What if, we could go for holidays to the moon?

But wait, will the moon be as friendly as it looks from our bedroom window?



We will be able to know that very soon. This Wednesday, India launched its first unmanned spacecraft to orbit the moon. The spacecraft will not actually land on the moon, though it is supposed to send a small “impactor” probe to the surface.

The launching of Chandrayaan-1, as the vehicle is called — roughly translated as Moon Craft-1 — comes about a year after China’s first moon mission.

Chandrayaan-1 is launched from a research station in Sriharikota, a barrier island off the coast of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, in South of India.

The Indian mission is scheduled to last two years, and do you know what it will do?

It will create a three- dimensional atlas of the moon and prospect its surface for natural resources, including uranium, a coveted fuel for nuclear power plants

The maiden Indian lunar voyage is carrying two NASA devices, one to assess mineral resources on the moon and the other to look for ice deposits in its polar regions.

The two-year mission of Chandrayaan-I to map the lunar surface and investigate its surface properties will advance knowledge about the Moon’s history and evolution, and inform future exploration decisions by characterizing the content of the lunar soil



There is newfound interest by other “world powers” to expend new found wealth on space travel and exploration.

In Space.com Paul Spurdis a space scientist at Johns Hopkins University Applies Physics Lab says that most of these countries are flying lunar missions to “get their feet wet” in planetary exploration. He says that with the new equipment and technology more and higher quality data will be important to asses potential resources on the moon which he says will be “a critical enabler to permanent human presence.”

So are we going to dance on the moon? Maybe we will, the moon sits only about 1/4 million miles away from our window.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/