Return to the Moon: a new scientific and educational challenge

We are immersed in a decisive period in the field of space exploration. Humanity is about to make the first jump to another planet in our solar system: Mars. The migration that life has made since it arose on Earth almost 4 billion years ago has spread to other environments with all the ensuing consequences: seas and oceans, land, atmosphere, and now into space. On this unstoppable journey, the Moon is our first step.

great book Back to the moonwhich has just been published by renowned astrophysicist and cosmologist Joseph Silk, outlines the implications of our space travel and the importance of communicating to society, education and culture the meaning and relevance of space exploration in the 21st century.

why the moon

Just over 60 years ago, Yuri Gagarin became the first person to reach the milestone of space navigation. Later, in 1969, we managed to reach the Moon in manned mode, which marked an unstoppable process in our journey into space.

This transcendental period that we are experiencing and witnessing is a paradigm shift from science and technology that marks our entire socio-cultural baggage and presents a scientific and educational challenge.

The moon, as a near target, is extremely relevant for various reasons, as it not only contains many clues to our origins, but also represents a privileged platform from which we will reach new knowledge about the universe, it will contribute to the stability of our planet and help us reach Mars… and beyond.

International Interest in the Moon

In this context, Back to the moon he looks at these issues from a very broad perspective and clearly shows how this return pervades our current reality, providing an interdisciplinary educational approach to the universe.

Actually, the return of mankind to the Moon, now with the Artemis mission, is just an excuse for setting much more ambitious and complex tasks related not only to space, but also to assessments of how science and technology affect our world. environment and in our daily lives.

We are participating in the new space maelstrom of the US and the former USSR after the end of the Cold War. Now space agencies from different countries (USA, China, Russia, Europe, Japan, India, United Arab Emirates, etc.), as well as private companies, are new agents involved in many areas of exploration and exploration of near space. satellite) as the first place where mankind will develop its activities in the next century.

There are many questions and problems:

• Can we learn from the Moon about the origin of the Earth?

• Will we be able to settle on our satellite with bases like the current ones in the Arctic or Antarctic?

• Will we be able to use and use the resources on the spot existing there, such as iron, titanium, ice, helium-3, soil and rocks themselves, for the construction of roads, runways, radiation shields, etc.?

• Will it be possible to use lunar basalt soil as a basis for growing plants and food?

• Will there be lunar telescopes that will help us better understand the universe and keep an eye on potentially dangerous objects that could collide with our planet?

• Will the Moon serve as a staging area for trips to Mars or beyond and assessing how life (including ours) behaves in space, or looking for extraterrestrial life?

The importance of including it in educational plans

Back to the moon This is an excellent and highly recommended work that progressively explores all these topics of great social and educational interest in an innovative way, as Carl Sagan did with Space.

Silk opens the door to a natural discussion of all these burning issues that are sometimes so difficult to transfer from science to society or seem very far away. Talk about space medicine, space law, space ethics, space agriculture or space architecture is not far off. Maybe even space politics.

This set of problems prompts us to ask how the revolutionary scientific and technological process can be incorporated into curricula at different levels. This indeed implies almost a need to modernize and update many thematic contents and aspects of learning, as well as an ethical obligation to future generations.

Jesus Martinez-Frías, Research Fellow. Expert on meteorites, planetary geology and astrobiology. Member of Science Teams of the NASA-MSL (Curiosity) and NASA-Mars2020 (Perseverance) missions, Institute of Geosciences (IGEO – CSIC – UCM) and Jesús Enrique Martínez Martin, PhD, Camilo José Sela University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original.

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