please don't judge too harshly (especially after Will's great post the other day on presentation skillz). I literally wrote it, read it, edited it, compressed it, uploaded it within a few hours.

Oh, and it looks an awful lot better in high quality on YouTube.

Would love to hear your feedback in the comments!

Random musings

Two whole days of not blogging. I am such a delinquent. As you may remember, I made a resolution to post once a day on weekdays, and I clearly didn't stick to it. But that's OK, because now I feel the need to dump a bunch of random on you.

For starters, here's something I cooked up in a state of near delirium whilst editing my video talk for the 12th Annual FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference.



I'll be posting that video soon (the talk is scheduled for tomorrow, so perhaps tomorrow evening.... w00t, another blog post!).

OK, and now for something completely different:



I keep expecting Euroluna to give away all the top secret, um, secrets of space travel, and suddenly the entire world will be building rockets and rovers. Then again, I suppose that's what the Google Lunar X PRIZE is ultimately all about.

And now for something completely completely different:



Fingers crossed that this doesn't get pulled due to copyright violation. It's awesome.

And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. How to write a blog post in just a few minutes with little to no preparation and marginal amounts of content.

Now Presenting...

As you may have noticed if you're on Twitter, I've been thinking a lot about presentation skills recently. This was motivated by a few things--primarily by participating in an online webinar given by serial entrepreneur David S. Rose, which we arranged for our Google Lunar X PRIZE teams.

David's presentation made it clear that how you present is just as important as what you present, even when your audience is a group of venture capitalists considering giving you large sums of money--that might not exactly be surprising, but it was certainly good to have it confirmed from someone in a position to know.

Then, on the recommendation both of David and of our own Mike Fabio, I picked up a copy of Presentation Zen, which I had plenty of time to peruse during a recent illness. Reading that book, you certainly absorb a certain design aesthetic, which is probably just as important as the more specific tips and tricks contained in the book. So inspired, I went back and completely re-wrote my standard Google Lunar X PRIZE slide deck, going for a set of slides that feature hardly any words at all--but rather images to emphasize a point or to get people excited without detracting from what the speaker (in this case, me) is saying.

Right before finalizing that new slide deck and giving my first talk with it, I saw that the Presentation Zen blog featured one of my favorite space presenters, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Neil is a classical and supremely talented story teller, and could (and does) fill an hours time without any slides at all--and still nails it, every time.

All this got me thinking, who are my favorite space presenters (or presentations)? Why do I like them--and what can I learn from them?

I made a quick list from my own experience, but I hope you'll chime in with your own thoughts:

• Neil deGrasse Tyson. The Presentation Zen article is spot on, in my opinion. Neil is so engaging and charismatic, and is really able to carry a huge amount of passion for his field to an audience in an pleasantly infectuous way.
  
  
• Peter Diamandis. Yes, he'd be on here even if he wasn't my boss! Peter is a non-stop ball of energy, and has devoted basically every waking second (and if you know him, you know most of his seconds are of the waking variety) of his life to making spaceflight more accessible, easier, cheaper, and more fun. As an added bonus, having done so much at a young age, he's uniquely able to get students fired up. It certainly worked for me!
  
  
• Nick Skytland. An ISU classmate, a great friend, and a former business partner of mine; so again, I'm biased. But in my opinion he's been a trailblazer in this field. Why the Moon? is a classic example. And even though people seem to be very heavily divided on Gen Y Perspectives (a collaborative effort, but in which Nick played a huge roll), I don't think anyone can deny that it was thought-provoking and just incredibly different.
  
  
• Maria Zuber. In my ~5 years of formal, space-related education, Maria is probably the lecturer that stands out the most in my mind. There may have been some luck involved in that--she was a leader for one of the instruments on NEAR mission, which landed on an asteroid during the semester I took her class. But to chalk it up to luck would be to ignore her obvious talents both as a scientist and an educator. It was great to be a part of her class, with her course notes and handouts forming an essential text book of sorts that still sits on my bookshelf. Plus, I'm pretty sure that the rumor about her dedicating her PhD thesis to Rock and Roll is true.
  

Those are the ones who've inspired me, and from whom I try to learn every time I can. I know there a lot of others who I've never had the chance to see (a quick Twitter poll revealed support for Phil Plait and for Carl Sagan, neither of whom I've had the chance to see in person (though I've read their words, and am very inclined to agree.

Who would make your list?