Word: moons
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...this for the U.S. space program: we may have spent the past 40 years mostly ignoring the moon, but when we go back, we go back with a bang. Later today - if weather conditions and hardware permit - NASA will launch its much anticipated and deeply imaginative Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), the first American spacecraft of any kind to make a lunar trip since 1999. Not only will the LRO help us study the moon in greater detail than ever before, it should also give us our first look at the six Apollo landing sites since we abandoned the historic campgrounds...
...past few years, the moon has once again become the hot place to go. Three countries with little spacefaring history - Japan, China and India - have all sent probes moonward since 2007, and China in particular has made it clear that it plans to return, first with more robot ships, then with astronauts. (See a photo-essay of the world's most competitive space programs...
...restarted its own lunar program when President George W. Bush announced a new commitment to have astronauts back on the moon by 2020 and on Mars in the years after. There was surely some political motivation in Bush's election-year proposal, but it was followed up by hardheaded planning and real NASA action. With the shuttles scheduled to be mothballed by 2010, the space agency has committed itself to building and flying a lunar-capable manned ship by 2015, and though the Obama Administration is reconsidering the entire lunar program, so far it's still on track. The goal...
...flew. The ship will be fairly stuffed with scientific instruments, one of the most important - if least sexy sounding - of which will be its laser altimeter. The altimeter will bounce laser beams off the lunar surface and, by measuring the speed at which they reflect back up, calculate the moon's topography to within inches. That's critical since long-term lunar stays require finding not only hospitable places to land, but also hospitable places to establish a home. (See the space moon race...
...Jones hopes Moon to be the first of a trilogy, and he's already shown the promise that further episodes could bring to fulfillment. Here's hoping it happens, and that, in a few years, David Bowie is the answer to the trivia question: Who is the father of famous director Duncan Jones...