Report from ILEWG Task Groups: Science, Technology, human aspects, roadmaps, socio-economics, young lunar explorers, MoonVillage, MoonMars synergies, EuroMoonMars, ArtMoonMars

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard Foing ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Lunar Exploration ◽  
Discussion Forums ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Task Groups ◽  
Related Space ◽  
Young Professional ◽  
Human Aspects ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
Space Projects

<p>ILEWG has been organising since 1994 ICEUM International Conferences on Exploration & Utilisation of the Moon with published proceedings, and where community declarations have been prepared and endorsed by community participants. ILEWG has co-organised and co-sponsored lunar sessions at EGU, COSPAR, EPSC.</p><p>ILEWG task groups include science, technology, human aspects, socio-economics, young explorers and outreach, programmatics, roadmaps and synergies with Mars exploration, MoonBase, MoonVillage, EuroMoonMars, ArtMoonMars, Young Lunar Explorers, ILEWG Young Professional Grantees.  ILEWG has also sponsored a number of activities, workshops, tasks groups and publications in collaborations with other organisations: COSPAR, space agencies, IAA, IAF, EGU</p><p>Besides the discussion forums, users can also obtain information on how to participate, as well as details on the latest news and events regarding lunar exploration, forthcoming meetings, relevant reports and documents of importance for the work of the ILEWG, summary descriptions of recent and future  lunar exploration projects (such as SMART-1, Chang'E1-5 , Selene Kaguya, Chandrayaan-1-2, LRO, LCROSS), GRAIL, ARTEMIS, international lunar exploration projects) funded by various space agencies, and basic data on the Moon itself. Activities of the related space agencies and organizations can also be found. The ILEWG Forum also hosts the Lunar Explorer's Society. http://www.lunarexplorers.net/</p><p>The International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG) is a public forum sponsored by the world's space agencies to support "international cooperation towards a world strategy for the exploration and utilization of the Moon - our natural satellite" (International Lunar Workshop, Beatenberg (CH), June 1994). The Forum is intended to serve three relevant groups:</p><ul><li>Actual members of the ILEWG, i.e. delegates and representatives of the participating Space Agencies and organizations - allowing them to discuss and possibly harmonize their draft concepts and plans in the spirit of the Beatenberg Declaration (see below).</li> <li>Team members of the relevant space projects - allowing them to coordinate their internal work according to the guidelines provided by the ILEWG Charter (see below).</li> <li>Members of the general public and of the Lunar Explorer's Society who are interested and wish to be informed on the progress of the Moon projects and possibly contribute their own ideas.</li> </ul><p>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Lunar_Exploration_Working_Group</p><p>https://moonbasealliance.com/ilewg</p><p>ILEWG ICEUM declarations (International Conference on Exploration & Utilisation of the Moon) :</p><p>https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/search/q=ilewg%20declarations&sort=date%20desc%2C%20bibcode%20desc&p_=0</p><p>COSPAR ICEUM13: Pasadena Lunar Declaration 2018 https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC-DPS2019/EPSC-DPS2019-874-1.pdf</p><p>Report from ILEWG and Cape Canaveral Lunar Declaration 2008 https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2009/EGU2009-13223.pdf</p>

The Making of the Moon

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Chambers ◽  
Jacqueline Mitton
Keyword(s):  
European Space Agency ◽  
Lunar Exploration ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Moon ◽  
The Public ◽  
China And India ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
Lunar Prospector ◽  
Large Satellite ◽  
The 1960S

This chapter considers how the very existence of the Moon, the only large satellite in the inner solar system, is a puzzle. The Moon is sufficiently large that one would think of it as a planet if it traveled around the Sun rather than Earth. Much of what the public now knows about the Moon comes from space missions, beginning in the 1960s and early 1970s. Six American Apollo missions each landed two astronauts on the surface. Three of the Soviet Union's unmanned Luna spacecraft touched down on the surface and then returned to Earth. After a long gap, lunar exploration resumed in the 1990s, when NASA's Clementine and Lunar Prospector spacecraft went into orbit. Recently, the pace of exploration has increased again, with the European Space Agency, Japan, China, and India, as well as NASA, all sending missions to the Moon.

scholarly journals PREFACE

1977 ◽  
Vol 285 (1327) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Recent Decade ◽  
National Committee ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Scientific Programme ◽  
Space Technology ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Related Space ◽  
Space Experiments ◽  
Lunar Samples ◽  
Academy Of Sciences

This volume presents papers delivered during the Royal Society discussion meeting held on 9-12 June 1975 under the auspices of the British National Committee on Space Research. The meeting was organized to present the findings of European and Commonwealth scientists who had participated in the analyses of lunar samples, both as principal and co-investigators in the Apollo lunar sample analysis programme and as analysts of the Luna samples provided by the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences under arrangements with national academies. Scientists from the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. were also invited to participate and so the meeting became sufficiently representative and its timing appropriate for the much needed attempt to review the whole of the work on lunar samples and the results of related space experiments. It was the purpose of the meeting, and of the Proceedings, to show how the new knowledge about the Moon, acquired over the recent decade from the intensive study made possible by the space technology developed in the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., had solved some and thrown light on other fundamental questions about the Moon. For practical reasons the meeting was overweighted in favour of British and European contributions; but this gave an opportunity for these laboratories to express their appreciation to N.A.S.A. and to the U.S.S.R Academy of Sciences for the opportunity to participate in a unique scientific programme. We hope that the publication will perform a service in bringing before scientists, and indeed the public in general, the remarkable increase in our understanding of the Moon which has resulted from the space programme and will show how international collaboration has been such an important feature of it.

Contemporary Practice of the United States Interpretation of Treaties

1981 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-147
Keyword(s):  
Outer Space ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vienna Convention ◽  
General Counsel ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
Celestial Bodies ◽  
Un General Assembly ◽  
Contemporary Practice

At a hearing on the Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (the Moon Treaty), adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 5, 1979, which the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held on July 29, 1980, S. Neil Hosenball, General Counsel of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and U.S. representative on the UN Outer Space Legal Subcommittee, stated that interpretation of the Agreement depended upon its negotiating history as required by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969) and by customary international law.

scholarly journals Lunar exploration: opening a window into the history and evolution of the inner Solar System

2014 ◽  
Vol 372 (2024) ◽  
pp. 20130315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian A. Crawford ◽  
Katherine H. Joy
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
Lunar Exploration ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Moon System ◽  
Origin And Evolution ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Geological Evolution ◽  
History Of ◽  
Rocky Planets

The lunar geological record contains a rich archive of the history of the inner Solar System, including information relevant to understanding the origin and evolution of the Earth–Moon system, the geological evolution of rocky planets, and our local cosmic environment. This paper provides a brief review of lunar exploration to-date and describes how future exploration initiatives will further advance our understanding of the origin and evolution of the Moon, the Earth–Moon system and of the Solar System more generally. It is concluded that further advances will require the placing of new scientific instruments on, and the return of additional samples from, the lunar surface. Some of these scientific objectives can be achieved robotically, for example by in situ geochemical and geophysical measurements and through carefully targeted sample return missions. However, in the longer term, we argue that lunar science would greatly benefit from renewed human operations on the surface of the Moon, such as would be facilitated by implementing the recently proposed Global Exploration Roadmap.

New Economy in space: Cis-lunar economic circle and analogue simulations in China to the 2061 Horizon

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
guo linli ◽  
blanc michel ◽  
huang tieqiu ◽  
huang jiangze ◽  
yuan jianping ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
International Cooperation ◽  
Lunar Surface ◽  
Space Exploration ◽  
Shaanxi Province ◽  
Lunar Exploration ◽  
Test Field ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Liquid Propellant ◽  
The Earth

<p>    The Moon is sometimes also called the "eighth continent" of the Earth. Determining how to utilize cis-lunar orbital infrastructures and lunar resources to carry out new economic activities extended to the space of the Earth-Moon system is one of the long-term goals of lunar exploration activities around the world. Future long-term human deep-space exploration missions to the Moon, on the Moon surface or using the Moon to serve farther destinations will require the utilization of lunar surface or asteroid resources to produce water, oxygen and other consumables needed to maintain human survival and to produce liquid propellant for the supply of spacecraft on the lunar surface. In complement to exploration activities, Moon tourism in cis-lunar orbit and on the lunar surface will become more and more attractive with the increase of  human spaceflight capacity and the development of commercial space activities. However, the development of a sustainable Earth-Moon ecosystem requires that we solve the following five problems:</p><p>(1)How to design alow-cost cis-lunar space transportation capacity? To find an optimal solution, one must compare direct Earth-Moon flight modes with flights based on the utilization of space stations, and identify the most economical spacecraft architectures.</p><p>(2)How to design an efficient set ofcis-lunar orbital infrastructures combining LEO space stations, Earth-Moon L1/L2 point space stations and Moon bases for commercial tourism, taking into account key issues such as energy, communications and others?</p><p>(3)Significant amounts ofliquid oxygen, water, liquid propellant and structural material will be needed for human bases, crew environmental control and life support systems, spacecraft propulsion systems, Moon surface storage and transportation systems. How to  design in-situ resources utilization (ISRU) of the Moon, including its soil, rocks and polar water ice reservoirs, to produce the needed amounts?</p><p>(4) How to simulate on the Earth surface the different components and key technologies that will enable a future long-term human residence on the Moon surface?</p><p>(5). How to accommodate the co-development of public and commercial space and foster international cooperation? How can space policies and international space law help this co-development?</p><p>    China has made rapid progress in robotic lunar exploration activities in the last 20 years, as illustrated by the recent discoveries provided by the Chang'e-4 lander on the far side of the Moon. By 2061, China will have gone into manned lunar exploration and built Moon bases. In preparation for this new phase of its contribution to space exploration, lunar surface simulation instruments have been built in Beijing, Shenzhen and other places in China. A series of achievements have been made in the field of space life sciences . An ambitious project to establish a large Moon base simulation test field, the Lunar Base Yulin (LBY) project, currently in its design phase in Yulin, Shaanxi Province in China, will allow the verification of key relevant technologies.</p><p>    By the 2061 Horizon, we believe that international cooperation and public-private partnership will be key elements to enable this vision of a new, sustainable cis-lunar space economy.</p>

scholarly journals Lunar resources

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian A. Crawford
Keyword(s):  
World Economy ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
Resource Extraction ◽  
Lunar Exploration ◽  
Economic Interest ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Resource Base ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World

There is growing interest in the possibility that the resource base of the Solar System might in future be used to supplement the economic resources of our own planet. As the Earth’s closest celestial neighbour, the Moon is sure to feature prominently in these developments. In this paper I review what is currently known about economically exploitable resources on the Moon, while also stressing the need for continued lunar exploration. I find that, although it is difficult to identify any single lunar resource that will be sufficiently valuable to drive a lunar resource extraction industry on its own (notwithstanding claims sometimes made for the 3He isotope, which are found to be exaggerated), the Moon nevertheless does possess abundant raw materials that are of potential economic interest. These are relevant to a hierarchy of future applications, beginning with the use of lunar materials to facilitate human activities on the Moon itself, and progressing to the use of lunar resources to underpin a future industrial capability within the Earth-Moon system. In this way, gradually increasing access to lunar resources may help ‘bootstrap’ a space-based economy from which the world economy, and possibly also the world’s environment, will ultimately benefit.

The astrobiological case for renewed robotic and human exploration of the Moon

2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 191-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
I.A. Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Lunar Exploration ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Impact Cratering ◽  
Early Atmosphere ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Galaxy ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
Human Exploration ◽  
The Impact

An ambitious programme of lunar exploration will reveal much of astrobiological interest. Examples include: (i) better characterization of the impact cratering rate in the Earth–Moon system, with implications for understanding the possible ‘impact frustration’ of the origin of life; (ii) preservation of ancient meteorites blasted off Earth, Mars and Venus, which may preserve evidence of the early surface environments of these planets, as well as constraining models of lithopanspermia; (iii) preservation of samples of the Earth's early atmosphere not otherwise available; (iv) preservation of cometary volatiles and organics in permanently shadowed polar craters, which would help elucidate the importance of these sources in ‘seeding’ the terrestrial planets with pre-biotic materials; and (v) possible preservation of extraterrestrial artefacts on the lunar surface, which may permit limits to be placed on the prevalence of technological civilizations in the Galaxy. Much of this valuable information is likely to be buried below the present surface (e.g. in palaeoregolith deposits) and will require a considerable amount of geological fieldwork to retrieve. This would be greatly facilitated by a renewed human presence on the Moon, and may be wholly impractical otherwise. In the longer term, such lunar operations would pave the way for the human exploration of Mars, which may also be expected to yield astrobiological discoveries not otherwise obtainable.

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