news details |
|
|
| A Lunar Odyssey | | | Archita Bhat
From a pariah after Pokhran II to scientific self esteem, India races its way to the moon. Chandrayaan-I made it safe to the lunar orbit. It was the moment scientists at Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had been waiting for. India became the fourth country to place its flag on the moon, and ahead of China on this score. A report said, the idea of planting the flag was former President APJ Abdul Kalam's; he believed the tricolour should be planted early so that one day when lunar resources were going to be shared by the world community, India would not be left out of the race.
Exploiting moon's mineral resources may seem futuristic, but that a colony on the moon was part of the plans was evident from the fact that none of the countries with space programmes ratified the international Moon Treaty, effective since 1984.
This treaty prohibited owning of property on the moon either by countries or by individuals and put resource exploitation on the moon under the regulation of an international authority. India signed the treaty, but did not ratify it; 13 countries ratified the treaty, but none of them was a major space-faring nation.
Though scientists and governments never publicly projected mineral extraction as an objective, the moon held out an answer to Earth's depleting resources.
Mapping of the moon's minerals therefore became necessary for any future exploitation of its mineral resources. "Extraction of minerals is still a far cry. First we have to map the minerals properly. We still do not have proper maps that can give a clear picture of their location and abundance," said UR Rao, former chairperson of ISRO.
With mineral extraction came the question of area demarcation and ownership of land on the moon's surface.
The race to the moon hotted up; an increasing number of countries that did not sign the Moon Treaty followed with their own missions. The treaty became irrelevant. "More and more countries are saying that they do not care for international law and are showing total disregard for multilateral agreements, said MV Ramana, an expert on nuclear weapons and energy programmes at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development, Bangalore.
By the turn of the century a base on the moon was on the agenda of all countries with space programmes. In 2000, China declared that it would create a permanent moon base with the intent of mining lunar soil for Helium-3. Helium-3 is believed to be a major source of energy in the future. The gas has been found to be embedded in ilmenite (FeTiO3), in abundance in lunar soil.
NASA's plan was more long term. Its administrator Michael Griffin said at the International Astronautical Congress in Hyderabad in 2007 that NASA had plans to first go back to the moon, stay there for a substantial length of time and then proceed to Mars.
Former ISRO chairperson UR Rao talked about possibilities of India setting up a temporary "habitation" on the moon, which could serve as a base for future space explorations and scientific studies. "It will be easier to send space shuttles from the moon because the mass of the space shuttle will be considerably reduced," said ISRO chief Madhavan Nair pointing out the advantage of setting up a base on the moon.
Before a habitation could be set up on the moon, scientists needed to know if it could support life-whether or not there was water on the moon. Along with all this scientists needed to know how the moon developed. And these required a scientific study. The economic justification for all these efforts would be provided only if minerals were available in substantial quantities.
"The most enigmatic question about the moon is its origin," wrote Narendra Bhandari, scientist at the Planetary Sciences and Exploration Programme (planex) of Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, in a paper published in Current Science (June 10, 2004). He said the minerals present on the moon provided an insight into the manner in which it was formed and over what length of time. A chemical and topographical mapping of the moon would help understand the nature of its crust and the composition of the asteroids and comets that have bombarded the moon since its early days.
Chandrayaan-I would help scientists prepare a mineralogical map and a three- dimensional atlas of the far and near sides of the moon which would give its topography. The mineralogical map would require high resolution remote sensing by photographing the moon with visible light and also with very high energy and very low energy rays not visible to the human eye.
The minerals scientists would look for were magnesium, aluminium, calcium, iron and titanium. Radioactive elements like radon, uranium and thorium would also be studied. The maps for minerals, radioactive elements and chemicals would have to be superimposed on a topographical map of the moon to identify the locations that required thorough probing, said Bhandari. That was why a camera to map the lunar terrain had been included in Chandrayaan-I. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
