New Moon Probe Raises Questions About What to do Next in Space

On September 6 of this year, NASA launched the last scheduled moon exploration mission. It was an unmanned probe named LADEE, an acronym for Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer. Its purpose is to first, look for water in the moon's atmosphere. Scientists believe there are water molecules on the moon because of its icy north and south poles. The second purpose of LADEE is to study the lunar dust. Lunar dust is different from terrestrial dust, mainly because there is no wind or flowing water on the moon to break down the particles. Each piece of dust is essentially a shard of glass. It is painful to humans if it touches our bare skin, or gets into our eyes. The dust also is damaging to equipment. It sticks to almost everything it touches, and gets caught in moving parts on the machinery. With LADEE studying the dust, scientists hope to find ways to avoid the dust’s interference in future missions. A benefit of the construction of this probe is that it was designed like a factory item. All the parts can be remade, which is much more cost efficient. Dwayne Brown, a NASA spokesman says that each time the design is used, the cost with go down. The hopeful future cost of the construction of the probe is $55 million.  Along with this article providing me with information on LADEE, it also explained what some hopeful future space missions are. Many congressmen want NASA to continue studying the moon instead of other objects in space. They are pushing to put another man on the moon. Another opinion in Congress is to have NASA pull an asteroid closer to Earth and put astronauts on it for research. Other countries, such as China, India, Russia, and Japan are also taking steps to study the Moon. China announced their plans to have an exploratory rover on the moon by the end of the year. Other countries are sending unmanned missions up, hopefully to lead to having a man on the moon.

            By studying the moon, we can understand much more about the formation of the solar system, and the solar system itself. With the new information that LADEE is gathering about lunar dust, we are very hopeful to be able to put another man on the moon. Also, the information collected from studying the dust will make it easier to avoid, resulting in the risk factors of space travel to the moon to decrease. Although this would be in the far future, the more information we know about the moon, the more likely it will be that we can send regular people to it. Because of the “assembly line” craft, the cost of building each on will get cheaper, and the technology will improve.

            This article was very well written and used language that most readers would understand. Chen, the author described most things in a simple way, but I wish she went more in depth in the hopeful plans of Congress. I think it would have added an interesting element to the article. It would have made the reader want to follow up on the news about this probe and future probes. Along with going more in depth about future mission plans, I think the author should have compared and contrasted the design of this space probe with others. She mentioned how it would be more cost efficient, but she didn’t go in depth as to why. This left me with the questions, is it made of a different material? What makes this design special? Overall, this article made me very interested in LADEE’s mission, and I plan on checking in on any information discovered by this probe.

Citation:
Chen, Caroline. "New Moon Probe Raises Questions About What to Do Next in Space."  
      Nytimes.com. New York Times, 31 Aug. 2013. Web. 23 Aug. 2013.   
      http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/us/new-moon-probe-raises-questions-about-what-to-do-
      next-in-space.html?ref=space&_r=1&.