To The Moon and Beyond
I’m going to be out of town for a few days this week, so I’m writing this column on Monday for publication on Thursday. Since this is therefore not going to be a time-sensitive essay, I decided to write about a topic that is not time-sensitive either.
On Monday, I listened to “The Daily” podcast from the New York Times. This 20+ minute podcast is produced every day to give listeners a quick snapshot of a news story. On Monday, the episode was entitled “A New Race to the Moon: What India’s success in landing a robotic craft at the moon’s south pole means for international competition in space.”
Here’s a description of the content of this episode:
Last week, India landed its spacecraft Chandrayaan-3 on the moon, becoming the first country to land such a craft near the south pole, where scientists believe vital reserves of water could be found frozen. The landing also revealed just how much the international space race has changed.
Kenneth Chang, a science reporter for The Times, explains why a new set of players are dominating the space race and what is motivating their groundbreaking missions to the moon.
Guest: Kenneth Chang, a science reporter for The New York Times.
Background reading:
India became the first country to get a craft to the lunar south polar region in one piece, adding to the achievements of its homegrown space program.
At the moon’s south pole, a quest for ice
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
As someone who grew up in the space age – hearing about Sputnik, John Glenn, and all of the Apollo missions – going to the Moon seems both “old hat” and slightly ridiculous. I remember the images of spacesuit-clad men seemingly bouncing around the Moon’s surface. They put up a flag and they hit a golf ball or two. Then they came back. They had rocks.
So why go to the Moon – again? And what is the lunar South Pole anyway?
I can kind of answer the second question. The rotational axis of the Moon defines a lunar “equator” and the points further away from this equator are the “poles.” North and South Poles on the Moon are defined as those that point in the same general direction as those on the Earth. Or something like that.
So what’s so important about the lunar South Pole? Because the Moon’s axis is tilted, the South Pole features some completely shadowed areas – areas that are never exposed to sunlight. When the US went to the Moon 50 years ago, they went to the flatter “equator” of the Moon. The polar regions are mountainous and thus more hazardous for landing and subsequent operations.
So the deal with the lunar South Pole is that scientists are pretty sure there is “water-ice” in the depths of the craters in that part of the Moon. Any human activity on the Moon would be limited by the availability of water (which is heavy to carry on space missions) and oxygen. The water could be used to support human activity on the Moon, and one of its components (oxygen) can be extracted through electrolysis, which uses electric current to split water into its components: hydrogen and oxygen. Or so I’m told. If countries figure out a way to use the Moon as a jumping-off point for exploring other parts of the Solar System or beyond, this could have significant economic importance.
India made history as the first country to land near the south pole of the Moon on August 23, 2023. It was the first country to land on the Moon since China in 2020. Other nations of the world – the US, Russia, China, the UAE, and Israel – and several private companies have also launched efforts to explore and ultimately land on the lunar surface.