European Moon Mission

Well this should be interseting... I wonder what part of the moon they will survey... and more to the point, I wonder what party thay will NOT survey....

Europe's first moon mission blasts off

KOUROU, French Guiana (Reuters) --Europe's first mission to the moon blasted off late on Saturday aboard a European Ariane rocket, space officials said.

The Ariane-5 rocket carrying the SMART-1 moon exploration probe and two commercial satellites blasted off at 8.14 p.m. (2314 GMT) from the European Space Agency (ESA) launch center at Kourou, in French Guiana on the northeast coast of South America.

Forty-one minutes after launch, the rocket released SMART-1 into space to begin a 15-month journey to reach lunar orbit. The 370 kg (815 lb) probe will scan the moon for up to 30 months.

SMART-1 will cover a distance of 100 million kilometers (62 million miles) to reach the moon with only 60 liters of fuel," Giuseppe RACCA, ESA Project Manager said before the launch.

"The main form of propulsion will be electric, charged by the satellite's solar panels," he said.

The probe will provide data on the still uncertain origin of the moon and has been described by ESA as an important instrument "to unraveling some of the secrets of our neighboring world."

cnn.space.printthis.clickability.com...

The probe will provide data on the still uncertain origin of the moon and has been described by ESA as an important instrument "to unraveling some of the secrets of our neighboring world."

A worthy pursuit indeed. It is my opinion that the moon is a gigantic spaceship. Sorry, I couldn't resist. However, it is not a theory that has been just mentioned for the first time. I read with interest the new theories that come along, I believe the latest came out in the beginning of the summer claiming that the evidence points to the moon forming from a cataclysmic collision with the earth.

However, this has long been shown to be highly unlikely, as well as the two other theories that attempt to explain the moons origins, namely that it formed with the earth, or that it was captured by the earth. How else could it have gotten here? Reptoids # # ass ? That explanation is even less likely than the 3 popular ones.


I am curious as to how exactly this European expedition is going to shed light on this rather perplexing mystery...

add this, to chinese wishes to explore te moon, and possibly even set up a base there, i belive we'll soon learn the reason the US hasn't been back in some time. the chinese hope to land a man on the moon by the year 2010. i think they can do it, all of their tests of the Shenzhou capsule have so far been sucessful, and the chinese are awfully determined now aren't they. not to mention they have the economy to support such a mission.

I like the idea that they are using the ion drive, technology that needs to be tested out and could be a big part of future exploration.