Does the lunar surface still offer value as a site for astronomical
observatories?

Dan Lasley sent me the following note.
- LRK -

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Larry,

>From a recent Morning Edition: the publisher Elsevier is making available
for free all Elsevier publications by Nobel Laureates for the past three
years.

See http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/intro.cws_home/2005nobelprizes .

If you click on "Read Elsevier publications by John C. Mather", I think
you'll be interested in this link:

 http://www.elsevier.com/framework_aboutus/pdfs/mather7.pdf

There is at least one other space related .pdf in there somewhere.  Happy
hunting.

Merry Christmas and the best 2007 ever to you and yours.

Dan
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Reading about the Nobel Laureates is interesting.

The link to the article that John C. Mather contributed to may be even more
appropriate for this list.  Dan was right, most interesting.
- LRK -

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Does the lunar surface still offer value as a site for astronomical
observatories?
http://www.elsevier.com/framework_aboutus/pdfs/mather7.pdf
--------------------------------------------------------------

I will copy the abstract and the summary below although I think you will
have much to think about if you read the whole 9 page article.
- LRK -

Things have changed in 30 years since the Apollo missions ended.  We might
not have had the free flying astronomical observatories that we do today had
we continued with lunar base development but we do now.

Where do you want to put your dollars to get the most value?

Watch the politics play out.  Whose camp are you in?

Can I have my cake and eat it too?
Want the best of all worlds?
Have unlimited funds?
Know someone in power?

I want to go to the Moon, find me a reason. Hmmmmm
I want to look at the stars, find me a way to do it.

What might you see if you look up?
http://www.nss.org/settlement/

And this from Larry Klaes.
- LRK -

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WHEN THE ISS MEETS SATURN: On Dec. 7th, the International Space Station
(ISS) flew over Beijing, China--and right by the planet Saturn. Three
astronomers, Xiang Zhan, Xin Li and Jin Zhu of the Beijing Planetarium,
photographed the encounter through a 4-inch telescope.

"Although the two objects looked so close," says Zhan, "the ISS was about
400 kilometers above us while Saturn was over 1.3 billion kilometers from
Earth."

Their video illustrates something not widely known: The ISS looks wonderful
through a backyard telescope. Solar wings and living quarters are clear and
distinct. Seen from Earth, the station is wider than the rings of Saturn!

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2006/19dec06/Zhan1.gif
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And Happy Birthday Arthur C. Clarke, December 16, 1917
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke
http://www.clarkefoundation.org/
http://www.clarkefoundation.org/acc/biography.php
- LRK -

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Birthday card sent by Jeroen Lapre', December 16, 2006
http://www.distant-galaxy.com/maelstrom2/MaelstromIIClarkeBday.2k6.jpg

http://www.maelstrom2themovie.com/

http://home.comcast.net/~jeroen-lapre/ArthurCClarke/MaelstromII/MaelstromII.html
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Thanks for looking up with me.


Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
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Thanks for the link Dan.  - LRK -
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http://www.elsevier.com/framework_aboutus/pdfs/mather7.pdf
Does the lunar surface still offer value as a site for astronomical
observatories?

Daniel F. Lester a,*, Harold W. Yorke b, John C. Mather c

a Department of Astronomy and McDonald Observatory, University of Texas,
Austin, TX 78712, USA
b Division of Earth and Space Science, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California
Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
c Lab for Astronomy and Solar Physics, Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA

Abstract

Current thinking about the Moon as a destination has revitalized interest in
lunar astronomical observatories. Once seen by a large scientific community
as a highly enabling site, the dramatic improvement in capabilities for
free-space observatories prompts reevaluation of this interest. Whereas the
lunar surface offers huge performance advantages for astronomy over
terrestrial sites, freespace locales such as Earth orbit or Lagrange points
offer performance that is superior to what could be achieved on the Moon.
While astronomy from the Moon may be cost-effective once infrastructure is
there, it is in many respects no longer clearly enabling compared with free
space.

r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Snip

4. Summary

Three decades ago the USA abandoned the Moon, a decision that, from a
national space policy standpoint, remains highly controversial. The
technological capabilities that could have encouraged subsequent
astronomical operations on the Moon were never developed.  Since then,
several countries have methodically, strategically and aggressively
developed capabilities for deploying and operating telescopes in free space,
and made huge strides in zero-g human operations. In the same way that
lunar-based astronomy appeared decades ago, even in hindsight, to have the
programmatic advantage, operations in free space do so now. We can now point
to ambitious tasks that we have accomplished in free space, expertise that
we now control, and extrapolate to the future there with some confidence.
Had the decision about our continued presence on the Moon been different,
much of our current free-space expertise might never have developed to its
present level of sophistication and lunar-based astronomy might now be more
programmatically attractive. When we actually return to the surface of the
Moon, constructing bases that are continually occupied, offering
infrastructure, transportation, ready service for investments there, and
possibly material resources, this conclusion may be revised. In this
respect, consideration needs to be given to what critical mass of lunar
habitants is necessary to even suggest construction, maintenance and
operation of a lunar telescope. But we contend that from the point of view
of observatory science priorities, free-space offers important things that
the lunar surface does not.

Lowman [7] concludes that "the greatest obstacle to Moon-based astronomy as
a contender for available funding probably lies in its position between two
now well established fields: ground-based and [free] spacebased astronomy".
We concur, but would add that in order to succeed, lunar astronomy advocates
should present a compelling argument in which science gain, risk avoidance
(both science and personnel), and overall cost (which may well include
programmatic value that is long-range, as well as mission-specific) have
clear advantages over observatories in free space. It is by these measures
that the value of lunar based astronomy should be assessed.

Snip
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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