The United States may be the first to land on the moon next.
Half a century ago, the United States successfully implemented the "Apollo" program and won a great victory in the race to the moon with the Soviet Union. However, after more than 40 years of stagnation in manned landing on the moon, who will be the first to send astronauts to the moon in the future?
In fact, there is no suspense, and the probability is still the United States.
At present, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has officially named the new moon landing program "Artemis". In Greek mythology, themis was the elder sister of Apollo and the goddess of the moon. Named after this, NASA not only pays tribute to the Apollo program, but also hopes to send a female astronaut to the moon for the first time.
One of the reasons why the American moon landing plan makes the outside world feel unrealistic is that the launch vehicle always falls off the chain.
Pang Zhihao said that Boeing is developing the Space Launch System (SLS), which will become the most powerful launch vehicle ever. The development of rockets is divided into two steps. The primary configuration has a carrying capacity of about 70 tons in low earth orbit, and the subsequent improvement can reach about 130 tons, which can meet the needs of manned landing on the moon and even Mars.
However, the development of SLS is slow. The first flight was originally planned as 20 17, but it has been postponed to 2020. Many people are worried about whether the United States can rely on it to achieve manned landing on the moon as scheduled.
However, Huang Zhicheng, an aerospace expert, has some confidence in the US moon landing plan, and thinks that the possibility of landing on the moon in 2024 is more than half. He said that due to the pressure of Russian and China's space development, the United States is determined to accelerate the pace of manned landing on the moon.
Earlier, foreign media reported that Trump asked for an additional budget of $654.38+06 billion for NASA, which would accelerate the research and development of rockets and moon landing systems. US Vice President Meppens revealed that Trump ordered Americans to be sent to the moon in 2024.
At the same time, Huang Zhicheng said that NASA has taken a different approach, united many private forces and signed contracts with many private companies on lander and payload. "Such cooperation has brought certain advantages to the United States, and the social forces in the United States cannot be underestimated." He said.
Pang Zhihao believes that if the United States can stick to the existing plan and continue to invest, even if it can't achieve manned landing on the moon in 2024, it should be able to return to the moon in 2028 at the latest. Huang Zhicheng believes that private rocket companies such as Space Exploration Technology and Blue Origin will form "double insurance" with NASA. Space exploration technology company may even achieve manned landing on the moon before NASA.
When the United States vigorously "mobilized" to reproduce the feat of landing on the moon, other countries were also pursuing the moon landing plan.
In February this year, Russia's lunar exploration program flowed out, which mentioned that it planned to complete the first manned landing on the moon in 20031and start building a lunar base in 2034. To this end, the country launched the super-heavy launch vehicle project.
Pang Zhihao introduced that Russia is developing new heavy-duty launch vehicles "Yenisei River" and "Don River" in two steps, and their near-earth orbit carrying capacity can reach 103 tons and 130 tons respectively.
Technically speaking, Russia is the only country in the field of large thrust liquid oxygen kerosene engine, and their problem is money. To this end, the country indicated that it would share information on heavy-duty launch vehicles with China in order to exchange technology for economic returns.
In addition, Pang Zhihao introduced that both Europe and Japan have put forward the idea of establishing a lunar base, but no substantial progress has been made.
The two poles will become the foothold of the future moon landing.
1July 20, 969, at 20: 17 universal time, Apollo 1 1 landed in the Jinghai area of the moon, with the position of 0 degrees 40 minutes 26.69 seconds north latitude and 23 degrees 28 minutes 22.69 seconds east longitude.
Jinghai is located in a quiet basin in the center of the moon, covering an area of about 420,000 square kilometers. Since then, Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 have also landed in this area.
Pang Zhihao introduced that due to technical ability, all Apollo spacecraft landed near the equator on the front of the moon. Today, the United States claims to have the ability to land anywhere on the moon.
Although the United States has not yet announced the exact location of landing on the moon in the future, judging from the development trend of international lunar exploration activities in recent years, the two poles of the moon have become the main targets.
For example, on June 3rd, 65438, China's Chang 'e IV successfully landed in the Von Kamen Crater in the aitken Basin near the South Pole on the back of the moon. In the follow-up plan of the fourth lunar exploration project announced by the National Space Administration, the Chang 'e-6 mission plans to sample and return to the South Pole of the Moon, and the Chang 'e-7 will comprehensively detect the topography, material composition and space environment of the South Pole of the Moon. Chang 'e-8 will continue to carry out scientific exploration experiments, and carry out experiments on the lunar surface of some key technologies, so as to make preliminary exploration for countries to build lunar scientific research bases in the future.
Pang Zhihao said that the lunar poles are ideal places for human beings to build lunar bases. There are two special areas at the two poles of the moon: one is the permanent illumination area, which can obtain continuous and stable solar energy; The second is the permanent shadow area. It has been found that there may be a lot of water ice here. Water can be used for astronauts' life, or it can be used locally, and it can be decomposed into hydrogen and oxygen as fuel for spacecraft. Therefore, the establishment of lunar bases at the poles will not only help astronauts stay, but also help to use the moon as a springboard for manned exploration of Mars. Compared with starting from the earth, the cost of a Mars spacecraft taking off from the moon will be greatly reduced.
Correct "Opening Way" of Lunar Resources
Although the "Apollo" project has made many great scientific and technological achievements, it mainly served political purposes and paid an amazing price for it. Now this way of landing on the moon at all costs is obviously not feasible.
After years of "calm thinking", countries generally realize that exploring the moon has political, social, technical, scientific and economic significance. Therefore, in the future, the goal of human lunar exploration has also changed to the combination of scientific exploration and economic interests, with the ultimate goal of developing lunar resources for our use. The construction of the lunar base mentioned above is for this purpose.
So, what resources are there on the moon and how to develop them?
In the early years, the discovery of helium -3 in lunar soil made scientists very excited.
Helium -3 is an efficient, clean, safe and cheap fuel for nuclear fusion power generation. According to scientists' calculations, 100 tons of helium -3 can create energy, which is equivalent to the total energy consumed by the world in one year. The reserves of helium -3 on the earth are very small, only about 500 kilograms are known and easily available in the world, and the early detection results show that the content of helium -3 in the shallow layer of the moon is as high as several million tons, which is enough to solve the energy worries of human beings. In fact, with the deepening of human understanding of the moon, scientists have found that the total reserves of helium -3 on the moon are likely to be more.
However, after cooling down, people found that although there are a lot of helium -3 on the moon, it is not easy to use it. It is not only complicated in extraction process, but also faces high cost and many technical problems if it is to be shipped back in large quantities.
It is also proposed to build a large-scale solar power station in the permanent illumination area of the moon. However, how to transport the required equipment and materials, and how to make the electric energy break through the distance of 380,000 kilometers and transmit it back are difficult problems in the current technology.
No matter how hard it is, it can't limit the imagination of some people to develop the moon. In 20 18, a Japanese private company named ispace announced that it would build a city on the moon before 2040, and the passenger flow would reach about 1 10,000 people per year.
Yang Yuguang, a researcher at the Second Academy of China Aerospace Science and Industry Group, thinks this is amazing. The story of man and the moon doesn't develop like this.
Judging from the positioning of the moon in space activities, it is by no means the "space home" of mankind. Yang Yuguang believes that it is enough to carry out some scientific research activities in early lunar bases, such as the International Space Station. If a large amount of water resources are found, it is necessary to expand the scale of the base for mining and fuel preparation, without too many people. "In the 1950 s, humans could start to exploit the moon resources, which is very good." Yang Yuguang said.
Therefore, in a few decades, the script on the moon may be like this: a semi-underground base built with a large number of lunar raw materials and 3D printing technology will be self-sufficient with the lunar power station and water resources to a certain extent. Several engineers and scientists live in it, manage intelligent mining equipment and production factories, occasionally welcome spaceships and astronauts from the earth, and then send them to Mars. Every once in a while, they will receive a courier from the earth, or someone waiting for a shift change. Sometimes, they will explore around in a lunar rover, look up at the stars with astronomical equipment in a clean environment, or want to know how to bring helium -3 back to Earth. This is the predictable and correct way to develop the moon.