1. Introduction .

2. First telescopic exploration of the Moon ..

3. Space exploration of the Moon ..

4. Future lunar exploration ..

5. Conclusion .

6. References: .

7. Appendix 1. Launch statistics spacecraft to the moon by the countries of the USSR and the USA ..

8. Appendix 2. List of launches spacecraft to the moon .

Introduction

The moon, as the brightest object in the night sky, has always aroused people's interest. An ancient man, peering into the night sky, noticed the movement of the Moon, Sun and stars. Ancient tribes even worshiped the moon. The ancient Babylonians observed the changing phases of the Moon, calculated the time of the Moon's revolution around the Earth with such accuracy that today scientists armed with cutting-edge instruments corrected this value by only 0.4 seconds. But the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia did not possess either goniometric instruments or clocks - chronometers.

The Moon is the closest celestial body to the Earth and is the only satellite of the Earth. The naked eye can see dark formations on the Moon, which are called seas (lava fields, the young surface of the Moon). If you look at the Moon through a telescope, you can see more detailed details: circuses of craters, chains of mountains, cracks, etc. The appearance of the surface of the Moon evokes associations with the deserts of our planet. Its surface is covered with a layer of dust and regolith.

Most of the craters were formed by meteorite impacts. If the meteorites were large, the impact caused lava to erupt from the lunar mantle.

According to more recent hypotheses, volcanic activity occurred throughout the history of the formation of the Moon. Soil samples were found that were formed as a result of volcanic eruptions 900 million years ago, and until recently it was believed that volcanic activity was one and a half billion years before the formation of our satellite.

First telescopic exploration of the Moon

In the second century BC. Hipparchus determined the inclination of the lunar orbit to the ecliptic plane and deduced a number of features of the movement of the Moon. He also created the theory of solar and lunar eclipses.

Hipparchus's theory of the motion of the Moon around the Earth was improved by II century Ptolemy, who dedicated one of his books, the Almagest, to her. Later it was improved, but after the discovery of Isa A ComNewton's theory of universal gravitation, this theory became dynamic.

The first scientist to make a detailed description of the lunar surface was Galileo Galilei. He pioneered telescopic observations in 1610. Using a telescope, he discovered mountains and craters on the Moon.

Subsequently, based on many years of observations, detailed maps of the lunar surface were compiled. The first such maps were published by J. Hevelius in 1647. Having retained the names of the “sea”, he assigned names to the main lunar ridges, based on similar earthly formations: Apennines, Caucasus, Alps.

In 1615 Italian astronomer Giovanni Riccoli published a map of the Moon and introduced designations for most of the relief on the visible side of the satellite. It is to this research that the seas of Silence, Tranquility, Rain, the craters of Copernicus and Tycho owe their names. Because of his tense relationship with the church, only a small crater with a diameter of about 15 km was named after Galileo. These names have been preserved on Lunar maps to this day, and many new names of outstanding people of a later time have been added. Detailed and accurate maps of the Moon were compiled from telescopic observations in XIX century by German astronomers I. Mädler, J. Schmidt and others. The maps were compiled in an orthographic projection for the middle phase of libration, i.e. Approximately how the Moon is visible from Earth. At the end XIX century, photographic observations of the Moon began. In 1896-1910, the Great Atlas of the Moon was published by French astronomers M. Levy and P. Puze based on photographs taken at the Paris Observatory. Later, a photographic album was released by the Lick Observatory in the USA, and in the middle XX century, D. Kuiper compiled several detailed atlases of photographs of the Moon, obtained on different telescopes of different astronomical observatories. The lunar relief was determined as a result of many years of telescopic observations. The structure of the lunar surface was studied mainly by photometric and polarimetric observations, supplemented by radio astronomical studies. In 1949

Soviet scientist A.V. Khabakov divided the lunar formations into several successive age complexes. Further development of this approach made it possible by the end of the 60s to compile medium-scale geological maps for a significant part of the lunar surface.

Space exploration of the Moon

On January 2, 1959, the first ever launch towards a night star took place. Luna-1 (“Dream,” as journalists called it) passed close to the Moon and became the first artificial satellite of the Sun in history (Fig. 1). Its mass is 361 kg. It reached the second escape velocity for the first time and passed at a distance of six thousand kilometers from the Moon. The station housed scientific instruments for studying the Earth's radiation belts, cosmic rays, and meteor particles.

The American probe Pioneer 4, weighing only 6 kg, launched on March 3, 1959, traveled much further from the Moon - only 60,500 km.

The victory of Soviet engineers was the launch of the Luna 2 satellite on September 14, 1959. She reached the lunar surface and delivered a metal disk with the coat of arms of the USSR to the Moon. Scientific instruments have shown that the Moon has virtually no magnetic field. This flight showed that all calculations were performed correctly.

Already on the next flight, Luna 3 orbited our satellite (Fig. 2). Photographic television equipment was placed on board this station, which for the first time transmitted to Earth photographs of parts of the visible and invisible sides of the Moon. These were the very first photographs taken from space. There was a lot of noise on them, but scientists still revealed many details on the far side of the Moon. The SAI, TsNIIGAiK, Pulkovo and Kharkov observatories took part in the processing of these images. Thanks to the technique for identifying relief details, developed under the leadership of Yu.N. Lipsky, it was this group of researchers who managed to identify craters and other relief formations. This is how the world's first map of the far side of the Moon appeared.

A few years later, photographing individual sections of the surface of the visible hemisphere was carried out by the American spacecraft Ranger 7,8,9. These devices crashed, but during the fall they transmitted images of various resolutions to Earth.

In 1965, the Soviet space station Zond completed photography of the far side of the Moon. It turned out that there were fewer dark areas of the surface, but there were as many craters as on the visible side of the Moon, some of them were named after scientists and astronauts. And finally, the first complete map of the lunar surface was created. It was compiled under the scientific guidance of Yu.N. Lipsky.

The first soft landing was carried out by the automatic interplanetary station “Luna 9” in 1966. The landing method was proposed by the chief designer S.P. Korolev. The station's television cameras transmitted panoramas of the surrounding area to Earth with a resolution of several millimeters.

In 1966, artificial satellites “Luna 10,11,12” were launched into orbit around the Moon. The equipment included instruments for spectral analysis, gamma radiation and infrared radiation.

In 1966, the American Surveyor 1 spacecraft made a soft landing on the Moon and transmitted images of the surface for six weeks.

In June 1968, the Surveyor made a soft landing and examined samples of lunar soil.

After this, the Americans began preparing to send a manned spacecraft to the Moon. At the same time, they relied on the results of flights of the Soviet automatic Zond stations, which in the fall of 1968 for the first time traveled along the Earth-Moon-Earth route. The problem of returning spacecraft from interplanetary flights was solved. Surveyors 3, 5, 6, 7 (1966-1967) were launched to explore the lunar surface to select a landing site for the Apollo spacecraft.

Five American artificial satellites, the Lunar Orbiter, photographed the lunar surface and studied its gravitational field.

Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin landed the lunar cabin on July 20, 1969. The astronauts installed a laser radiation reflector, a seismometer, took photographs, collected 22 kg of lunar soil samples, walking about 100 meters from the landing module and spending 2 hours 30 minutes on the surface. In the main block in orbit was Michael Collins.

Soviet automatic stations “Luna 16, 20, 24”, using a special soil-collecting device, automatically collected rock and delivered it to Earth in return vehicles.

Self-propelled vehicles "Lunokhod 1, 2" carried out research along the travel path of 10.5 and 37 km, transmitting to Earth many images and panoramas of the surrounding area, as well as data on the physical and chemical composition of the lunar soil. Using a laser reflector installed on the lunar rover, it was possible to clarify the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

In 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created in the United States. It was originally planned that astronauts would fly as early as 1958, but numerous problems pushed back the launch date. The ship that launched the astronauts into orbit was called Mercury. The Mercury cabin was very cramped and uncomfortable. In 1965, NASA adopted a new space flight program, Gemini. The ships of this series turned out to be much more advanced and convenient. The last ship of the series, Gemini 12, flew in November 1966. But much earlier than this, NASA developed a project called Apollo. The Apollo series turned out to be the most advanced of all that designers have managed to create so far CLIA . The ship could accommodate three astronauts, had a reliable descent module and a docking module. It had the ability to dock with several ships simultaneously. But even such a perfect device had its drawbacks. One of them caused a tragedy at the launch complex. During pre-flight training, a short circuit occurred in the electrical network. In a matter of minutes, the flames engulfed the entire pad and astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White, Roger Chaffee died.

Almost at the same time, Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov died on the Soyuz experimental spacecraft.

Long break from 1977 to 1990 in lunar exploration by spacecraft is apparently explained by a rethinking of programs related to further research and preparation of new generation vehicles.

In March 1990, Japan launched an automatic vehicle into orbit around the Moon with its Nissan rocket. Mycec A ", with the aim of remote exploration of the lunar surface. However, this program failed to execute.

Spectral photography of the lunar surface in 1990 and 1992. carried out by the American spacecraft Galileo, which, moving along a complex orbit to Jupiter, returned to Earth twice and photographed its satellite.

The Clementine spacecraft, launched in 1994, in addition to photographing the lunar surface using a laser transmitter, measured relief heights, and using trajectory data, the model of the gravitational field and some other parameters were refined.

Special measurements near the poles have shown that there may be pieces of ice at the bottom of permanently shadowed deep craters.

Launched in January 1998, the American Lunar Prospector spacecraft was specifically designed to clarify the areas occupied by ice in the polar regions. Based on data transmitted by spacecraft from an orbit of 100 km, it is assumed that the Moon has an iron silicate core 300 km in size. Extensive research was carried out by this device from a low orbit of 25 km.

Future lunar exploration

On the Moon there is no atmosphere familiar to us, there are no rivers and lakes, vegetation and animal organisms. The gravity on the Moon is six times less than on Earth. Day and night with temperature changes of up to 300 degrees last for two weeks. And yet, the Moon is increasingly attracting earthlings with the opportunity to use its unique conditions and resources.

The structure of the world economy has led to the fact that about 98-99% is converted into waste, and 88% of energy is generated from carbon fuels (wood, coal, oil, gas), which produces 60% of all environmental pollution. The invariability of technologies in energy production will lead to the beginning of irreversible processes in the biosphere associated with its degradation and posing a vital danger to humanity. The necessary conditions for preventing the threat of an environmental crisis are, first of all, the transfer of the economy to “waste-free technology” and the production of new types of “environmentally friendly” energy from renewable sources (Sun, wind, tidal stations), as well as from nuclear reactions based on deuterium fusion (2D) with helium-3 (He).

“According to the forecast of scientists, the reserves of oil, gas, uranium (even taking into account the current level of energy consumption) on Earth will last for about 100 years, so it is now necessary to look for alternative energy sources,” says academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN), member of the bureau of the Space Council RANerik Galimov. The costs of interplanetary delivery will be significantly less than the cost of electricity currently generated at nuclear power plants. The academician believes that the delivery of helium-3 from the Moon could become a reality in 30 years, but for this, work must begin now. Scientists have calculated that a section of the lunar surface measuring100x100x10 m will provide: - 40 thousand tons of silicon, - from 80 to 90 thousand tons of oxygen, - from 15 to 30 thousand tons of aluminum, - from 5 to 25 thousand tons of iron, - 9 thousand tons of titanium,- 0.8 kg Not. A certain amount of magnesium, calcium, chromium and other chemical elements will be added to them. The lunar soil itself as a whole can serve as a raw material for the production of various building materials, including the best brands of concrete, glass, ceramics, fibrous and crystalline composite materials.Just a couple of flights to the Moon with a payload of 10 tons will provide energy to the Earth for a year. The moon will provide energy to humanity for thousands of years. I'm sure of this Eric Galimov. According to scientists, the reserves of oil, gas, and uranium on Earth will last until the middle of the next century, so we must now look for alternative energy sources. The most promising of them is helium-3, the reserves of which in the upper layers of the lunar surface reach about 500 million tons, the academician emphasized. This isotope is practically absent on Earth; in the depths of the planet there is no more than a few hundred kilograms of it. Helium-3 is an ideal environmentally friendly fuel for thermonuclear fusion. When used, there is no radiation, so the problem of nuclear waste disposal, which is so acutely facing the world, disappears by itself. Helium-3 has been brought to the Moon by the solar wind for billions of years. Scientists learned about its existence on the Moon by analyzing soil delivered from the Earth's satellite by Soviet automatic stations and American astronauts. The removal of energy-intensive industries from the Earth, for example, metallurgy, building materials and others, will significantly relieve the environmental load on the Earth's natural environment. Even with the most tentative estimates, it is obvious that further exploration of outer space cannot be carried out relying only on industrial capacities created by traditional ways on Earth.

Conclusion

The work analyzed spacecraft launches to the Moon. A diagram of the frequency of spacecraft flights was constructed. It was found that from 09/03/58 to 09/27/2003, seven dozen launches were made, of which about 15 were emergency ones.

The limited amount of energy minerals on Earth raises the question of research and development of alternative energy sources and mining on the Moon. The paper examined the relevance of the issue regarding the extraction of helium-3 from lunar regolith. In the near future, the issue of producing and delivering helium-3 to Earth will have to be resolved.

In the near future, it is planned to build a lunar base, which in the future can be used to launch flights to other planets of the solar system, as well as for mining minerals and preparing them for transporting them to Earth.

To summarize, we can say that over a fairly short period of time in the second half of the 20th century, knowledge about the Moon has increased significantly. Thanks to the study of the Moon from space, science has advanced greatly. We were able to see the far side of the Moon, make detailed maps of the lunar surface, determine the presence of a magnetic field, and take a huge number of photographs. And all this was done over the course of 50 years..

References:

1. "Cosmonautics". Small encyclopedia. V.P. Glushko.Moscow1 970g. 2. "Astronomer"iii cosmonautics". A short chronological story ID. 1968 r. 3. “All about space.” Burmistrova Larisa. 2000 4. “Avanta+” Encyclopedia. Moscow. 2003 5. “Cosmos” Supernova atlas of the Universe. Gianluca Ranzini. Moscow 2004 Internet sources: 6. http:// selena. sai. msu. ru/ Home/ SolarSystem/ moon. htm 7. http://astrogalaxy.ru/104.html 8. http://astrogalaxy.ru/161.html 9. http:// www.newsru.com/russia/25jan2006/gel.html 10. http:// www. vesti. ru

Appendix 1. Statistics of spacecraft launches to the Moon by the countries of the USSR and the USA

Appendix 2. List of spacecraft launches to the Moon

date	country	apparatus	notes
			LV 1st stage accident.
			LV 1st stage accident.
			LV 2nd stage accident.
			Magnetic detection fields and radiation belts.
			Missing the Moon.
			The ALS passed at a distance of 60,050 km from the surface. Moons.
			LV 2nd stage accident.
			Hitting the Moon.
			Photographing the invisible side of the Moon.
			LV 1st stage accident.
			Missing the Moon.
			Failure of on-board equipment shortly after launch.
			Orientation system failure, missing the Moon.
		Sputnik-25	Block L failure.
			LV accident.
			Missing the Moon.
			Equipment failure.
			Block "L" failure.
			Obtaining television images of the lunar surface.
			Block L failure.
			Obtaining television images of the lunar surface.
			Failure of the LV 3rd stage remote control.
			Missing the Moon.
			Missing the Moon.
			Loss of orientation during braking.
			The AMS crashed.
			The world's first soft landing on the Moon.
		Cosmos-111	Failure of the L unit control system.
			11,150 images received.
		Lunar Orbiter-1	215 pairs of images were received.
			Photographing the surface of the Moon.
			The spacecraft crashed due to a failure of the orientation system.
			211 pairs of images were received.
			Soft landing on the Moon.
		Lunar Orbiter-3	182 pairs of images were received.
			Soft landing on the Moon.
		Lunar Orbiter-4	163 pairs of images were received.
			Before the landing began, communication with the ALS was interrupted.
			Landing at a non-design point.
			Soft landing on the Moon.
			Soft landing on the Moon.
			The remote control of block D did not turn on.
Date	country	apparatus	notes
			Block D remote control did not turn on
			The ALS crashed during landing.
		Cosmos-300	Block D accident.
		Cosmos-305	Block D accident.
			LV 2nd stage accident.
			delivery of lunar soil to Earth.
		Luna-17/Lunokhod-1	Delivery of ALS Lunokhod-1 to the Moon.
			The ALS crashed during landing.
			Mapping the lunar surface.
			Delivery of lunar soil to Earth.
		Luna-21/Lunokhod-2	Delivery of ALS Lunokhod-2 to the Moon.
			Mapping the lunar surface.
			Unsuccessful landing, the ALS capsized.
			Block D accident.
			Delivery of lunar soil from a depth of more than 2 m.
			Launch of the Hagoromo microsatellite into ISL orbit.
			Photographing the surface of the Moon.
		Lunar Prospector	Exploration of the Moon from ISL orbit.
			Exploration of the Moon from ISL orbit.

Daedalus (crater). Diameter: 93 km Depth: 3 km (NASA photo)

The moon has attracted the attention of people since ancient times. In the II century. BC e. Hipparchus studied the movement of the Moon across the starry sky, determining the inclination of the lunar orbit relative to the ecliptic, the size of the Moon and the distance from the Earth, and also identified a number of features of the movement.

The invention of telescopes made it possible to distinguish finer details of the lunar relief. One of the first lunar maps was compiled by Giovanni Riccioli in 1651, he also gave names to large dark areas, calling them “seas,” which we still use today. These toponyms reflected the long-standing idea that the weather on the Moon was similar to that on Earth, and the dark areas were supposedly filled with lunar water, and the light areas were considered land. However, in 1753, Croatian astronomer Ruđer Bošković proved that the Moon does not have an atmosphere. The fact is that when the stars are covered by the Moon, they disappear instantly. But if the Moon had an atmosphere, the stars would fade out gradually. This indicated that the satellite had no atmosphere. And in this case, there cannot be liquid water on the surface of the Moon, since it would instantly evaporate.

With the light hand of the same Giovanni Riccioli, craters began to be given the names of famous scientists: from Plato, Aristotle and Archimedes to Vernadsky, Tsiolkovsky and Pavlov.

A new stage in the study of the Moon was the use of photography in astronomical observations, starting in the mid-19th century. This made it possible to analyze the surface of the Moon in more detail using detailed photographs. Such photographs were taken, among others, by Warren de la Rue (1852) and Lewis Rutherford (1865). In 1881, Pierre Jansen compiled a detailed “Photographic Atlas of the Moon” [source not specified 1009 days].

Since the beginning of the space age, our knowledge of the Moon has increased significantly. The composition of the lunar soil became known, scientists received its samples, and a map of the reverse side was compiled.

The first glimpse of the far side of the Moon was in 1959, when the Soviet probe Luna 3 flew over it and photographed a part of its surface invisible from Earth.

In the early 1960s, it was obvious that the United States was lagging behind the USSR in space exploration. J. Kennedy said that a man would land on the Moon before 1970. To prepare for manned flight, NASA completed several space programs: Ranger (1961-1965) - surface photography, Surveyor (1966-1968) - soft landing and terrain surveys, and Lunar Orbiter (1966-1967) - detailed imaging surface of the Moon. Also in 1965-1966 there was a NASA project MOON-BLINK to study unusual phenomena (anomalies) on the surface of the Moon. Work was performed by Trident Engineering Associates (Annapolis, Maryland) under contract NAS 5-9613 dated June 1, 1965 from Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, Maryland).

The American manned mission to the Moon was called Apollo. The first landing occurred on July 20, 1969; the last one - in December 1972, the first person to set foot on the surface of the Moon was the American Neil Armstrong (July 21, 1969), the second was Edwin Aldrin. The third crew member, Michael Collins, remained in the orbital module. Thus, the Moon is the only celestial body visited by man, and the first celestial body whose samples were delivered to Earth (the USA delivered 380 kilograms, the USSR - 324 grams of lunar soil).

The USSR conducted research on the surface of the Moon using two radio-controlled self-propelled vehicles, Lunokhod-1, launched to the Moon in November 1970, and Lunokhod-2 in January 1973. Lunokhod-1 operated for 10.5 Earth months, “ Lunokhod-2" - 4.5 Earth months (that is, 5 lunar days and 4 lunar nights). Both devices collected and transmitted to Earth a large amount of data about the lunar soil and many photographs of details and panoramas of the lunar relief:26.

After the Soviet Luna-24 station delivered samples of lunar soil to Earth in August 1976, the next device, the Japanese Hiten satellite, flew to the Moon only in 1990. Then two American spacecraft were launched - Clementine in 1994 and Lunar Prospector in 1998.

On September 28, 2003, the European Space Agency launched its first automatic interplanetary station (AMS), Smart-1. On September 14, 2007, Japan launched its second lunar exploration station, Kaguya. And on October 24, 2007, the PRC also entered the lunar race - the first Chinese lunar satellite, Chang'e-1, was launched. With the help of this and the next stations, scientists are creating a three-dimensional map of the lunar surface, which in the future may contribute to an ambitious project of colonization of the Moon. On October 22, 2008, the first Indian satellite, Chandrayaan-1, was launched. In 2010, China launched the second AMS Chang'e-2.

Apollo 17 landing site. Visible are: the descent module, ALSEP research equipment, car wheel tracks and foot tracks of astronauts.

On June 18, 2009, NASA launched the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS). The satellites are designed to collect information about the lunar surface, search for water and suitable sites for future lunar expeditions. On the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 flight, the automatic interplanetary station LRO completed a special task - it photographed the landing areas of lunar modules of earthly expeditions. Between July 11 and July 15, LRO took and transmitted to Earth the first-ever detailed orbital images of the lunar modules themselves, landing sites, pieces of equipment left behind by expeditions on the surface, and even traces of the cart, rover, and earthlings themselves. During this time, 5 of the 6 landing sites were photographed: expeditions Apollo 11, 14, 15, 16, 17. Later, the LRO spacecraft took even more detailed photographs of the surface, where not only the landing modules and equipment with traces of the lunar vehicle are clearly visible, but also walking tracks of the astronauts themselves. On October 9, 2009, the LCROSS spacecraft and the Centaurus upper stage made a planned fall onto the lunar surface into the Cabeus crater, located approximately 100 km from the lunar south pole, and therefore constantly located in deep shadow. On November 13, NASA announced that water had been discovered on the Moon using this experiment.

Private companies are starting to explore the Moon. The global Google Lunar X PRIZE competition was announced to create a small lunar rover, in which several teams from different countries are participating, including the Russian Selenokhod. There are plans to organize space tourism with flights around the Moon on Russian ships - first on the modernized Soyuz, and then on the developed promising universal Perspective Manned Transport System.

Lunar exploration is the study of the Earth's satellite using spacecraft and optical instruments.

Initially, the only method for humanity to study the Moon was the visual method. Galileo's invention of the telescope in 1609 allowed significant progress in the study of the Moon using optical instruments. Galileo himself used his telescope to study the mountains and craters on the lunar surface. Research on the Earth's satellite using spacecraft began on September 13, 1959, with the landing of the Soviet automatic station Luna-2 on the surface of the satellite. In 1969, a man landed on the Moon, and the study of the satellite from its surface began.

Currently, several space powers have plans to resume manned flights to the lunar surface and create lunar bases.

Antiquity and the Middle Ages

The moon has attracted the attention of people since ancient times. In the II century. BC e. Hipparchus studied the movement of the Moon across the starry sky, determining the inclination of the lunar orbit relative to the ecliptic, the size of the Moon and its distance from the Earth, and also identified a number of features of the movement.

The theory obtained by Hipparchus was subsequently developed by the astronomer from Alexandria Claudius Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD. e., writing the book “Almagest” about it. This theory was refined many times, and in 1687, after Newton’s discovery of the law of universal gravitation, from a purely kinematic one, describing the geometric properties of motion, the theory became dynamic, taking into account the motion of bodies under the influence of forces applied to them.

The invention of telescopes made it possible to distinguish finer details of the lunar relief. One of the first lunar maps was compiled by Giovanni Riccioli in 1651, he also gave names to large dark areas, calling them “seas,” which we still use today. These place names reflected the long-standing idea that the weather on the Moon was similar to that on Earth, and the dark areas were supposedly filled with lunar water, and the light areas were considered dry land. However, in 1753, Croatian astronomer Ruđer Bošković proved that the Moon does not have an atmosphere. The fact is that when stars are covered by the Moon, they disappear instantly. But if the Moon had an atmosphere, the stars would fade out gradually. This indicated that the satellite had no atmosphere. And in this case, there cannot be liquid water on the surface of the Moon, since it would instantly evaporate.

With the light hand of the same Giovanni Riccioli, craters began to be given the names of famous scientists: from Plato, Aristotle and Archimedes to Vernadsky, Tsiolkovsky and Pavlov.

XX century

Since the beginning of the space age, our knowledge of the Moon has increased significantly. The composition of the lunar soil became known, scientists received its samples, and a map of the reverse side was compiled.

The Moon was first reached by the Soviet automatic interplanetary station Luna-2 on September 13, 1959. The first glimpse of the far side of the Moon was in 1959, when the Soviet probe Luna 3 flew over it and photographed a part of its surface invisible from Earth. Optical telescopes placed here would not have to break through the dense earth's atmosphere. And for radio telescopes, the Moon would serve as a natural shield of solid rock 3500 km thick, which would reliably cover them from any radio interference from the Earth. The world's first soft landing on the Moon took place on February 3, 1966, by the Soviet space probe Luna 9, which also transmitted images of the surface of another celestial body for the first time.

In the early 1960s, it was obvious that the United States was lagging behind the USSR in space exploration. J. Kennedy said that a man would land on the Moon before 1970. To prepare for a manned flight, NASA completed several AMS programs: Ranger (1961-1965, surface photography), Surveyor (1966-1968, soft landing and terrain surveys) and Lunar Orbiter (1966-1967, detailed surface imaging Moon). Also in 1965-1966 there was a NASA project MOON-BLINK to study unusual phenomena (anomalies) on the surface of the Moon. Work was performed by Trident Engineering Associates (Annapolis, Maryland) under contract NAS 5-9613 dated June 1, 1965 from Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, Maryland).

The successful American manned mission to the Moon was called Apollo. The world's first flyby of the Moon took place in December 1968 on the manned Apollo 8 spacecraft. After a rehearsal flight to the Moon in May 1969 without the Apollo 10 landing on it, the world's first lunar landing took place on July 20, 1969 on Apollo 11 (the first person to set foot on the lunar surface on July 21 was Neil Armstrong, the second - Edwin Aldrin; third crew member Michael Collins remained in the orbital module); the last sixth - in December 1972. Thus, the Moon is the only celestial body visited by man, and the first celestial body whose samples were delivered to Earth (the USA delivered 380 kilograms, the USSR - 324 grams of lunar soil).

During the emergency flight of Apollo 13, there was no landing on the moon. During the last three flights of the program, lunar electric vehicles controlled by landing astronauts were used. Three additional flights under the program (Apollo 18...20), which were in a high degree of readiness, were cancelled. There are conspiracy theories about the so-called. “lunar conspiracy”, that the landings on the Moon were only staged, but were not actually carried out, or that the above was deliberate disinformation, and the Apollo program was curtailed due to the discovery of an alien presence on the Moon.

Due to the emerging gap from the United States, two Soviet lunar manned programs - the lunar flyby L1 and the lunar landing L3 - were terminated at the stage of testing unmanned flights of spacecraft without achieving the target result. Also, the world’s first detailed project of the lunar base “Zvezda”, developed as a development of the L3 program, and the proposed subsequent projects of the lunar expeditions L3M and LEK were not implemented. Among the numerous lunar landing and lunar orbital stations “Luna”, the USSR provided automatic delivery to Earth of lunar soil samples on the Luna-16, Luna-20, Luna-24 AMS and carried out research on the lunar surface also using two radio-controlled self-propelled vehicles - Lunokhods, Lunokhod-1, launched to the Moon in November 1970 and Lunokhod-2 - in January 1973. Lunokhod-1 operated for 10.5 Earth months, Lunokhod-2 - 4.5 Earth months ( that is, 5 lunar days and 4 lunar nights). Both devices collected and transmitted to Earth a large amount of data about the lunar soil and many photographs of details and panoramas of the lunar relief.

After the last Soviet station Luna-24 delivered lunar soil samples to Earth in August 1976, the next device, the Japanese Hiten satellite, flew to the Moon only in 1990. Then two American spacecraft were launched - Clementine in 1994 and Lunar Prospector in 1998.

XXI century

After the end of the Soviet space program “Luna” and the American “Apollo”, exploration of the Moon using spacecraft was practically stopped. But at the beginning of the 21st century, China published its program for the exploration of the Moon, which included, after delivering the lunar rover and sending soil to Earth, then expeditions to the Moon and the construction of inhabited lunar bases. This is believed to have caused the remaining space powers to re-launch lunar programs as a new "lunar race for second place." Plans for future lunar expeditions were announced by Russia, Europe, India, Japan, and President George W. Bush announced on January 14, 2004 that the United States was beginning a large-scale detailed Constellation program with the creation of new launch vehicles and manned spacecraft capable of delivering to the Moon of people and large manned lunar rovers, with the aim of establishing the first lunar bases. The Constellation Lunar program was canceled after 5 years by President Barack Obama.

On September 28, 2003, the European Space Agency launched its first automatic interplanetary station (AMS), Smart-1. On September 14, 2007, Japan launched its second lunar exploration station, Kaguya. And on October 24, 2007, the PRC also entered the lunar race - the first Chinese lunar satellite, Chang'e-1, was launched. With the help of this and the next stations, scientists are creating a three-dimensional map of the lunar surface, which in the future may contribute to an ambitious project of colonization of the Moon. On October 22, 2008, the first Indian satellite, Chandrayaan-1, was launched. In 2010, China launched the second AMS Chang'e-2.

Apollo 17 landing site. Visible are the descent module, ALSEP research equipment, car wheel tracks and foot tracks of astronauts.

On June 18, 2009, NASA launched the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS). The satellites are designed to collect information about the lunar surface, search for water and suitable sites for future lunar expeditions. On the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 flight, the automatic interplanetary station LRO completed a special task - it photographed the landing areas of the lunar modules of earthly expeditions. Between July 11 and July 15, LRO took and transmitted to Earth the first-ever detailed orbital images of the lunar modules themselves, landing sites, pieces of equipment left behind by expeditions on the surface, and even traces of the cart, rover, and earthlings themselves. During this time, 5 of the 6 landing sites were photographed: expeditions Apollo 11, 14, 15, 16, 17. Later, the LRO spacecraft took even more detailed photographs of the surface, where not only the landing modules and equipment with traces of the lunar vehicle are clearly visible, but also walking tracks of the astronauts themselves. On October 9, 2009, the LCROSS spacecraft and the Centaurus upper stage made a planned fall onto the lunar surface into the Cabeus crater, located approximately 100 km from the lunar south pole, and therefore constantly located in deep shadow. On November 13, NASA announced that water had been discovered on the Moon using this experiment.

Private companies are starting to explore the Moon. The global Google Lunar X PRIZE competition was announced to create a small lunar rover, in which several teams from different countries are participating, including the Russian Selenokhod. In 2014, the first private lunar flyby AMS (Manfred Memorial Moon Mission) appeared. There are plans to organize space tourism with flights around the Moon on Russian ships - first on the modernized Soyuz, and then on the promising universal PTK NP (Rus) being developed.

The United States is going to continue exploration of the Moon with automatic stations GRAIL (launched in 2011), LADEE (launched in 2013) and others. China launched its first lunar lander, Chang'e 3, with the first lunar rover in December 2013 and its first lunar flyby with a return vehicle in 2014, and is further planning a lunar soil return vehicle by 2017 in anticipation of manned flights around 2025 and construction of a lunar base by 2050, Japan announced future robotic exploration of the Moon. India is planning a 2017 mission of its Chandrayaan-2 orbiter and a small rover delivered by the Russian Luna-Resurs spacecraft, and further exploration of the Moon up to manned expeditions. Russia first launches a multi-stage program for exploring the Moon with automatic stations “Luna-Glob” in 2015, “Luna-Resurs-2” and “Luna-Resurs-3” with lunar rovers in 2020 and 2022, “Luna-Resurs-4” on return soil collected by lunar rovers in 2023, and then plans manned expeditions in the 2030s.

It is possible that the Moon may contain not only silver, mercury and alcohols, but also other chemical elements and compounds. Water ice, molecular hydrogen found by the LCROSS and LRO missions in the lunar crater Cabeus indicate that the Moon does have resources that could be used by future missions. Analysis of topographic data sent by the LRO spacecraft and Kaguya gravitational measurements showed that the thickness of the crust on the far side of the Moon is not constant and varies with latitude. The thickest sections of the crust correspond to the highest elevations, which is also typical for the Earth, and the thinnest are found in subpolar latitudes.

Conclusion

The 47 years that have passed since the first spacecraft landed on the Moon have brought science many new and sometimes unexpected things. Scientists - astronomers, geologists, geophysicists, geochemists - are now summing up the results of intense lunar expeditions. Having been steadily moving away from the Earth for billions of years, in recent years the Moon has become closer and more understandable to people. One can agree with the apt remark of one of the prominent selenologists: “from an astronomical object, the Moon has turned into a geophysical one.”

The curtain was lifted on the secrets of the early youth of the Moon, the Earth and, apparently, all the planets of the terrestrial group, and at the same time the outline of their distant future was outlined. Much has become clearer, but much remains hidden in the “fog” of ambiguity - after all, there is still little data, and discoveries, as often happens, have given rise to many new questions.

Selenologists have no doubt that the activity of the Moon, both magmatic and tectonic, was short and related only to the early stages of its evolution, but there is still heated debate about the cosmic “overture” - the origin of the Moon. The chronology of the emergence of the lunar seas has been reliably reconstructed, but the nature of the mascons “buried” in them is unclear. It turned out that a long-term “seismic ringing” is generated in the upper inhomogeneous layers of the Moon, but the disappearance of transverse waves in the middle of the lunar radius remains a mystery. No magnetic dipole has been discovered on the Moon, but the high remanent magnetization of lunar rocks indicates that one existed a long time ago.

In many of their basic characteristics, the Earth and the Moon are similar and, apparently, are “cosmic relatives.” This primarily concerns their formation and the initial stage of evolution, the similar chemical composition of these celestial bodies and the layered structure of their interiors. However, in many ways this “kinship” turned out to be very distant. The Earth is full of “tectonic storms”, the Moon is passive and non-seismic. The “tectonic life” of the Earth and even the nature of its surface are largely determined by internal reasons, whereas on the Moon they are mainly of external - cosmic - origin.

Various stages of the “planetary life” of the Earth left on it new forms of fauna and flora, new mountain ranges, cracks, drifting continents, and earthquake cataclysms. The chronology of the evolution of the Moon is associated with meteorite impacts and, in addition, is limited to the first 1.5 billion years, and since that time tectonic “calm” has been established on the Moon.

Do earthlings really need exploration of the Moon? Have they not spent their efforts in vain on space flights unprecedented in the history of mankind - after all, it is clearly unprofitable to develop lunar “mineral resources”? No, not in vain! The Moon rewarded inquisitive and brave astronauts and organizers of space flights, and with them all the people of the Earth. Through the “cratered, dusty lunar window” many earthly problems became clearer. For example, the oldest “stone” in the solar system was found and its age was determined. The pages of the “pre-geological” history of the Earth have been slightly opened, since the surface of the Moon, untouched by winds and waters, demonstrates the appearance of the most ancient relief of the Earth.

The Moon is an ideal model for studying the role of cosmic factors in planetotectonics. Knowledge of the patterns of tidal moonquakes will help to carry out seismic prediction of earthquakes. Based on lunar data, geophysical observation methods and models for their interpretation can be improved.

The study of the structure of the Moon continues - the pendulums of seismometers tremble sensitively, and under the microscopes of scientists there are soil samples from the southern outskirts of the Sea of ​​Crisis, delivered by Luna-24. The joint analysis of the Earth and the Moon lays the foundations for a new stage in comparative planetology. Current and future flights of spacecraft to the terrestrial planets should complement and clarify the patterns concerning the origin, internal structure and evolution of the planets and their satellites.

References:

1) “Planet Earth. Encyclopedia". Fiona Watt, Felicity Brooks, Richard Spurgeon;

2) textbook “Astronomy 11th grade” by N.P. Prishlyak;

3) https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%97%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%BB%D1%8F;

4) http://schools.keldysh.ru/school1413/astronom/NikLSite/luna/fizich.htm;

5) http://www.krugosvet.ru/node/36284 ;

Exploration of the Moon using spacecraft began on September 14, 1959, with the collision of the automatic station Luna 2 with the surface of our satellite. Until this point, the only method of exploring the Moon was by observing the Moon. Galileo's invention of the telescope in 1609 was a major milestone in astronomy, particularly in the observation of the Moon. Galileo himself used his telescope to study the mountains and craters on the lunar surface.

Since the start of the space race between the USSR and the US during the Cold War, the Moon has been at the center of both the USSR and US space programs. From the US perspective, the 1969 moon landing was the culmination of the lunar race. On the other hand, many significant scientific milestones were achieved by the Soviet Union before the United States. For example, the first photographs of the far side of the Moon were taken by a Soviet satellite in 1959.

rice. Soviet Lunokhod.

The first man-made object to reach the Moon was the Soviet Luna 2 station. The far side of the Moon was photographed by the Luna 3 station on October 7, 1959. After these and other achievements of the USSR in space exploration, US President John Kennedy formulated the main US task in space as landing on the Moon.

Despite all the efforts of the United States, the Soviet Union remained a leader in lunar exploration for a long time. The Luna 9 station was the first to make a soft landing on the surface of our natural satellite. After landing, Luna 9 transmitted the first photographs of the lunar surface. The Luna 9 landing proved that it was possible to land safely on the Moon. This was especially important because until that moment it was believed that the surface of the Moon consisted of a layer of dust, which could be several meters thick and any object would simply “drown” in this layer of dust. The first artificial satellite of the Moon was also the Soviet station Luna 10, launched on March 31, 1966.

The American program for manned exploration of the Moon was called Apollo. It brought its first practical result on December 24, 1968, with the Apollo 8 spacecraft flying around the Moon. Humanity first set foot on the surface of the Moon on July 20, 1969. The first person to leave his mark on the Moon was Neil Armstrong, commander of the Apollo 11 spacecraft. The first automatic robot on the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Lunokhod 1, which landed on the Moon on November 17, 1970. The last man walked on the moon in 1972.

rice. American flag on the moon.

Samples of lunar rock were delivered to Earth as part of the Soviet Luna program by automatic stations Luna 16, 20 and 24. Also, samples of lunar rock were delivered to Earth by astronauts of the Apollo mission.

From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, 65 man-made objects reached the lunar surface. But after the Luna 26 station, lunar exploration virtually ceased. The Soviet Union switched its exploration to Venus and the United States to Mars.

The first spacecraft for studying the Moon and cislunar space was launched in the USSR (1959). On October 7, 1959, the Soviet Luna-3 apparatus transmitted to Earth the first images of the far side of the Moon, which had never been seen by man. Subsequently, according to the Soviet space program, a soft landing on the lunar surface was carried out for the first time, an artificial lunar satellite was created; The spacecraft returned to Earth at the second escape velocity after flying around the Moon, self-propelled vehicles - “Lunokhovers” - were delivered to the lunar surface, and samples of lunar soil were delivered to Earth.

The sixties will long be remembered as a decade marked by one of the greatest technological achievements of mankind in the entire history of its existence. After a series of successful explorations of the Moon using automatic stations, on July 20, 1969, a person first set foot on the lunar surface.

The original goal of the American lunar exploration program was to obtain at least some information about the Moon. That was the Ranger program. Each Ranger series spacecraft was equipped with six television cameras designed to transmit images of the lunar landscape right up to the moment when the device crashed upon falling onto the lunar surface. The first six launches of the Ranger vehicles ended in failure. However, by 1964, the problems were completely eliminated, and all people on our planet had the opportunity to see “live” television images from the Moon. Between July 1964 and March 1965, the three Ranger spacecraft sent to the Moon transmitted over 17,000 photographs of the lunar surface. The latest images were taken from a height of approximately 500 m, and they show rocks and craters only 1 m across (Fig. 1).

The next important stage in American lunar exploration was marked by the simultaneous implementation of two programs: Surveyor and Orbiter. From May 1966 to January 1968, five Surveyor series spacecraft successfully soft-landed on the lunar surface. Each of these tripods was equipped with a television camera, a manipulator with a bucket, and instruments for studying lunar soil. The successful landings of the Surveyors (some experts were primarily afraid that the devices would have to plunge into a three-meter layer of dust) created confidence in the possible implementation of a space program using manned spacecraft.

While the five Surveyors were soft-landed on the lunar surface, five Orbiters were launched into orbit around the Moon for extensive photography. All five Orbiter launches were successfully carried out within a year - from August 1966 to August 1967. They transmitted a total of 1950 beautiful large-scale photographs to Earth, covering the entire side of the Moon visible from Earth and 99.5% of the far side. Then scientists first learned that there are no seas on the far side of the Moon. It turned out that there are a huge number of craters there (Fig. 2).

The Surveyor flights showed that spacecraft can land safely on the lunar surface. And the photographs obtained by the Orbiters helped scientists choose a landing site for the first manned lunar lander. This paved the way for the Apollo program.

Between December 1968 and December 1972, 24 people traveled to the Moon (three of them twice). Twelve of these astronauts actually walked on the surface of the Moon. The Apollo program included a wide range of geological research, but its main achievement was the delivery of approximately 360 kg of lunar rocks to Earth.

Analysis of samples returned by the Apollo expeditions showed that there are three types of lunar rocks, each of which contains important information about the nature and evolution of the Moon. First of all, this is anorthosite rock (see Fig. 3) - the type of rock most common throughout the Moon. It is characterized by a high content of feldspar. The second important type of lunar rocks is “creep” norites (KREEP). They are named so because of their high content of potassium (K), rare earth elements (REE) and phosphorus (P). Crip Norites are usually found in the light mountainous regions of the Moon. The dark lunar seas are covered with mare basalts.

Anorthosite rock is the most abundant: it is the oldest type of rock found on the Moon. Data obtained from seismometers (left by astronauts on the lunar surface), as well as the results of geochemical analyzes carried out at a distance using instruments mounted on satellites, show that the lunar crust to a depth of 60 km consists predominantly of anorthositic rocks. Among the three main lunar rocks, anorthosite has the highest melting point. Therefore, when the original molten surface of the Moon began to cool, the anorthosite rock solidified first.

Before the Apollo program, there were three competing theories about the origin of the Moon. Some scientists believed that the Moon could have simply been captured by the Earth at one time. Others believed that the primordial Earth could have split into two parts (it was assumed that the Pacific Ocean was a “hole” left after the Moon “broke out” of the Earth). But analysis of lunar rocks appears to support a third hypothesis: that the Moon was formed by the aggregation of tiny rocks that orbited the Earth 4.5 billion years ago, the accretion of particles under the influence of gravitational forces acting near the Earth was somewhat a kind of reduced version of the accretion process that occurred in the primordial solar nebula and led to the birth of planets.

The “birth” of the Moon occurred very quickly - perhaps in just a few thousand years. When the millions and millions of rocks orbiting the Earth hit the ever-increasing Moon with force, its surface must have been a sea of ​​white-hot lava. But once most of the rocks were swept away by the Moon as it moved around the Sun, the lunar surface could begin to cool and harden. This was the same time, 4.5 billion years ago, when the lunar anorthosite crust began to form.

The melting points of both creep norites and mare basalt are lower than those of anorthositic rock. Therefore, the existence of these two younger types of lunar material should indicate important events that occurred at a later stage in the evolution of the Moon.
Crip norites are characterized by a high content of elements with a fairly high atomic mass. Due to their large size, these atoms are difficult to “incorporate” into the crystals that form anorthosite. In other words, when anorthositic rock is heated and partially melted, these atoms are essentially "expelled" from the underlying rock. Therefore, it is natural to assume that creep norites were formed during partial melting of anorthosite rock.

Crip Norites are found in the mountainous regions of the Moon. It is not yet clear how the lunar continents were formed. But the same powerful processes that caused the formation of the lunar mountain ranges could also have caused the partial melting of the then young anorthositic crust about 4 billion years ago. Such an assumption would explain the presence of creep norites in mountain ranges similar to those that border the Mare Monsim and Ocean of Storms.

It is obvious that many meteorites have struck the surface of the Moon over the centuries. That is why there are so many craters on it. But the biggest impact marks on the lunar surface are the seas. Perhaps 3.5–4 billion years ago, at least a dozen asteroid-like objects collided violently with the Moon. Under the influence of such destructive impacts, huge craters appeared on the surface of the Moon, “breaking through” to the liquid depths of the young Moon. Lava gushed from the depths of the Moon and over several hundred thousand years filled colossal craters. Dark, smooth seas were formed when flows of molten rock “healed” the wounds inflicted by asteroids. This is the origin of mare basalt, the youngest of the main types of lunar rocks.

On the side of the Moon facing Earth, the crust should be thinner than on the far side. Powerful impacts from planetesimals failed to penetrate the crust on the far side of the Moon. This means that there were no extended spaces flooded with lava, and therefore there are no formations like seas.
Over the past 3 billion years, no significant events have occurred on the Moon. Meteorites just continued to fall onto the surface, although in much smaller quantities than before. The constant bombardment of small bodies gradually loosened the lunar soil, or regolith as it should be properly called. No large body has collided with the Moon since giant kilometer-sized rocks formed the Copernicus and Tycho craters.

Research has shown that the barren, sterile world of the Moon is strikingly different from that of Earth. All traces of the early stages of the evolution of the “actively living” Earth are almost completely erased by the persistent action of wind, rain and snow, while on the airless lifeless surface of our closest cosmic neighbor, on the contrary, traces of some of the most ancient events that took place in the Solar System are forever imprinted.