Next moon explorers may be robots

TAOS, N.M., Sept. 12 (UPI) -- University of Hawaii geologist Jeffrey Taylor said Thursday he sees the day when swarms of tiny robots scurry around the surface of the moon, probing for water, minerals and other resources that will be needed for lunar settlements and industries.

The miniature robots would relay their findings to all-terrain rovers, which would then explore the most promising locations.

"We are developing a strategy that represents a comprehensive, integrated program to prospect for resources throughout the solar system," Taylor said during the opening day of a three-day conference titled, "The Moon Beyond 2002: Next Steps in Lunar Science and Exploration."

Buoyed by a National Research Council recommendation for a new science mission to retrieve samples from a deep crater on the moon, scientists and engineers are hoping to rekindle support for lunar exploration, which has been largely dormant since the completion of the Apollo program in the early 1970s. Two notable exceptions: a technology demonstration project called Clementine, which flew in 1994 and produced the first global map of the moon's surface, and NASA's Lunar Prospector spacecraft, which in 1999 mapped the moon's minerals, gravity and magnetic fields.

"We have a good collection of remote sensing data for the moon," Taylor said. "Prospecting can begin immediately."

Identifying valuable deposits, however, will require better understanding of lunar composition, geologic history and geologic processes.

For example, Taylor said: "The bone-dry nature of the moon -- except perhaps at the poles -- eliminates all ore deposits associated with aqueous fluids. On the other hand, ore-forming processes might have operated on the moon, but not on Earth."

In addition to understanding what kinds of resources are on the moon and how they could be used, Taylor and colleagues at the University of Hawaii's Institute of Geophysics and Planetology want to develop curriculum to prepare field geologists for lunar exploration.

"We have to learn what we'll need to live off the land," said Linda Martel, a planetary geologist and remote sensing expert who works with Taylor.

In addition to developing maps of ore deposits, the team is working on plans for an army of microrobots, which could number in the thousand or millions, to physically locate the resources on the moon's surface. Prototype robotic field geologists already have been tested on Hawaiian lava flows.

"We're working on a strategy of how to find the resources," Martel said.

Lunar exploration advocates say it makes more sense to learn to live off a relatively close-by base on the moon, rather than focusing on Mars.

"We really need to get our space legs more under us before we go on to Mars," said David Gump, president of LunaCorp, which is developing a lunar orbiter and a follow-up robotic probe.

"Expect for the six Apollo landing sites, we really don't know much about what's on the moon," Gump said. "Mars seizes the imagination, but the technology just isn't here yet. We need to get back to the moon first."

(Reported by Irene Brown, UPI Science News, at Cape Canaveral, Fla.)