Ideal Spots for NASA Astronauts to Deep Drill on the Moon - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com

Ideal Spots for NASA Astronauts to Deep Drill on the Moon - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com

With all the concern about where NASA should target their efforts, perhaps a closer look at the Moon is called for, especially now that water was found. The issues can be water and the search for life. Geology in the presence of water differs than without it. Where would you look?

China and the Moon

I've been reading some news about the Chinese Space program and difficulties they are having. I found this article about why the Chinese would like to land on the moon. The article mentions resource storage, technology attainment, solar energy, environmental monitoring. 2008 for the Moon Landing may be too soon, but it's an admirable target. The US plans to land in 2020, India also in the near future.

A good basic description of surface planetary research provided by Brown University

A good basic description of surface planetary research is provided by Brown University's web site. On it they discuss impact craters, volcanism, plate techtonics and how a study of various planets has helped to understand the processes involved across planets. They also discuss remote sensing techniques and how they apply mass spectroscopy to meteorites and other geologic samples. One interesting thing I read about Venus is it is a good model for understanding what will happen to our planet if we lose our atmosphere and as a way to understand the "greenhouse effect" because Venus' atmosphere is largely carbon dioxide with clouds of sulfuric acid droplets. I was reading the Roger Tory Peterson Field Guide to the Stars and Planets written by Donald H. Menzel and Jay M. Pasachoff.

Earth-Moon-Mars, not playing from the same deck

Cosmology deals with the formation of the universe, but a subset of the same study looks as planetary formation. Current studies of silicates are showing that the Earth, Moon and Mars were formed under different conditions and explains some of the differences in mass. The moon is believed to be a planet that crashed into earth and the resultant rebound produced it from the upper portion of the earth, mostly made of silicates. This helps to explain why the Moon doesn't have the same iron core and is much lighter than the Earth. Well, Mars also has an iron core, but the silicates aren't of the same type as Earth. Just goes to show that we're still learning much from and about our solar system.

The Solstice and Quarter Moon

Took this photo from the hoodoo's trail in Banff, yesterday. There's a quarter moon and today is the summer solstice. How far have we really come from the days when the seasons ruled us? Not far but further than imagined. Seasons affect fishing, tourism, crops, animal migrations. The moon ever present keeps us aligned.

Uses for the Moon--many

This article shows how that big piece of gritty hard rock up in the sky, following us around and making the tides pull at us, has another use. Surprise, going outside of ourselves to get a look back can be as helpful as looking outward. In reading Michio Kaku's book "Parallel Worlds" I came to Chapter 8 Designer Universe where he explains how perfect the balance many of the equations and phenomena, such as the moon, fit the ideal needed to create life. The moon is perfectly balanced to stabilize the Earth's orbit and helps ensure we have an atmosphere. Anyway, a climate monitoring station on the moon sounds good to me, read here for more:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070525200427.htm

Calling for bore hole data is interesting--such holes aren't as easy to do as one might think do to the geology.