It’s a double-edged sword, of course, because if you produce a list of valuable, collectible items on the Moon then you instantly inflate their value. “This stuff will be some of the most collectible ever-we really need to start thinking about this very seriously.” “Future lunar orbiters will have to monitor these places, keep track of their condition and also gather evidence of people looting them-such as fresh rover tracks,” said Gorman, who’s now working on heritage management guidelines for the Moon. Only then can we catch thieves in the act. Gorman thinks that we’re going to have to protect the Apollo sites, but prior to that re-visit them to get an idea of their current condition and thereafter to assess them as they change over time. “You can imagine that collectors would pay huge sums of money for a piece of Apollo 11 and it’s something we’re really gonna have to watch out for.” “There’s an antiquities trade in artifacts looted from archaeological sites and there's also a very big collecting market for space stuff,” said Gorman. (Photo by Heritage Space/Heritage Images via Getty Images) Heritage Space/Heritage Images via Getty Images The Lunar Module "Eagle" is in the far right background. He has just deployed the Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package, with the Passive Seismic Experiment Package next to him. Astronaut Edwin E."Buzz" Aldrin Jr., Lunar Module pilot, surveys the Apollo. Or will they? Once humans go to the Moon in greater numbers, and on private missions, those early Apollo landing sites are going to become targets for souvenir-hunters.Īpollo 11 - NASA, 1969. Since there’s no atmosphere on the Moon, the tracks of the first lunar rovers-and, more importantly, the footsteps of the first human moonwalkers in the late 1960s and 1970s-will be preserved for many thousands of years. “As the Moon becomes more accessible to both national space programs and private enterprise, it is important that we protect lunar artifacts for both their historic and scientific value,” reads the list’s introduction. NASA’s history office has a complete list of artifacts left on the Moon, and for good reason. Most of it, of course, is from the Apollo missions. It’s estimated that there is about 500,000 pounds of garbage on the Moon from canisters, cables and cameras to and hammers, tongs and, yes, bags of human waste. Having similar constructs on the Moon, however, doesn’t seem so far-fetched. Since humans are yet to land on Mars it’s hard to imagine the red planet having protected national parks and monuments recognising humans’ first steps on the planet. NASA's Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image of its own "space litter" on June 13, 2022. “Imagine if the Ingenuity helicopter was able to go photograph Curiosity or one of the older rovers covered in dust-it would be such an amazing picture,” said Gorman. She thinks that people have an emotional attachment to many of the rovers on Mars. “All their tracks will be blown away but the hardware will be covered in dust and preserved,” said Alice Gorman, a space archaeologist at the Flinders University of South Australia’s Department of Archaeology. NASA PICTURE OF THE DAY TODAY MOVIEMost of this precious Martian history is covered in dust, as recreated in the 2015 Hollywood movie The Martian when stranded astronaut Mark Watney travels for a month across the red planet to dig out the remains of NASA’s Pathfinder lander from 1987 to use its cameras to communicate with Earth. 1971’s Mars 2 mission, which crashed, contains a vacuum cleaner-sized robot on skis and tethered by an umbilical cord.Ī future exhibit in a future museum on Mars? Some have been pinpointed and examined from orbit while others-such as several Soviet landers from the 1970s that didn’t return any radio signals-are merely estimated. Glance at a list of artificial objects on Mars and you’ll discover that the red planet is covered in remnant-strewn landing sites. With the exception of bits of NASA and ESA’s Mars helicopter-aided Mars Sample Return mission, everything that goes to Mars dies on Mars. NASA's Opportunity rover's 2005 image of the remains of the heat shield that protected it as it made.
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