The last Apollo spacecraft, Apollo 17, went to the moon in 1972. Half a century after that, under the Artemis program, the unmanned spacecraft that is planned to be taken a little further from the moon and back to Earth, it has to be completed in about nine months, mainly on the strength of solar energy. Obviously, there is no direct comparison with the Apollo mission. It should not take more than a week for the vehicle to take humans to the moon and then bring them back from there. The Saturn rocket, which had the ability to carry the necessary air, water, logistics and fuel from work to return for three people, was the most powerful rocket ever built by man. But at the same time the most expensive and also the most polluting. Elon Musk claims to make a rocket cheaper, less harmful and equal to its power than Saturn. But this rocket will complete a manned mission longer than a week, they have not even claimed that.
It is only certain that America is starting a campaign to permanently camp on the moon from this year. He is not going alone in this campaign against the Apollo campaign that was completed 50 years ago. Three more big space agencies of the world, which are related to Europe, Japan and Canada, are with him in this campaign. Apart from these three, NASA has signed the Artemis agreement with the space agencies of Mexico, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Italy, Ukraine, Poland and Luxembourg. The agreement is that they may have some kind of partnership in the scientific experiments to be done under this campaign and in the exploitation of lunar resources. The Russians had also been invited to join it, but they say their space organization Roskosmos pulled out because of the too US-focused look of the entire mission. Instead, joining China as part of a parallel lunar mission seemed a better option, but there is also a military aspect to this decision, which should be discussed separately.
There is no doubt that our neighboring country China is currently far ahead of the rest of the world including America in the experiments related to the Moon. In the current century, the credit for successfully landing his rover on the moon, taking long-term ground observations and returning one kilo 731 grams of samples from the moon goes to him alone. These samples, apart from upper dust and stones, also have samples taken from different depths, which have been distributed to mineral laboratories spread across the country for exploration. China's two rovers - Jhurong and Yutu-2 are still present on the moon. The most important of these is Utu-2, which has been able to cover a total distance of 900 meters during its presence on the moon for the last three years. Its real achievement is that it has worked for so long in such difficult conditions.
Let's look at some facts to get an idea of how tough the Moon's conditions are. Utu-2 is on the far side of the Moon, which never encounters Earth. Controlly, its contact is made through a Chinese lunar-satellite only for a limited period. One day of the Moon is equal to 29 days of Earth. For example, the night and day there are equal to fourteen-and-a-half-and-a-half-fourteen days on the earth. Yutu-2, which can walk 600 meters in an hour, walks there only two-three meters at a time during sunrise and sends the pictures taken with 360 degree camera to the control room in China. Its controllers keep track of even the smallest pebbles around. Then, avoiding them, prepare the way forward for Utu-2. Understand this thing a little better.
Utu-2 doesn't have always-on-the-go facility. He has to spend the long and extremely cold nights of the moon like a piece of stone. For fourteen and a half days, the mercury shows minus 173 ° C - sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more! Then when such a long day extends, by midday the temperature drops to plus 127 degrees Celsius. Obviously, only half to one third of these two extreme temperatures are available in the coldest and warmest regions of the Earth. Far from working in these, survivable solar cells and other things also require a different level of expertise. During the Apollo mission, the time table of the lunar passengers was fixed that they had to come out of the vehicle at sunrise on the moon and return to space after launching the rocket before sunset. If Yutu-2 has been active on the moon for three years, it means that the Chinese can at least work there through robots.
The Russians drove their Lunokhod vehicle 26 miles to the moon in 1973–74, but their purpose was limited to taking photographs and spectrography of some rocks. To keep it warm, he used the radioactive material polonium-210. However, his first experiment related to this failed on earth itself and the remains of this dangerous thing were spread everywhere in Russia. It is difficult to say what will form the basis of the Russian relationship with China in the coming lunar missions, because for them it will be like renewing the path left long ago. But the Russians are considered to be at the forefront of metallurgy and have been the champions of rocket science to take humans to space since the end of the American Space Shuttle. In such a situation, it is expected that in 2035, this group will also achieve its target of making a base on the moon. Keep in mind, the doors of both these camps are open for our ISRO. Whether to join one of these or to stick to our separate path with regard to the moon, we will have to decide someday.
Reading the proposals of both missions, it seems that America's emphasis is on placing its base in orbit rather than on the surface of the Moon. At the same time, the Chinese want to build their base camp on the surface and keep the space station orbiting the Moon in a supporting role. Americans have named their base 'Gateway', which is also a popular science fiction title. Although on the surface it seems that America's return to the Moon is happening only because of the Chinese's progress in this direction.
At least one mineral found on the Moon, helium-3, is at first glance making it economically attractive. But above all, the fusion energy for which it can play the role of an ideal fuel is still a distant thing, at least after 2040. Second, the total amount of this mineral is only 50 particles behind a billion particles in the dust of the far side of the Moon. Even if an easy way out of it is discovered, it will certainly not be cheap fuel. For this work, two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium, are being used, of which the latter is rare and very expensive to extract from seawater. But there is also a proposal to make it by striking high-speed neutrons on lithium tiles in a fusion reactor. If it were successful, the thing that brought helium-3 from the Moon would not be as attractive.
There are two ideas about building a search base on the surface of the Moon. One is that a natural cave can be taken in the form of lava tubes. Many detailed surveys have been done regarding this and some of the 200 possible places are being focused. But the real idea is to make a small igloo-like house out of concrete made from the same material with 3D painting. By melting moon dust and adding molten sulfur to it, scientists hope that concrete can be made, which will start work on the ground in this decade. Certainly the second innings of humans on the moon should not be started with the hope of bringing goods and furnishings from there. Information and knowledge are more important to mankind than anything else. For the time being, if we think of ways to earn them from there and bring them to the earth in a better way, even then there is no harm.