ISRU-Based Development of a Lunar Water Astroparticle Observatory
- Paper number
IAC-06-D3.3.05
- Author
Dr. Alex Ignatiev, University of Houston, United States
- Coauthor
Mr. Klaus Heiss, United States
- Coauthor
Mr. Paul Van Susante, Colorado School of Mines, United States
- Year
2006
- Abstract
Astroparticle observatories have over that past 30 years contributed immensely to the knowledge of high-energy physics and origin of the universe. There remain, however, important gaps in parts of the electromagnetic spectrum when observing ultra-high energy gamma and cosmic rays from Earth. In the next decade and beyond, it has been proposed, amongst others by Spillantini [1], that this gap in observational data be closed by “water observatories” deployed on the Moon, where interference from the Earth’s atmosphere and magnetosphere would no longer hamper measurements. The authors propose to deploy such water observatories at the Lunar North and South Poles by use of Lunar in-situ resources. These observatories will consist, initially, of a 10m x 10m x 10m basin excavated, to be filled with 1000 metric tons of water from the in-situ resources at the polar regions. The water basin would be constructed by excavation of cavities out of the regolith zones, lined with waterproof material and then filled with water extracted from the adjacent permanently dark crater regions. These permanently dark regions are believed to contain water (ice) at a 1
[1] P. Spillantini, Moon Base Conference, Washington, DC, Oct 12, 2006
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-06-D3.3.05.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
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