A British lunar mission? Options

[ynyralmaen]

I know that BBC viewers aren't too keen on the corporation's news reports after yesterday's dark matter story, but this interesting item appeared this evening...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6246513.stm

I can't find any related press releases on the PPARC and BNSC sites. Has anyone else more information?

[Bob Shaw]

It sounds like a bid for work from Martin Sweeting, no more, no less. SSTL is a great success at what it does, but historically there has been zero commitment towards the type of missions he's suggesting. And, frankly, with a notional budget which is some small proportion of JAXA's far-too-miserable funding I doubt if it'd be a goer.


Bob Shaw

[ElkGroveDan]

They need to send John Cleese. Imagine what the Minister of Silly Walks could accomplish on the moon!

[djellison]

I like SSTL - met some of their guys in Valencia. They actually put a commercial off the shelf hard drive on a satellite and it works great - they just built a hard housing for it so it felt 'at home'. Far cheaper than coming up with that sort of storage capacity in solid state space qualified....quite cunning.. Of course, it could always crash etc.

And I must admit - I do like the romantic notion of another venture to gather support, much like Beagle 2 did, for space exploration in general in the UK

But I don't see this one coming to fruition - even if for only £100M ( which, in the grand scheme of things, isn't much). The problem is, you can't spend £100M in this country without the Guardian telling you how many hospital wards it would build, the Mail telling you how many more police it could train and the Express telling you how many illegal immigrants it could return home.

Doug

[marsbug]

All very true but I'm going to cross my fingers and hope a little anyway.

[ollopa]

But I don't see this one coming to fruition
Doug

Doug: Your countryman James Larkin, who is a great hero in my country, declared - The great appear great because we are on our knees: Let us rise.

[nprev]

From a global/sociological perspective, this proposal is very interesting. The article explicitly mentioned the fact that several other countries are contemplating lunar UMSF, so I personally think that this mission has a better than average chance of happening.

It really does look like there's a quiet new Moon race building up steam, and that's a good thing!

[Stu]

I know that BBC viewers aren't too keen on the corporation's news reports after yesterday's dark matter story, but this interesting item appeared this evening...

Just to clarify, the BBC's internet science reporting is very rarely less than excellent - the SciTech news site is one of my daily calls./ It's the TV news coverage that is starting to make The Clangers look like an episode of COSMOS...

[ynyralmaen]

Just to clarify, the BBC's internet science reporting is very rarely less than excellent - the SciTech news site is one of my daily calls./ It's the TV news coverage that is starting to make The Clangers look like an episode of COSMOS...

I fully agree. I actually saw the report on the 10 o'clock news before spotting the internet report though; the broadcast version was better handled than the dark matter story (not too difficult to achieve!), but the simulation of the lander that they put together made the thing looks bigger than the Isle of Wight. The broadcast version is of course available on-line at top-right of the internet story.

PPARC now have a press release putting the story in context: ESA and BNSC are hosting a workshop on Europe's long-term solar system exploration strategy...
http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Nw/prSpace.asp

[ynyralmaen]

Another story on this topic, in the Independent.

[djellison]

Ahh - the Independant wouldn't let this one go probably without telling us how many theatres it could build...

I jest - all the press coverage to date has been comparatively positive to the idea.

Doug

[ynyralmaen]

The Guardian's take on the story...

... and not a hospital ward in sight! Wahey!

[BrianJ]

The MOONlite mission looks remarkably similar to JAXA's Lunar-A (lunar penetrators/seismology) - I was wondering if it would be a UK/JAXA collaboration, or if they intended to use Lunar-A's lunar penetrators(if Lunar-A is cancelled)?

[edstrick]

Most people don't remember that Lunar-A was going to carry *3*, not 2, penetrators before the mission got into trouble years ago now. You really do need 3 seismometers to accurately and unambiguously locate a seismic event. They had to drop one penetrator due to battery weight gain and stuff on the orbiter.

[spdf]

Most people don't remember that Lunar-A was going to carry *3*, not 2, penetrators before the mission got into trouble years ago now. You really do need 3 seismometers to accurately and unambiguously locate a seismic event. They had to drop one penetrator due to battery weight gain and stuff on the orbiter.

Thats another reason to get a better orbiter.

A question: did Europe active develope penetrators so far (means build models and test them, like JAXA did in Mexico) or "just" concept studies?

Europe does need another moon mission and cannot leave moon exploration to others.