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nasa plans to land a spacecraft on the moon for the first time in more than three decades by 2008, with an unmanned mission intended to scope out a possible landing place for future missions and set the stage for human exploration of mars, scientists said monday.
nasa scientists said they had chosen a design from 19 applications for the lunar reconnaissance orbiter (lro), a 543-kilogramme spacecraft that will help study materials on the moon.
the 73-million-dollar mission will be looking for ice in the permanently dark craters of the moon's south pole by examining a plume of dust to be kicked up by an impactor hitting the surface, the scientists said.
'if we find water in any form, then we have to ask ourselves, is it in a form that we can use?' said scott horowitz, deputy nasa director, in a telecast press briefing.
the mission is the first step in returning astronauts to the moon between 2015 to 2020, where they are to further explore the possibility of establishing a sustained human presence on the moon.
the moon, according to nasa's long-term objectives set by us president george w bush, would eventually serve as a jumping off platform for exploring mars.
astronauts would in a sense try to live off the land on the moon in preparation for other planetary exploration.
'this ... gets us ready for mars,' horowitz said. 'we need the ability to use resources we find on mars, in order to send people and get them back from mars.'
'if we can't figure out how to take advantage of resources in place, we won't be able to pull off missions to mars,' he said.
key to such a long-term programme would be finding water, oxygen and hydrogen in forms that can be used for life sustenance and rocket fuel sources, the scientists said.
scientists know there is oxygen on the moon, but are not sure how it is stored.
during the 2008 mission, a huge crater, one-third the size of a football field and 5 metres deep, will be created by the impact of the upper stage of the spacecraft into the lunar south pole, said dan andrews, a mission specialist.
the impact is expected to send up a 1,000 metric tonne plume of dust and debris that will be examined and analyzed by another part of the spacecraft, the shepherding spacecraft, which will fly through the cloud.
after gathering data, the sheepherding spacecraft is also destined to crash on the moon, stirring up more dust that can be examined from space or the earth.
astronomy stations on earth will also be recording the impact plume.
the 2008 mission is the first in a series of robotic probes to probe the moon's surface. the last nasa spacecraft to land on the moon was the 1972 apollo mission. in 1994, clementine orbited and mapped the moon, but did not land.
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