[X] My Assistant

[marsbug]

Hello everybody, I've developed a bit of a fascination with the moon recently, and so I was delighted to read this about a private group in hawai making progress toward putting an unmanned observatory on the moon. I couldn't find any mention of it in either the lunar exploration or private missions section, so I thought I'd start a thread to see what peoples thoughts are on the idea. Is it a good one, and if so why has it not been done before? What exactly will it be used for?

[marsbug]

Longevity perhaps? With no orbit boosting needed it wouldnt be limited to the life time of its fuel supply. I get the feeling they would like this to be semi permanant at least, and if they wanted to service or expand it at a later date that might be easier to do on the moon. Interferometry would probably be easier on the moon than space. The site planned is the south pole, so at the right spot it might be possible to have the radio quiteness of the far side and the communications ability of the nearside, without a dedicated relay orbiter. A south pole location would probably let you find a spot with a fairly constant temperature regime as well. You could point the scope at one spot in the sky for longer from the moon, without having the earth cut off the view. I think that there is also some value in proving that it can be done, so if a compelling reason to site on luna came to light later there is a fairly recent precedent.