NASA’s outlook for the future calls for humans to dig in their heels on the Moon as early as 2015 and no later than 2020.

To achieve that goal, there is significant work ahead. For one, there’s flying the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) by 2014 as one element of the Constellation Systems — the items needed to return humans to the Moon and eventually dispatch astronauts to Mars.

NASA has started assessing notions for lunar landers that will haul crew and cargo to the surface of the Moon late in the next decade.

And as NASA regains its Moon legs, it is worth noting what was left behind in the lunar dust. Six Apollo lunar landers touched down on the Moon between 1969 through 1972. These two-person vessels enabled moonwalkers — often called the "dusty dozen" — to carry out work on the lunar landscape from Apollo 11’s modest 2.5 hours to Apollo 17’s campaign of forays that added up to over 22 hours.

But then was then. The search is now on to regain that ability.

Doing our homework

"The lunar lander is probably the least well-developed of any of those pieces of infrastructure that the government plans to provide," said John Connolly, Manager of the Lunar Lander Pre-Project Constellation Program Office/APO at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

"We don’t know what the lander quite looks like yet," Connolly reported at a recent space meeting. "We’re not sure where it has to go or what it has to do."

Connolly explained that NASA is intent on meshing the work of internal groups with outside-the-agency brainstorming.

Last month, NASA issued a Request For Information (RFI) meant to explore diverse sets of lunar lander design configurations that may yield more innovative solutions to supporting lunar surface missions.

"It is about getting back to the Moon and doing our homework there so we can go on to Mars and beyond," Connolly told SPACE.com. "We’re trying to engage industry, academia, or any interested individuals and collect innovative lunar lander concepts that address the current set of Constellation requirements."

The newly issued RFI, Connolly said, demonstrates that there is more to the Constellation Program than just the Crew Exploration Vehicle.

Science advice

The rebirth of human exploration of the Moon is one action item of former Apollo 17 astronaut, Harrison Schmitt. While he’s a been-there-done-that moonwalker, he is also chair of the newly spruced up and re-chartered NASA Advisory Council.

In that capacity, Schmitt has been busy building a bridge between the science community and NASA exploration officials. "We want to make sure we have as broad a basis for scientific advice as possible," he told a recent gathering of scientists.

One of Schmitt’s targets of opportunity: Having scientists help influence the new lunar lander design.

"As conceptual designs of a new generation of lunar landing craft are being considered," Schmitt told SPACE.com, "it is time for the broad scientific community to provide NASA with specific goals and objectives for scientific exploration and experiment deployment during or in conjunction with future lunar activities."

Schmitt noted that a similar effort by the scientific community in 1965 led to the initial definition of scientific goals and objectives for the Apollo lunar landings. That advice, in turn, influenced the design and re-design of the Apollo program’s Lunar Module and Command and Service Module, he said.

A busy place

"As the Apollo program progressed, this definition matured into increasingly more sophisticated experiments and astronaut training. Geological exploration became a prominent component of mission preparation," Schmitt added. "Such planning and preparation led to the extraordinary scientific understanding we now have of the Moon and, as a consequence, of the early history of the Earth and other terrestrial planets."

Source:
Leonard David,
Senior Space Writer