Feb 29, 2008 01:10 PM
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You're looking at the future site of the Earth's first permanent base on the Moon's south pole. This picture was created this week using NASA Jet Propulsion Lab's new, extra-powerful radar antenna dish, 70 meters across, in the California Mojave desert. Says NASA researcher Scott Hensley, "With these data [from the new radar antenna] we can see terrain features as small as a house without even leaving the office." Find out why the Moon's south pole is a great spot for condos and what it would be like to live there below.
NASA administrator Doug Cooke says, "We now know the south pole has peaks as high as Mt. McKinley and crater floors four times deeper than the Grand Canyon." So your Moon condos could have beautiful mountain top views, or lie snuggled at the base of a sweeping canyon. Plus, there are more advantages, according to NASA:
The location has many advantages; for one thing, there is evidence of water frozen in deep dark south polar craters. Water can be split into oxygen to breathe and hydrogen to burn as rocket fuel—or astronauts could simply drink it. Planners are also looking for "peaks of eternal light." Tall polar mountains where the sun never sets might be a good place for a solar power station.Anybody up for sand skiing on those tall polar mountains?
New Radar Maps of the Moon [NASA]
Send an email to Annalee Newitz, the author of this post, at annalee@io9.com.
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
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