ASIDE FROM THE RED PLANET, there is another heavenly body that is quite interesting as well. The Earth's satellite, the Moon, has wonders that people from different space programs are exploring.
For example, China successfully landed their Chang'e-4 probe on the far side of the moon in January. On the same month, plans for a lunar mission with the goal to mine rocks from the moon were announced by Europe. The month after that, SpaceX launched the Beresheet robotic lunar lander of Israel. Japan unveiled the Toyota lunar rover on February as well.
This time, an announcement to mine the moon for water was made by Australia. This plan is said to take place within five years.
The Australian Space Agency (ASA) is relatively new to the "space game" with just a year under its belt. Mining the moon for water might be ambitious for the newcomer but with the goal to raise the country's role in space exploration, the project is a vital step that ASA scientists are keen to undertake. As far as experience goes, Australia takes the lead and the advantage when it comes to farming and mining remote and inhospitable locations that are almost Mars-like.
Water from the moon was said to possibly have the capacity to fuel the rockets for the manned missions to Mars in the future. Of course, this function could be one of many uses that moon water has.
Andrew Dempster, Director of the Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research at the University of New South Wales, has pointed out that transporting items from the surface of the Earth and launching those into orbit or to outer space would be very costly. However, if water from the moon could be deemed usable, then the material is already in space, eliminating the need to use resources from the Earth.
Another advancement in space exploration that could be credited to Australia is the launch of their first home-grown satellite, WRESAT in 1967. Two years later, the Australia Telescope National Facility's Parkes radio telescope was able to receive and transmit television signals, allowing 600 million people to witness the first steps on the Moon taken by Neil Armstrong.
Dempster is optimistic about involving commercial corporations and programs in their new approach to extra-terrestrial explorations. He believes that this could be the key to keeping up with the fast pace that Australia's growing space program is going through. Dempster further explained that lumbering agencies and huge multinational corporations are not weighing them down but are instead aiding Australia's space program with a number of interesting ideas with their unwavering initiative.
