[FPSPACE] Preserving lunar landmarks

[LARRY KLAES]

Space Race II

Scientists worry that a contest to send robotic rovers to the moon will 
threaten lunar landmarks

By Michael Milstein

Smithsonian magazine, June 2008

The second race to the moon has begun—and this time there will be a big cash 
payout for the winner. Four decades after Neil Armstrong took his giant leap 
for mankind, the Google-sponsored Lunar X Prize is offering $20 million to 
any private team that puts a robotic rover on the moon, plus $5 million in 
bonus prizes for completing such tasks as photographing one of the numerous 
man-made artifacts that remain there—for instance, the Apollo 11 lunar 
module descent stage that Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left behind in 1969.

One goal of the Lunar X Prize is to rekindle excitement in space exploration 
by beaming pictures of historic lunar locations to Web sites or even 
cellphones. But dispatching robots to snoop around the moon also poses a 
risk to some of the most precious archaeological sites of all time. What if 
a rover reached Tranquility Base, where Armstrong landed, and drove over 
footprints, which are still intact and represent humanity's first expedition 
to a celestial body? William Pomerantz, the director of space projects for 
the X Prize Foundation, acknowledges that possibility. "There's always a 
tradeoff between wanting to protect the history that's already there and 
wanting to visit the history," he says.

The competition brings into focus a potential problem that worries a growing 
circle of archaeologists and space historians: the careless destruction of 
invaluable lunar artifacts. At Charles Sturt University in Australia, Dirk 
H.R. Spennemann—who specializes in the preservation of technological 
artifacts—says Tranquility Base symbolizes an achievement greater than the 
building of the pyramids or the first Atlantic crossing. And because the 
moon has no atmosphere, wind, water or known microbes to cause erosion or 
decay, every piece of gear and every footprint remain preserved in the lunar 
dust. Spennemann advocates keeping all six Apollo sites off-limits until 
technology enables space-faring archaeologists to hover above them, 
Jetsons-like. "We only have one shot at protecting this," he insists. "If we 
screw it up, it's gone for good. We can't undo it."

The initial response to the Lunar X Prize initiative—which had ten 
registered teams at the end of April—suggests the moon's remoteness won't 
discourage unofficial visitors for long. History teaches a similar lesson. 
When the Titanic sank in 1912, few imagined that it would become an 
attraction. But not long after Robert Ballard discovered the wreckage in 
13,000 feet of water in the North Atlantic in 1985, treasure hunters in 
submarines looted the doomed vessel of jewelry and dinnerware.

Crafting an agreement that bars exploration of lunar sites in the coming age 
of space tourism may be difficult. To be sure, nations retain ownership of 
spacecraft and artifacts they leave on the moon, though it (and the planets) 
are common property, according to international treaties. In practical 
terms, that means no nation has jurisdiction over the lunar soil, upon which 
artifacts and precious footprints rest. "It would be our strong preference 
that those items remain undisturbed unless and until NASA establishes a 
policy for their disposition," says Allan Needell, curator of the 
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Apollo collection. The 
"preservation of the historical integrity of the objects and the landing 
sites" would be a primary goal, he adds.

Full article here:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/digs-spacerace.html