Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, November 13, 2006 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Paul Spudis

"Robotic Exploration of the Moon: Preparing the Way for Human Return"

ABSTRACT -- The Vision for Space Exploration calls for a human return to the Moon sometime in the next decade. The Moon allows us to extend human reach beyond low earth orbit and use its material and energy resources to create new spacefaring capability. To prepare the way for this return, we will send several robotic missions to collect strategic knowledge, emplace assets for later use, and create infrastructure on and around the Moon. These robotic missions will consist of both orbiter and landers; the program architecture is currently under construction. Particular attention will be focused on the poles of the Moon, which contain volatile substances of great value and an energy-rich, thermally benign environment in near-permanent sunlight on selected peaks near the poles. Robotic missions should continue after the arrival of humans; on the Moon, we will learn the optimum use and mix of people and machines to explore and utilize planetary surfaces.

SPEAKER -- Paul D. Spudis is Principal Professional Staff at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He received his education at Arizona State University (B.S., 1976; Ph. D., 1982) and at Brown University (Sc.M., 1977). He was Deputy Leader of the Science Team for the Department of Defense Clementine mission to the Moon in 1994 and is the Principal Investigator of an imaging radar experiment on the Indian Chandrayaan-1 mission, to be launched to the Moon in 2008. In 2004, he was a member of the President's Commission on the Implementation of U. S. Space Exploration Policy and was presented with the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal for that work. He is the recipient of the 2006 Von Karman Lectureship in Astronautics, awarded by the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics. He is the author or co-author of over 150 scientific papers and four books, including The Once and Future Moon, a book for the general public in the Smithsonian Library of the Solar System series, and (with Ben Bussey) The Clementine Atlas of the Moon, published in 2004 by Cambridge University Press.