人类的作为将永远改变月球
2024-01-26 06:17阅读：
月球遗世而独立，作为唯一有生命存在的母星——地球的卫星，这颗孤独的岩石在宇宙中扮演着独特的角色，但这种“孤独”即将被改变。未来几周，一枚火箭将冲破大气层，搭载一个名为Nova-C的月球着陆器，驶向月球南极。若一切顺利，这个由美国国家航空航天局（NASA）支持、私有企业“直觉机器”打造的月球着陆器，将携带大量科研设备，在7天后抵达月球。Nova-C还将搭载艺术家杰夫·昆斯打造的艺术品——一个由存储着文字的磁盘、相机和微型雕塑组成的立方体，并将其永远留在月球。1月8日，同样由NASA商业项目资助的航天机器人技术公司成功将名为“游隼”的飞行器发射入太空，但由于燃料泄漏，飞行任务戛然而止。它的失败，意味着首台实现登月的民间月球着陆器的宝座仍虚位以待。
尽管这些例子可能会让人觉得人类的宇宙雄心又迈出了一步，但它也预示着一个令人沮丧的未来：由于缺乏监管，月球很可能会成为人类企业扩张的温床，并不可避免地因此受到改变。
自1972年阿波罗计划实现成功登月以来，人类未能再次踏足月球表面，哪怕是政府大力资助的机器人项目也常以失败收场。但这次不同，私有资本或将首次占领月球，其中包括以发射着陆器和太空舱为目标的小型初创公司，它们的目标远非科学与探索。当然，这些项目仍少不了NASA等机构的资助。NASA提供的商业月球运载服务，支持私有企业打造登陆器和探测器，由NASA付费使用。登月飞行器的商业化，意味着它在搭载科研设备的同时，也可以为商用客户提供服务。
但运载服务的放开可能会导致争议。Nova-C所采取的热反射涂层由运动品牌哥伦比亚提供，其企业商标也将随之一起出现在月球表面。未来，一些登月计划还将持续向月球发送人类骨灰、时间胶囊等材料，这势必会引发各种反对。
登月的新时代可能会改变人与月球的关系。
在此之前，为了自己，也为了月球，我们需要更全面地思考这颗地球唯一的自然卫星存在的意义。为了月球的未来，也为了仰望同一轮明月的后人，我们责任重大。
这颗幽静深邃的伴星守护着人类，通过修正地球轨迹，保护我们不受气候变化混乱的影响，促成了高等生命的进化；在潮汐作用下，脊椎动物踏上了陆地。早期人类还通过观月记录时间、编撰日历、创造文明；随后，在它的帮助下，人类巩固地位、发展宗教、创造了哲学与科学。
据NASA统计，2022年全美范围内月球探索项目规模超200亿美元；NASA通过签署合同，向私有企业输送研发资金达数十亿美元，这其中既有洛克希德·马丁这样资深的投资大亨，也有SpaceX和蓝色起源这样资金充足的新玩家。普华永道在一份报告中称，“我们所处的历史转折点，将曾经囚禁在科幻小说中的想法，变为了富有吸引力的投资项目。”
在了解到有项目意图向月球表面发送人类骨灰后，将月球视为重要精神寄托的纳瓦霍人长老布·尼格伦向NASA写信，发表了反对意见：“在月球上存放人类骨灰和其他材料，这些东西在任何其他地方都会被视为废弃物，这样做是对神圣月球的亵渎。”
对月球的探索、科研和勘探应该是为了帮助地球上的人类，而不是单方面的索取。很快，月球将不再“孤独”，但它无法为自己发声。我们要认真思考，自己为何、如何改变月球。
What We Do to the Moon Will Transform It
Forever
By Rebecca Boyle
The moon stands alone. It is unique in the known cosmos: a solitary
rock one-fourth the width of its host planet, the only place life
has ever been found. And the moon is alone: It is a desolate,
sunbaked and crater-pocked wasteland that harbors little except
what we bring to it, either with our minds or with our spaceships.
But that is about to change.
In the coming weeks, a rocket is expected to burst from Earth’s
atmosphere and send a spacecraft called Nova-C careening toward the
moon’s south pole. If all goes as planned, Nova-C, built by the
private company Intuitive Machines, under NASA’s Commercial Lunar
Payload Services program, will touch down on the moon about seven
days later, bearing suites of scientific instruments. It will also
carry a collection of narratives stored on microfiche disks,
several cameras and a series of small sculptures made by the artist
Jeff Koons that will be encased in a cube and stay on the moon in
perpetuity.
February’s expected launch will quickly follow another company’s
failed lunar landing attempt. Peregrine, built by Astrobotic
Technology under another Commercial Lunar Payload Services
contract, successfully flew into space on Jan. 8, but its mission
was cut short because of a fuel leak. It failed to be the first
private mission to land on the moon, but Nova-C could succeed — and
so could the one after that, and many more. Though such an outlook
may feel like a compelling next step for humanity’s cosmic
ambitions, it also portends a dismaying future where the moon
becomes a hotbed of unregulated human enterprise that will
irreversibly transform it.
Humans have not touched the moon since the end of the Apollo
program in 1972, and robots touch it only sporadically via
expensive, government-funded efforts that often fail. But what is
likely to happen in February is new. For the first time, the moon
will be occupied by private capital, including small startups whose
aims transcend science and exploration, launching landers and
capsules. These missions are still heavily subsidized by NASA and
other space agencies seeking a return to the moon for good, mostly
through NASA’s Artemis program, which now aims to land the first
woman astronaut on the moon by 2026. The Commercial Lunar Payload
Services program, as part of Artemis, encourages private companies
to build landers and even rovers that NASA can pay to use, as
opposed to the traditional approach of NASA-built equipment. That
means even if they are carrying government-sponsored science
experiments, the new privately built, commercially funded landers
can choose to add other nonscientific payloads purchased by other
customers.
The freedom to choose any payload could lead to controversy. Nova-C
will use thermal-reflective coatings designed by the sportswear
brand Columbia; a company website shows an artist’s concept of the
Columbia logo prominently displayed on the spacecraft as it sits on
the lunar surface. The failed Peregrine lander was carrying small
amounts of cremated human remains. In 2019, an Israeli lander
carried a few thousand dehydrated tardigrades, microscopic
creatures that can survive in the vacuum of space. It’s unclear
what happened to them when the lander crashed, but the attempt
raised new concerns about bringing biological materials to the
moon. Future launches will attempt to send more cremated human
remains to the moon, as well as time capsules, messages and other
materials bound to raise various objections.
This new era of lunar missions is likely to change humanity’s
relationship to the moon. Before this happens, we owe ourselves —
and the moon itself — a more thoughtful consideration of what our
planet’s only natural satellite represents. Anything we do to it
will last forever. We have an enormous responsibility to the moon’s
future, and to the future of anyone else who lives here beside
it.
Earth’s inert, spectral companion world shepherds our existence. It
protects our planet from climate chaos by moderating Earth’s axis.
It fostered the evolution of complex life. Through its tide, the
moon pulled backboned animals onto land. Early humans used it to
mark time, create calendars and forge the first civilizations;
later, we used it to consolidate power, develop religion and invent
philosophy and science. It has played a pivotal role in our
biological and cultural evolution and is a primary feature in
everything from the trenches of warfare to our loftiest
dreams.
Before this decade is out, if you have a powerful enough telescope,
you may be able to see evidence of human construction or even
habitation on the moon. In May of 2023, the accounting firm PwC
estimated the global space industry was worth $469 billion and will
top $1 trillion by 2030, as countries and companies increasingly
use satellites for manufacturing, power generation and data. NASA’s
own estimates show that spending on lunar exploration programs
supported more than $20 billion in economic output across the
United States in 2022. The agency has already awarded billions of
dollars in total in contracts to private companies, including
established giants like Lockheed Martin, newer billionaire-backed
players like SpaceX and Blue Origin, scrappy startups like the
lander makers Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines, and the
nuclear-power research firm Zeno Power. “We are now at an
inflection point, where ideas previously confined to the pages of
science fiction represent attractive investment ventures,” PwC’s
report read.
Some of these ventures will provide lander services for space
agencies, universities or private research firms; some will help
enable power, wayfinding or mission planning services for other
lunar missions, aiming to seed a self-sustaining lunar economy.
After hearing about the cremation service Celestis Memorial
Spaceflight’s plans to send human cremains to the moon aboard
Peregrine, the Navajo Nation president, Buu Nygren, wrote to the
NASA administrator Bill Nelson and other officials on Dec. 21
asking to delay the launch. The Navajo people revere the moon as a
spiritually important object.
“The act of depositing human remains and other materials, which
could be perceived as discards in any other location, on the moon
is tantamount to desecration of this sacred space,” Mr. Nygren
wrote.
The Navajo president’s protest offers an example of how use of the
moon, even for the most well-intentioned purposes, requires a
collaborative and deliberate approach. The moon belongs to
everyone, which means it belongs to no one; use of the moon by
anyone demands consideration of everyone. Lunar landings scheduled
for 2024 and 2025 under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services
program include a water-hunting robot, a navigation system that
works like a GPS device, instruments to probe the moon’s interior
and sample containers that will collect lunar soil. These private
landers will join a flotilla of government-run rovers, landers and
science instruments launched by the United States, China, Russia
and India. India’s space agency safely landed a new rover on the
moon in August, becoming only the fourth country to do so. On
Friday, after repeated failed attempts, Japan became the fifth
country in the world to safely land a spacecraft on the moon.
But space is still hard, as demonstrated by recent lunar landing
failures by Russia and the Israeli firm SpaceIL, which carried the
tardigrades in 2019. Though the moon looms large in our sky
throughout most nights and days, it is roughly a quarter of a
million miles away. Lofting rockets off Earth is one thing; getting
to the moon is another.
NASA officials have tried since 2020 to forge a more cooperative
path for the moon through the agency’s Artemis Accords, a
nonbinding framework that affirms the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and
asks signatories to enhance collaboration between nations by
agreeing on international standards for equipment, helping each
other in emergencies, sharing scientific data and protecting the
Apollo landing sites. But the accords also make plenty of room for
extracting and using mined “resources,” which could include moon
dust, water, rare earth elements or other materials.
There is value in being on the moon as explorers, as scientists,
maybe even as prospectors with the goal of helping people back
home. But we humans tend to transmute exploration into extraction,
and our intentions for the moon seem headed the same way. The moon
won’t be alone for long. But it is and will forever be quiet. It
plays host to no rumbling thunderstorms, no crashing waves, no bird
song, no anthems. We must be its voice. We will soon change its
surface, and our relationship to it, forever. At the very least, we
owe the moon a considered discussion of why and how we will do
so.
