SPACE JUNK IS STARTING A MOON LITTER PROBLEM

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32703, 4 September 1971, Page 11

SPACE JUNK IS STARTING A MOON LITTER PROBLEM

(From

DERRYN HINCH.

I, in New York)

During the moon flight of Apollo 15 one of the astronauts remarked that he recognised the landing site at Hadley Rille from “all the beer cans scattered around.” He hastily insisted that he was joking—before an avalanche of protests erupted from conservationists back on earth. And yet the joke was not far from the truth. In recent years the American Apollo flights and the unmanned Soviet' Luna Series have strewn tons of junk across the moon’s surface, which had remained unsullied by humans for thousands of millions of years. Four manned landings on the moon in two years, the crash-landings of more than a dozen unmanned Luna craft —and the bombardment of the moon over a decade by American Rangers, Surveyors and Orbiter satellites—have rained junk on the moon. Two moon cars The trail-blazing Apollo 11 astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, left litter on Tranquillity Base from a $250,000 TV camera to used 10c food bags. And last month Apollo 15 moon men Dave Scott and Jim Irwin abandoned their $lO million moon car Rover at Hadley Base. Also on the moon; but still working, is the bathtubshaped unmanned Soviet moon car Lunokhod. Moon junk started a decade ago when the Soviet Union crashed Luna 2 on to the lunar surface, but it was Apollo 11 that really left the place looking like a picnic ground after a long weekend. Around Tranquillity Base Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin left an American flag, cameras, lunar walking boots, equipment* boxes, a 701 b laser ranging device, a silicone /disc containing messages from 73 Heads of State, the first lunar scientific experiments, discarded food 4 bags, moon tools, and, of course, the 41001 b descent stage of their lunar module ■' f '

named Eagle. The crews of Apollos.l2, 14, and 15 also left the spindly-legged bottom half of their lunar modules on the surface. The TV camera left on the moon aboard the Lunar Rover last month showed, for the first time, dramatic pictures of a spaceship blasting off from the moon. The pictures beamed back to earth also showed something else: pollution. Strips of insulation foil scattered over a. wide area as' the Falcon tore aWay from its base. Discarded gear Each Apollo mission has also dumped hundreds of pounds of life-support systems, urine bags, arm rests, air cleaners and other gear before attempting the critical lift-off from the lunar surface. And each has added to the debris by deliberately sending their discarded lunar ship on a crash course to the moon so that scientific equipment left on the surface • can record the seismic waves produced by the impact On each Apollo mission the discarded third, stage of the S-4B rocket has also been sent hurtling at the moon at speeds of 5000 m.p.h. The rocket stage, weighing more than 30,0001 b, creates an energy source at impact Of about 11 tons of T.N.T. Instruments left 1 Each successful moon landing Apollo crew since Apollo 12 has deployed an AL.S.E.P. (Apoßo Lunar Science Exploratory. Package) on the " moon’s surface. The Apollo 15 moon men, Scott and Irwin, set up seven different experiments in the one radio-isotope-powered package and two other devices. The passive seismic experiment to measure seismic activity and . relay to. earth information on the composition of the lunar crust and interior.

The lunar surface magnetometer to measure the magnetic field and - maybe determine whether the moon is a perfect insulator or whether there is material

present to act as a conductor and therefor permit electricity to flow on the moon. The solar wind spectrometer to measure the strength, velocity and directions of electrons, and protons emanating from the sun and reaching the lunar surface with possible clues to the origin of the sun. The lunar heat flow experiment to catalogue the steady stream of heat from the moon’s interior, predicted sources of which are radioactivity and genesis heat at the time of the moon’s formation.

The suprathermal ion detector experiment and the cold cathode gauge experiment to measure flux, composition, energy and velocity or ions and density and variations in lunar atmosphere. The lUhar dust detector experiment to determine lunar surface temperatures, measure high-energy radiation damage to three solar cells and tabulate drainage on solar cell output because of dust accumulation. The A.L.S.E.P. central station, the nerve centre of the experiments providing power to the experiments and transmitting data to and from earth.

The laser ranging retroreflector experiment to permit long-term accurate measurements of the earth-moon distance by providing a passive target for laser beams aimed from earth and’ so measure fluctuations in the earth’s rotation rate and “wobbling” on its axis. The solar wind composition experiment, of aluminium sheet, to trap solar wind particles for analysis. Legal aspects In July legal experts of 28 nations completed the draft, to be sent to the United Nations Outer Space Committee, of an international convention making any nation “absolutely liable” to pay for any damage, including personal injury, caused by an object sent into space, whether an. incident occurs

on earth or to aircraft in flight. Nothing, however, was mentioned about, say, a Russian cosmonaut being injured on the moon by American space junk. The question is no longer frivolous. The statistics show that man has placed much more than a historic footprint on the virgin surface of the moon.