NASA mission: Returning humans to the moon

ASU planetary scientist Mark Robinson talks about the value of returning humans to the moon and the scheduled June 17 launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter with Arizona Republic reporter Anne Ryman. Her coverage of ASU's role in the next lunar mission begins on the front page of the June 14 Arizona Republic.

Robinson, a professor in ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is the principal investigator for the imaging system on the mission, known as LROC (short for Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera). It's actually three cameras that will look at every piece of ground on the moon, under all kinds of illumination, from grazing light at local sunrise through local noon to grazing light from the opposite direction at sunset, with the goal of identifying safe landing sites for future voyages to Earth's satellite.

Ryman reports that "the cameras themselves are a huge challenge. They have to be lightweight yet sturdy enough to survive extreme temperatures and the vibrations of being launched into space."

In her report, Robinson talks about the LRO camera: "Imagine taking your very expensive, brand-new, beautiful Nikon... And then go down to your local hardware store and strap it on the paint shaker for eight minutes and expect it to work."

READ MORE stories and view images on the Arizona Republic's Web site at:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/06/14/20090614moon-debate.html

READ MORE about the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter at:
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/
http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/lroc.html