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I think that it's in human nature to
explore. Understanding the moon better

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Understanding the moon better will help us to understand our neighbors in the solar system.

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We're exploiting the solar system here
not just the moon. The moon is the

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natural next step in in our exploration
of our own universe.

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[Tooley] The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is as
its namesake says a reconnaissance

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mission to the moon. Our job is to take a
suite of very powerful scientific

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instruments and make an atlas of the
entire moon. In some places in very great

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detail, topography, mountain heights,
mineralogy, temperatures, abundances of

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resources including potentially the
intriguing possibility that there's

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water at the moon. We put all this
together and do a data set by playing

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low over the moon for a year this is the
data that the people designing the

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systems picking the site's need to take
us back to the moon. [Vondrak] Well we learned much

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about the moon from the Apollo program
but now we want to return to the moon

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for a more intensive study. We want to be
able to go back to the moon so that we

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can live there for long periods and work
on the moon. So we need a mission that

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can help us find the best places to go
and determine how to go back there safely.

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[Peddie] We know that you know Neil
Armstrong and some of the others had a

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difficult time finding a safe landing
site. They didn't see it till they got

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there. But now with with our instruments
we'll be able to tell people ahead of

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time look don't go there. [Vondrak]  LRO will have a
laser system that will give us a high

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resolution topographic map of the moon.
It also has high resolution cameras that

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will identify objects that are only a
foot or two in size so that we know

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where there are no large boulders that
could be a risk to astronauts. [Tooley] So our job

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is to literally complete the job of
mapping the moon do it at high

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resolutions and enable enable the
designers of the human systems, the Atlas

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they need to pick the safe places to go
the beneficial places to go and where

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it's most fruitful to go.

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[Peddie] In addition to the safe landing sites,
LRO is looking for potential resources.

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And why are we doing that?
Because it's it's really hard to carry

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all your supplies with you. I mean you
can do it but you really spend a lot of

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not only fuel but cargo space. So it'd be
really nice to go to a place that

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already has the resources. Whether it's
water ice to have water or potential

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minerals that we could use as raw
materials to make into things that we

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would need. [Vondrak] We think the most interesting
parts of the Moon may be the polar

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regions of the Moon. Because there could
be resources there and so we're going to

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study intensively the polar regions with
LRO. [Tooley] From the Apollo era we chose to go

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for good reasons because it was
literally the easiest to go to the

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equatorial regions and stay a very short
time and was very ambitious program. But

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but when you look at where would you
like to go and stay for a while on the

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moon. You begin to realize that probably
the poles are the most interesting place

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[Keller] Access to solar power continuously that
may be the first and most important

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reason over you know the near term. And
then the possibility of resources being

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there. Those may take much longer time
before we're able to really exploit

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those. But the solar power is something
we can exploit right away.

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[Vondrak] The second big resource on the moon may
be water ice. There's evidence from

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earlier missions that in dark places at
the poles there may be water at the

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surface or below the surface in the form
of ice crystals. If it is abundant

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astronauts could use this for both human
consumption and as a source of rocket

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fuel LRO.

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LRO will measure for the first time
this very energetic component of the

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space radiation environment in order to
see whether it's going to be a problem

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for humans or not. [Tooley] It was one thing to go
for a handful of days in Apollo and go

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when you knew that the Sun was quiet or
you hope the Sun stayed quiet.

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And you took the risk you calculated the
risk of cancer and such in and you made

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a short mission. You're gonna live there
longer you need to you need to

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understand it well enough to go here's
what I need to do to protect myself.

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[Peddie] One of the things that we're looking for in
the LRO mission is how the high

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radiation environment affects our
ability to explore. So if we bring

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cameras or communication devices you
know how will they be impacted by the

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cosmic radiation? We need to protect our
equipment as well as ourselves.

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[Tooley] When we look back to what we did in LRO and we look at what followed. I think we'll see

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a profound impact. We'll see us is really
being the small first step where we have

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human beings permanently off this planet,
getting to move out into the solar

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system starting with the moon. As that
pans out I think I think will be a small

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piece of a profound development that
when history looks back to say this time

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we went back to the moon this time we we
stayed and we when we moved on from

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there.

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