Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Expansive plans are being blueprinted for a Moon Village, not just in the United States but in other nations as well. (Image credit: XTEND: Tomas Rousek, Katarina Eriksson, Yan Bilobrovenko, Vittorio Rossetti, Veronika Rabas, Adam Ctverak for Moon Village Association)

Permanently shadowed regions at the Moon’s poles have a story to tell. Not only could sun-shy polar ice patches yield an account about the Moon’s history, but may also offer astrobiological clues regarding the origin of life.

The floor of those craters in polar regions that have permanently shadowed floors are between 3.4 to 3.9 billion years old, based on cratering statistics.

The NASA Artemis program will send the first woman and the next man to the Moon by 2024 and develop a sustainable human presence on the Moon by 2028. The program takes its name from the twin sister of Apollo and goddess of the Moon in Greek mythology.
Credit: NASA

NASA’s Artemis program calls for landing the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024. Also eyed is establishing sustainable exploration there by the end of the decade, fabricating an Artemis Base Camp perhaps near Shackleton Crater at the Moon’s south pole.

A South Pole landing site has not been determined, but this image shows sites of interest near permanently shadowed regions, which may contain mission enhancing volatiles. These sites may also offer long-duration access to sunlight, direct-to-Earth communication, surface slope and roughness that will be less challenging for landers and astronauts.

But how best to steer clear of contaminating these potentially ice-rich, permanently shadowed regions given human and robotic rocket landings and the growing interest in on-the-spot resource prospecting?

Go to my new Space.com story:

Cold as (lunar) ice: Protecting the moon’s polar regions from contamination – Exploration should be done thoughtfully, scientists say

https://www.space.com/moon-ice-mining-contamination-concerns.html