Dr. Rebecca Ghent of the "LRO 24" presents "a Striking History"

On March 11, Dr. Rebbecca Ghent of the University of Toronto was chosen by NASA as one of the "LRO 24," a group picked by NASA to help decide how best the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will collect science on its mission later this year. The LRO-LCROSS mission is nearly assembled and was reportedly scheduled for vacuum chamber stress testing under supervision by the Goddard Spaceflight Center.

Among the stated goals of LRO are testing new technologies, identifying potential landing sites, sampling the back-scatter from Cosmic Rays and solar particles from the lunar surface and the moon's "striking" geological history, which is believed to be a literal recording of the same history of the Solar System since the Moon formed 4.725 billion years ago.

Overnight Chuck Wood of the Lunar Photograph of the Day (LPOD) wiki has opened a discussion of an "important article" in the May issue of Geology showing an incredible mosaic of lunar radar data.

The image put together by Dr. Ghent and colleagues has resulted in an wrap-around image of lunar morphology adding to debate over the long-theorized relationship between the Mare Orientale impact basin, the "eastern sea" marking the eastern limb of near side with it's familiar bull's eye, and lava-filled floors of older impact craters in the southern highlands and as far away as Shackleton nestled adjacent to the lunar south pole and within the ancient Aiken Basin, eighty percent of which is on the far side and invisible to Earth-bound observations.

Aside from helping establish the relationship between older craters and the freshness of their basalt-filled apparently newer floors, Ghent and her colleague's work will greatly serve the LRO's mission of discovering in situ resources.

Like all but a few of the large basalt-filled lunar "seas" of Earth's moon, which make up such a predominant feature characterizing the familiar near side, tidally locked into ever facing Earth, Mare Orientale is a "mascon," a localized concentration of mass perturbing the orbits of satellites in both equatorial and polar low lunar orbit and demonstrating the still mysterious anisotropy of the moon itself. The center of the large prominent basin is lower, dipping down below the mean levels of the surrounding surface. Two concentric rings encircling the inner basin are also basalt-filled, dipping lower than the mean surface's distance from the unresolved lunar "center."

As with all other mascons, gravity increases in effect on the space surrounding them in inverse proportion to their seeming size. Gravimetric maps of the lunar "seas" show what appears to be a mountainous mass peaked at Mare Orientale's basin with surrounding ridges rather than the circular valleys mapped by radar and Kaguya's laser altimeter.

Now among the "LRO 24," Dr. Ghent teaches geology at the University of Toronto.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in Physics in 1993 from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. She earned her masters degree a year later at Georgia Tech and taught Physics at Georgia's Gordon College before returning to graduate school to study geology. In 2002, Ghent earned a Ph.D. in geology from Southern Methodist University and held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution in DC in 2006, before becoming part of the faculty at Toronto.

Georgia Tech Partnering to Create National Robotics Strategy

Academic Leaders in Robotics Research Announce Effort To Create National Strategy for Robotics Growth

Citing the critical importance of the continued growth of robotics to U.S. competitiveness, 11 universities are taking the lead in developing an integrated national strategy for robotics research. The United States is the only nation engaged in advanced robotics research that does not have such a research roadmap.

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC), a program of the National Science Foundation, is providing support for developing the roadmap, which will be a unified research agenda for robotics across federal agencies, industry and the universities.

The effort began last year and includes representatives from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University and the universities of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, California- Berkeley, Southern California, Utah and Illinois, as well as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Henrik I. Christensen, the KUKA Chair of Robotics at Georgia Tech and a principal investigator for the CCC, is leading the group effort to develop the roadmap with the involvement of industry.

This spring, a series of workshops are being organized and this fall a National Robotics Senior Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C., will take place. The conference will review the preliminary results from the workshops and take steps toward an integrated national research agenda. The roadmap will then be reported to the year-old Congressional Robotics Caucus, headed by U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.).

“It is essential that the United States begins to solidly outline a leadership position in robotics,” said Carnegie Mellon President Jared L. Cohon. “Robotics already is having a transformative impact on the workplace, from the factory floor to hospital operating rooms. In the decades ahead, this impact can be extended to our homes and our highways to increase our ability to live independently and to save lives.”

“The planning process now getting under way is a historic opportunity to build upon broad-based collaboration among industry and academic leaders in the field of robotics,” said Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough. “We want to create a plan that will keep this nation competitive in a technology that is rapidly advancing.”

The failure of the robotics community to previously speak with one voice has resulted in inconsistent funding and missed opportunities, said Matthew T. Mason, director of Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute. “The technology is finding wider application, but its full potential is not fully appreciated by policy makers,” he explained. “We need to develop a common vision so that we can work effectively with the Congressional Robotics Caucus and with funding agencies.”

Christensen noted that all of the planning events are designed to focus on the research needs that are vital to the development of a growing robotics industry.

“Several key competencies are not available today,” Christensen said. “Through a community effort that includes end-users, industry and academia, the key challenges and opportunities will be identified. The workshops and conferences will allow us to develop a mature plan.”

“The key to the workshops will be the collaborative discussions between representatives from both academia and industry,” stated John Reid, Director, Product Technology and Innovation at John Deere’s Moline Technology Innovation Center. “We need to proceed in a market-driven fashion to envision key future robotics-enabled capabilities and then map these capabilities to the required robotics technologies that we need to be researching and developing today.”

Doyle and Wamp of the Congressional Robotics Caucus expressed enthusiasm for the effort.

“We applaud the researchers at some of our nation’s top universities for this effort to craft a national agenda for robotics research,” they said in a statement released by the caucus. “We especially want to commend the presidents of Carnegie Mellon and Georgia Tech for their initiative in organizing this conference. The Congressional Robotics Caucus looks forward to reviewing the results of this important work so that we can more fully understand the impact that robotics is likely to have on the future security and prosperity of our nation.”

Naval Research Laboratory to design Farside DALI

The Dark Age Lunar Interferometer (DALI) apparently planned for multi-robot deployment from Tsiolkovsky

Contact: Donna McKinney
(202) 767-2541
Naval Research Laboratory

A team of scientists and engineers led by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) will study how to design a telescope on the Moon for peering into the last unexplored epoch in the Universe’s history. NASA has announced that it will sponsor a series of studies focusing on next-generation space missions for astronomy. These studies will contribute to the Decadal Survey, an effort undertaken every 10 years by astronomers and physicists to help establish priorities for future research directions in astronomy and astrophysics. The upcoming Decadal Survey occurs over the next two years.

Among the missions to be studied is the Dark Ages Lunar Interferometer (DALI), the NRL-led concept for a telescope based on the Moon and studying an era of the young Universe, during the first 100 million years of its existence. Although the night sky is filled with stars, these stars did not form instantaneously after the Big Bang. There was an interval, now called the “Dark Ages,” in which the Universe was unlit by any star. The most abundant element in the Universe, and the raw material from which stars, planets, and people are formed, is hydrogen. Fortunately, the hydrogen atom can produce a signal in the radio-wavelength part of the spectrum, at 21 cm; a wavelength far longer than what the human eye can detect. If these first signals from hydrogen atoms in the Dark Ages can be detected, astronomers can essentially probe how the first stars, the first galaxies, and ultimately the modern Universe evolved.

Because the Universe is expanding, the signals from these distant hydrogen atoms will be stretched (or redshifted) to much longer wavelengths, as large as several meters. While astronomical observations at radio wavelengths have a long history, this portion of the electromagnetic spectrum is now heavily used for various civil and military transmissions, all of which are millions of times brighter than the hydrogen signal that astronomers seek to detect. Additionally, the upper layers of the Earth’s atmosphere are ionized (the ionosphere), which introduce distortions into astronomical signals as they pass through on their way to telescopes on the ground.

With no atmosphere and shielding from the Earth, the far side of the Moon presents a nearly ideal environment for a sensitive Dark Ages telescope. In NRL’s DALI concept, scientists and engineers will investigate novel antenna constructions, methods to deploy the antennas, electronics that can survive in the harsh lunar environment, and related technology in preparation for developing a roadmap for research and development of a lunar telescope over the next decade. The team will also build on their experience in developing the Radio Observatory for Lunar Sortie Science, a NASA-funded study of a pathfinding array that would be located on the near side of the Moon.

The project leader at NRL, Dr. Joseph Lazio, pointed out that DALI will be one of the most powerful telescopes ever built and will bring us closer than we have ever been to understanding where our Universe came from and where it is going. “Probing the Dark Ages presents the opportunity to watch the young Universe evolve,” Dr. Lazio said. “Just as current cosmological studies have both fascinated and surprised us, I anticipate that DALI will lead both to increased understanding of the Universe and unexpected discoveries.”

When asked about the program, NRL Senior Astronomer Dr. Kurt Weiler remarked: “Building telescopes on the Moon is clearly a long-term project, but I am very excited about us getting started on this proposal.”
###
Scientists and engineers from institutions and NASA centers around the country are participating in the Dark Ages Lunar Interferometer study, including NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the University of Colorado, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, University of California-Los Angeles, University of California-Berkeley, the University of New Mexico, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VA Tech).

Glasgow reaches for the moon

The University of Glasgow is offering its expertise in a major competition to land a robot on the moon.

The Lunar X Prize, launched by Google, challenges teams from all over the world to land a robot on the surface of the moon, travel 500 metres over the lunar surface and send images and data back to the Earth. Google are offering $30 million in prize money.

With an international reputation for space technology expertise, the University of Glasgow is well placed to participate in the competition and welcomes approaches from other teams who wish to collaborate.

Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Professor Frank Coton, said: “Participation in the Lunar X prize competition is an exciting prospect for us. We already have a comprehensive capability in space technologies, including a group working with the European Space Agency on the design of major space missions. In fact, we have recently brought this expertise together with our world-leading strengths in nanotechnology and electronic design to support a ground-breaking project that could lead to a whole new generation of miniaturised space vehicles and satellites. By combining these capabilities with our core expertise across engineering and the sciences, the University of Glasgow is well placed to be a major player in any X Prize team and would welcome the opportunity to get involved."

The first 10 teams were announced last week and participants have until 2012 to complete the mission.

Source: By University Of Glasgow

Preparation For The Next Lunar Landing Leaps Across The Generation Gap

Conference Tuesday - "Go for Lunar Landing - From Touchdown to Teerminal Descent" (With great header graphic featuring Surveyor Crater Landing site of Apollo 12)

Highlighting the Arizona State University School for Earth and Space Exploration

Moon Daily
It was July 20, 1969 when the first human walked upon the surface of the moon. The world has changed drastically since that memorable day, but even back then the Apollo era scientists, engineers and astronauts had the right stuff. They had what it took to get to the moon. And now, nearly 40 years later, we call on them again to share their wisdom, experience and opinion as we prepare to return to the moon.

Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE) in partnership with University of Arizona is organizing the conference "Go for Lunar Landing: From Touchdown to Terminal Descent" to be held on March 4th and 5th, 2008 at the Fiesta Inn Resort in Tempe, Arizona.

The aim of the conference is to leverage the experiences and lessons learned from the six Apollo lunar landings and to provide a forum for direct communication between the Apollo teams and today's engineers and scientists while also opening the door to compare past and current technologies. Designed to facilitate discussion, the conference is broken up into six different panels, with the first day's panel featuring Apollo astronauts Harrison Schmidt and Dick Gordon.

Read More at MOON DAILY