Bloomberg October 09, 2009
Water Discovery on Moon Spurs India's Lunar Ambition
By Jay Shankar
Oct. 9 (Bloomberg) -- India, spurred by its role in finding water on the moon’s surface, plans to spend $2.5 billion by 2015 to put a man into orbit and join China in the race to seek new sources of energy.
Data gathered from India’s $82 million lunar mission, Chandrayaan I or “Moon Craft,” showed water formation may be an ongoing process on the moon, project scientists said Sept. 24. India may equip a successor probe with an unmanned rover to drill into the lunar surface, Indian Space Research Organization chief Madhavan Nair said in an interview. “The water found is much larger than what was expected,” he said. The government may approve a human space mission “within a couple of months.”
At stake is a starring role in a global push for deep-space exploration that could enable astronauts to harvest life- supporting water, make permanent human settlements possible and exploit lunar reserves of resources such as helium-3, a potential fuel for future nuclear fusion reactors.
The U.S.’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration plans to return to the moon by 2020, although President Barack Obama is considering other options such as landings on asteroids. NASA today crashed a rocket into a crater near the moon’s south pole to kick up a cloud of debris that scientists can analyze for signs of frozen water. China sees a 2012 unmanned landing on the moon, where it hopes to put an astronaut by 2020. Russia has set a date of 2025 for a moon touchdown, while Japan also has lunar ambitions.
Lunar Race
This is not “a 21st-century lunar race between China, Japan and India similar to the U.S. and former Soviet Union’s efforts of the 1960s,” Charles Vick, a former consultant to Russian and Chinese space and ballistic missile programs, said in an e-mail.
“The drivers are considerably different,” said Vick, now a senior technical analyst at Globalsecurity.org. Space-faring nations must back lunar landings to develop technology that can propel a global effort to travel further and even “transfer human civilization to another planet,” he said.
Astronauts haven’t traveled beyond about 300 miles (480 kilometers) from Earth since the last Apollo mission to the lunar surface almost four decades ago. That program landed the first men on the moon in 1969, as the Cold War superpowers battled for technological supremacy.
If man ever makes a permanent home in space, Asia will likely play a leading role in building it. China sent its first man into orbit six years ago, and last year carried out the country’s first space walk. Japan ended its first $562 million lunar probe mission on June 11 after 17 months. Even South Korea, which failed Aug. 25 in its first attempt to put a satellite in to orbit, is planning to orbit the moon by 2020.
Computer Failure
Scientists at ISRO’s Bangalore headquarters lost contact with Chandrayaan I on Aug. 29, less than halfway through a two- year mission, as higher-than-expected temperatures on the moon’s surface, 100 kilometers below the probe’s orbit, triggered a computer failure, Nair said. Chandrayaan II, slated for launch before March 2013 at a cost of $87.5 million, will use its rover to search for minerals.
The discovery of water molecules in lunar soil by a NASA probe aboard the Indian craft has boosted the profile of the nation’s space program, said B.N. Raghunandan, former chairman of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science.
“The fact that India has done this job with the U.S. gives it a better standing for future missions. It gives India a shot in the arm,” he said in an interview from Bangalore. NASA estimates the cost of transporting a bottle of water to the moon at $50,000.
Reactor Fuel
Scientists involved in lunar programs worldwide are searching for evidence of minerals such as uranium, iron, magnesium and helium-3, Seetharama Bhat, chairman of the department, said in a phone interview.
Helium-3 may be an ideal fuel if nuclear fusion becomes a viable way of generating energy, NASA geophysicist Paul Lowman wrote last year. An isotope rare on earth, it is present in large quantities in lunar soil and could be excavated. An alternative use would be to manufacture isotopes for cancer treatments and other medical uses, Lowman said.
That is unlikely to assuage critics of India’s 46-year-old space exploration and satellite launch program. Chitra Choudhury of the Gram Vikas charity working in rural areas of eastern Orissa state, says it would be “wiser” to spend the money on improving basic services for the 456 million Indians the World Bank says live on less than $1.25 a day.
Weather Satellites
India’s price tag for its space mission is just above the $2.4 billion it plans to spend on its AIDS control program in the five years from 2007. Up to 2.9 million Indians have HIV.
India hopes to use improved satellites to predict annual monsoon rains, the main source of irrigation for the nation’s 235 million farmers. This year’s rains have been 20 percent below average, trimming food production, forcing up prices and delaying an economic recovery, said Sherman Chan, an economist at Moody’s Economy.com in Sydney. Better weather forecasts would allow farmers to switch crops or delay planting to make the most of weak rains.
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