Collin Sinclair: Hey there everyone, welcome back to a view from Earth, brought to you by the Fiske planetarium at CU Boulder.
Collin Sinclair: We hope you're doing well and staying safe.
Collin Sinclair: As with the rest of the university and many public spaces around the world Fiske's theater is 
closed to the public for the foreseeable future, due to the coven 19 epidemic. 
However, we are still so committed and excited to bring astronomy education to you.
Collin Sinclair: That we've started a whole host of online offerings.
Collin Sinclair: So that we can stay connected and keep bringing the first content that you know and love to you, 
plus some new stuff like this podcast. So, thanks for tuning in and learning with us here today.
Collin Sinclair: My name is Collin Sinclair, I'm a student at see you going into my junior year in astronomy. 
I also do presentations at the planetarium when the building is open, and I have Tara here. Hey, Tara.
Tara Tomlinson: Hi Collin! I'm Tara, I'm a planetary scientists and CU alum. I'm also a presenter at Fiske and 
our outreach coordinator and of course co-hosting our podcasts here.
Collin Sinclair: Tara is a pretty cool person so (laughs) sorry. So today we're gonna be talking about the moon. 
What it might take to live there and work there with doctors Margaret Landis, and Paul Hayne. 
I think this is going to be really exciting conversation. But first the news.
Tara Tomlinson: And here to bring us the news today is our friend Joe. Hi, Joe. Welcome back.
Joe Zator: Hey, Tara. How’s it going
Joe Zator: How’s everyone doing out there?
Joe Zator: All right. Well, hello again folks Joe's either here.
Joe Zator: I'm a presenter at Fiske, studying at CU.
Joe Zator: I've got a few bits of news for you today about that big natural satellite and sky our moon.
Joe Zator: Now you're hearing more and more about how we're going back to the moon and plan to stay there this time.
Joe Zator: Lots of people, of course, are working on many questions what the answer is more to establish more 
permanent sustainable habitats for us fragile humans down here.
Joe Zator: Lot to overcome, of course, very technical challenges create new technologies.
Joe Zator: But one thing to always keep in mind are the logistical economic issues and economic issues of moving 
any resources from Earth whole quarter million miles, all the way the moon.
Joe Zator: So basically, the more usable raw materials that we can harvest from the moon, the better and takes less time takes less money.
Joe Zator: We're not relying on a supply chain that requires the risk of constant rocket launches. It's just, it's more efficient, more sustainable.
Joe Zator: So, what's the news now that can help with us to help this kind of situation out. Well, there are two recent tidbits actually
Joe Zator: Both in the past month or so. And they both had to do with what resources we might be able to tap into on that big barren and rock up there
Joe Zator: First back in June. Researchers in Florida, supported by NASA funding, released a new geological model called the ice favor ability index.
Joe Zator: And basically, what this boils down to is that it's the first lunar version of what mining companies do here on Earth.
Joe Zator: By studying geological processes refining their data with different core samples around the Earth 
we figure out the best places to dig for whatever sort of resource we're after
Joe Zator: This new model is really the first crack at will be it without core samples of course because we're not on the moon. Again, yet but
Joe Zator: It is the first model. So, if you sit back to suggest where the best place to look for water ice and the moon are. 
And this, of course, will help us know where we can then harvest water.
Joe Zator: This is hugely important for basic human survival, obviously we need water and oxygen and transporting from Earth, 
all that water and oxygen that a colony might need.
Joe Zator: To be sustainable and to survive is really impossible. So, um, that's, of course, hugely important for our survival but in addition
Joe Zator: The water is massively important because you can separate the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. 
And that of course then can provide rocket fuel.
Joe Zator: Once the infrastructure is in place. You can use mapping models like this ice favor ability index that came out.
Joe Zator: And help us to turn the moon into a hub for fuel can really imagine it being like the humanities first space-based gas station. 
The way it's to fill our robotic craft or human explorers to
Joe Zator: Stock their supplies up before heading out to Mars or Europa or maybe to mine and asteroid for different precious metals.
Joe Zator: And so, it's kind of a cool thing to think about. But actually, speaking of other metals like the asteroid there 
it's kind of a good lead into this other story I want to mention
Joe Zator: That came out, I think it was beginning of July. Yeah, it's being in July. So, uh, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter 
or also known as the LRO for short, since there's
Joe Zator: Nothing at NASA, that doesn't get an acronym. It's of course already been a great workhorse done some excellent science of the years
Joe Zator: But it's not done yet. The instrument called the mini RF or radio frequency recently found that it's below the surface of the moon. 
There's a lot more metals like iron and titanium than we had originally imagined.
Joe Zator: That we should note that these studies actually have a lot of incomplete possibly have implications for how the moon was 
formed and could challenge some of our formation models, which was kind of the main thrust of this
Joe Zator: Of these studies, but for this little segment, I wanted to highlight the practical need for this metal which exists really independent of. 
However, the metal is formed.
Joe Zator: So simply put all this metal down there means there's no need to transport these resources from Earth saves a lot, like I mentioned before.
Joe Zator: So, you can kind of imagine with all this metal there those for you can imagine swarms of autonomous mining robots, 
they're crawling across the moon. They're harvesting this metal
Joe Zator: They feed the oar into, you know, maybe like a low gravity 3D printer that's building the scaffolding for different human habitats and things like that.
Joe Zator: So, it's really providing a lot of setting the stage, I guess for what we could do as a colony up there and
Joe Zator: With that amount of metal that we keep finding, year after year, the caches like this, it's looking a lot more 
feasible to efficiently construct some infrastructure on the moon.
Joe Zator: Once we get back there. Of course, which hopefully will be very soon. So, I think there's some exciting things happening with the possible 
resource. A fines and resource management in the moon, which would help our species to start getting out there and the stars more
Collin Sinclair: Sick. Thanks, Joe. Those are some pretty cool stories. Yeah.
Joe Zator: Good, I'm glad you liked him. It's pretty cool. It's just amazing how much we keep finding and the 
possibilities of what could happen over the next decade or so, you know,
Collin Sinclair: One of the things that we talked about in an interview that is for this week, which is kind of weird 
because the time is all backwards, but we talked
Collin Sinclair: The kind of what's the, what's the right word. I want to say the pristine goodness of the ice on the 
moon and how it's probably a lot of it could, you know, be a
Collin Sinclair: Polluted, so to speak, you know, with other stuff that's on the moon that would make it not you know 
immediately available for human consumption or using, you know, to grow crops or anything like that.
Collin Sinclair: And so that's interesting. It sounds like you know that's kind of on the minds of some researchers say, Okay, we have to figure out which of this ice is more viable than the other ice and how can we kind of work with that information.
Joe Zator: Right, yeah. That's the spot on, I think, depending on what types of things you find yeah but you know different
Joe Zator: Is that could be different levels of purity and you can also, of course, come up with different technologies that would help to, you know, 
maybe clarify in certain ways as well. But I think the basic idea is more ice there, the better and figure out how to use it for humans. Right.
Collin Sinclair: Absolutely.
Collin Sinclair: Well, well, well. There we are. Joe, thanks so much for the dude that was super interesting. 
And we appreciate you taking the time to do the research and give us that story.
Joe Zator: As well as always loved being here and look chime in on anything space. So, thank you guys for having me.
Tara Tomlinson: So now we are talking with Dr. Margaret Landis, who is a postdoc at CU Boulder. 
She specializes in geology and icy bodies all over the solar system.
Tara Tomlinson: She's worked with spacecraft like the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The Dawn spacecraft that visited the dwarf planet Ceres, 
and now the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter at the moon.
Tara Tomlinson: Current work looks at the chemistry of ices on the moon and how they can be essential in determining what sort of water reservoirs 
our future human explorers could access for drinking and farming and fuel and things like that. So, thank you so much for joining us, Margaret.
Margaret Landis: Thanks for having me.
Tara Tomlinson: Yeah, for sure.
Tara Tomlinson: So, speaking of water on the moon we
Tara Tomlinson: Have recently discovered that, yes, there is a ton of water ice at the poles of the moon.
Tara Tomlinson: Which is pretty exciting. Just as the thing. But as far as like upcoming missions and sending people to the moon. 
What is it about this polar water ice deposits that scientists are so excited about?
Margaret Landis: I think from a scientific perspective. What's unique about the polar ice on the moon is
Margaret Landis: It could potentially preserve a long-term record of
Margaret Landis: The water delivery to the earth moon system, which would answer one of those big questions. 
I talked about earlier, which is what is the source of the Earth's water. Did it come from melting rocks that were 
already part of the earth, or did it come from comments that were delivered later.
Margaret Landis: And so, I think from a science perspective that's really why we want to get at the quantity and composition of water ice on the moon.
Margaret Landis: From an engineering in mission operations standpoint, every kilogram you don't have to take with you is a kilogram saved, 
both in terms of money and change in velocity to break Earth orbit but also maybe room for another science instrument or another person.
Margaret Landis: And so mass really matters and spacecraft missions and in human missions. And so, there's this expectation that 
maybe astronauts could take a shovel out dig up some water ice and then have water, both for
Margaret Landis: human consumption but potentially also for fuel source. So, there's a lot of interest in trying to figure 
out the mount and the quantity and the purity of water ice, both on Mars, both on Mars and
Collin Sinclair: Imagine having to harvest your ice like that becomes a major season in your in your life. 
Oh, we have to go harvest some ice. All right, kids. Let's go harvest the ice.
Collin Sinclair: Speaking of harvest the moon is a really dusty place and I imagine that these ice reserves are not exactly pristine. 
Are there anything that we need to watch out for. Or consider before we start watering our moon veggies with this stuff.
Margaret Landis: Um, one thing I kind of touched on before is that there are a lot of potential. 
So, if comets played a major role in delivering water ice to the moon.
Margaret Landis: That means that other organic contaminants are most likely also in the water 
and the one I mentioned earlier was hydrogen cyanide, that's really bad if you're a person
Margaret Landis: Um, and so there's some other complex organics, especially the types of 
hydrocarbons that are not safe for humans to consume large amounts of
Margaret Landis: So that's kind of another probably multimillion-dollar question is how pure as 
the water is how much distillation. Are you going to have to do…
Margaret Landis: Are you going to have to bring a like basically a still with you to the moon to make sure that your water separates from other wall tiles.
Margaret Landis: And then you mentioned her dusty the water ice is. So, one thing that's 
kind of an interesting about with me at water is on the moon is that there are
Margaret Landis: data that suggests there's real to the pure water ice close to the surface of the moon. 
But there's other data sets like from neutron spectroscopy that suggested the water is
Margaret Landis: Most extensively is buried. And that's actually where your, your temperatures are going to 
be the best so you can kind of think of them on a regolith like space blanket.
Margaret Landis: And the more lunar regolith or layers of space blanket. You put down color. Actually, the temperature is below the surface.
Margaret Landis: And so some of the best places to preserve water is on the moon are actually not on the surface but below the surface, 
which means that you have to either dig through regolith or dig up regolith that has kind of water in tune with in it, to be able to actually get at it. So, um,
Margaret Landis: That's a really good question. I think it's
Margaret Landis: A research question, too, because it's not clear. The other thing that can happen is you can bury water ice deposits. When you have small
Margaret Landis: Objects called micrometeorite to the surface of the moon, and it's a lot like a raindrop on the earth kind of moving the dust around it.
Margaret Landis: That can happen on the moon with micrometeorites. And if you do that for long enough and 
you have enough micrometeorites which on the moon. There's no atmosphere. So, you get plenty
Margaret Landis: You can actually move the regular side to side, potentially Barry things that way. 
So, odds are that the water is on the moon, it's not particularly pure
Margaret Landis: But if it is. It also tells us something which means it was delivered to the moon 
very rapidly and there wasn't time for kind of these regolith layers to build up in it.
Margaret Landis: So that's one way or another. We're going to get a cool science answer, even if it's an 
answer of yeah there's going to be a lot of challenges actually making it usable for human consumption.
Tara Tomlinson: I have this picture in my brain of just like a couple of astronauts with like a pot boiling water like you do on top of a mountain like
Tara Tomlinson: I don't know why that just makes me laugh.
Tara Tomlinson: Let's, um, I want to go back to this thing I noticed you said it a couple times and 
pretty much every but every time we talk to people about the moon. They bring up this term lunar regolith
Tara Tomlinson: Not a common thing that most people are familiar with. Can you kind of define this regolith 
term and kind of why is it cool? Why, why do we care about regolith and what kind of things can we learn from lunar regolith
Margaret Landis: So, “regolith” is a technical term. It's almost synonymous with soil, but my understanding 
is that the difficulty with saying soil or dirt is that it has this implication of
Margaret Landis: Biological processing which we do not want to make that claim anywhere else in the 
solar system other than where we know it's definitely happening.
Margaret Landis: And so, regolit” these kinds of the substitute term it's generated when solid rock breaks down into smaller particles over time.
Margaret Landis: This is something that happens on the earth that happens anywhere 
where your nice poor rock is not very well shielded from weathering, which is everywhere. um poor rocks.
Margaret Landis: Know what ends up happening is you start breaking it down into smaller, smaller particles over time.
Margaret Landis: And it can happen like on Mars, you can have wind blowing it around and 
that will start breaking down the particles on the moon. It's a lot of micrometeorite environment.
Margaret Landis: Um, one thing that is really special about the lunar regolith. Is it doesn't have really significant processing from water so…
Margaret Landis: Geology and one on one, you go into the field and you're like, oh, this is like a rounded particle. This is a
Margaret Landis: Angular particle. It's a sub Angular particle and those variety of particle 
shapes and sizes come from at least on the earth processing from water.
Margaret Landis: That doesn't happen on the moon. So, Luna regolith tends to have really sharp 
edges compared to regular that were used to on the mark on Mars.
Margaret Landis: Around the earth. And that's actually one pretty significant challenge in 
spacesuit design and other things is that there's, it's basically sharp glass.
Margaret Landis: That’s hanging out on the surface of the moon. It's potentially very hazardous, 
both in terms of making sure your spacesuits resistant to it, but also making sure people don't inhale it.
Margaret Landis: Because small glass particles in your lungs are not really are you want small glass like particles in general. 
Um, so that's one of the really kind of tough challenges at the moon that you wouldn't have it. Mars is the regolith
Margaret Landis: And so, so yeah. The other kind of cool thing about regolith is depending upon its thermal properties. It can be really great at
Margaret Landis: Providing really cold tub surface temperatures, like I mentioned earlier. 
Um, so what happens is really small particles is that their heart pack together.
Margaret Landis: Which means it's harder to transfer heat and if you don't have an atmosphere, then you don't have 
air pockets inside. And so, you're basically relying on conduction instead of conviction.
Margaret Landis: To transfer heat and so you can really get cold temperatures. If you put enough layers of lunar regolith down. So, it's one thing that you 
might be able to survive in places on the moon better hotter than you'd expect if you could somehow maybe like insulated habitat with Lunar regolith
Margaret Landis: And you might be able to put volatiles both surface and places on the moon or on Ceres that
Margaret Landis: kind of push a little bit more than one that's where they would be versus stable on the surface by doing that. 
So now, regolith is a very technical, abiotic term for small bits of rock that are broken down from bigger bits of rock.
Tara Tomlinson: I like the idea that it's such a good insulator. I, I went to a talk one time where someone was 
talking about actually building habitats on Mars, but they are mentioning like
Tara Tomlinson: Basically, using the soil and the dust to 3D print a habitat and that would be. I feel like Lunar regular would be an 
excellent sort of thing to make a little habitat. I make like a little, you know, dust, igloo or something because it's such a good insulator.
Margaret Landis: Unfortunately, I'm not an engineer, so I don't understand that much about how exactly 3D print it. 
But I've definitely heard that come up multiple times where you might be able to
Margaret Landis: Use the resources that are available to you as an astronaut and a lot of innovative ways
Collin Sinclair: You know, the moon and things that aren't the earth, uh, you know, finding ice on 
bodies in the solar system is a lot more complicated than just taking pictures of ice caps and snow fields.
Collin Sinclair: Especially when a lot of the ice that we know of that we've been talking about is underground. So, you can't see it from space 
directly. What are some of the other ways that we can you know kind of infer the, the existence of ice. You know that we can't directly see
Margaret Landis: That's a really good question. And one of the things early on in my PhD, the reasons I picked the polar layer 
deposits to studies they were on surface of Mars. And when they knew, and we knew they were water ice.
Margaret Landis: So, it’s kind of reduce the complexity, a little bit. Um, one thing that I think is really important to think 
about is looking at spectroscopic and geophysical data and
Margaret Landis: Infrared spectroscopy. So generally, with spectroscopy you can
Margaret Landis: Assume you can have you can detect water at the depth. That's like if it's light based or radio or
Margaret Landis: Electromagnetic radiation based you can assume that you can kind of understand it to depths that are about the wavelength is like 
the radiation you're using. So, if it's infrared. It's some it's a certain wavelength. If it's near infrared or something that shorter wavelength, it's
Margaret Landis: It's proportionately shallower that you can kind of tell that there's water is near the surface.
Margaret Landis: And that's when the reasons why neutron spectroscopy so cool. So instead of using electromagnetic radiation and it uses
Margaret Landis: galactic cosmic rays that generate neutrons and the subsurface and then looks at how those neutrons come up through the surface.
Margaret Landis: And how different energies and neutrons are released from the surface at different ratios.
Margaret Landis: And so, you can get at how much water is there because water is really great at attenuated neutrons. 
So, kind of blocking neutrons from escaping.
Margaret Landis: Unfortunately, chlorine is too. So, it always just takes take some effort in some art to be able to process that data correctly.
Margaret Landis: That's great way of doing it. Another way is just measuring the, the density of an object, like I mentioned, for Ceres, we knew
Margaret Landis: Something was up because the density was much lower than it should have been. If it had been purely rock. So that's one thing that's 
helpful radar also is a great instrument and a great way of doing that because the radar signal depending upon its particular wavelengths can
Margaret Landis: Penetrate fairly deeply into some water ice or other regolith bodies, that's how we've actually discovered a large 
amount of the surface area near surface water ice on Mars is we've actually taken a radar across it gone
Margaret Landis: Oh, yeah. So, there's layering here in the basically attenuation rate of the radar matches up really well with water 
or CO2 ice, so radar instruments are always very transformative. I'm trying to think, what else is key for understanding
Margaret Landis: buried ice. Another thing that's really helpful is if there are impact craters. They kind of scoop out an entire chunk of the regolith.
Margaret Landis: And you can actually expose the material that's below the surface. 
So, my undergrad advisor always said they're nature's drill or nature's soil profile trench.
Margaret Landis: Because you can do a hole in the ground and not have to send anybody to go do it. It just happens because that's how solar system works.
Margaret Landis: That's really helpful to look at. There's some really interesting work that's been coming out of the United States Geological Survey and
Margaret Landis: The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment. It's actually looking at these cliffs on Mars that are exposing water ice.
Margaret Landis: And so, there are a lot of indirect ways. And then, of course, one of the tried and true ways which isn't definitive 
but very suggestive is looking at the geo morphology. So, what the landforms actually look like because they're very distinctive
Margaret Landis: Landforms that form, either in the presence of ice or that have formed as the result of ice moving through an area. So, like if you've
Margaret Landis: Been up to Rocky Mountain National Park ever in Colorado. There are spectacular 
U-shaped valleys and so instead of being a really sharp cut into the rock. It's nice and broad
Margaret Landis: That is a dead ringer for something that has that's been icy that has flowed through there, and that is something that we
Margaret Landis: Kind of can observe that if it isn't there anymore. You can still kind of say, 
well, this is like a dead ringer for something that probably happened, the icy process.
Margaret Landis: And then you can go back with other remote sensing techniques and then kind of follow up in these areas, 
or at least understand the past presence of ice.
Tara Tomlinson: Well, that kind of wraps up the official questions that we had for you, but we also have our Capcom Q&A 
segment that we like to do, where we have some questions that were submitted by the public that we want to throw at you.
Collin Sinclair: Yep. Clayton from Houston asks, Does the moon's orbit ever change slightly 
or is it very slowly moving towards us on inevitable collision course.
Margaret Landis: So, my understanding is the moon is actually slowly moving away from us. And the reason for that is
Margaret Landis: Kind of going back to the ice skater analogy for angular momentum in physics 101, 
where the if the ice skaters’ arms are out. It's a different kind of setup than
Margaret Landis: If the ice skaters’ arms are in. And so, it's happening with the moon is there 
is being energy transfer from the moon to actually there's oceans through times
Margaret Landis: And so, the moon. My understanding is slowly losing energy and eventually it's backing away from the Earth.
Margaret Landis: So on one hand, it means probably not a catastrophic impact with the earth which as an impact person I am, 
both happy and sad about at the same time because I, I like to live on the earth, but a giant impact would be really cool.
Margaret Landis: The immediate downside is that eventually we won't get full solar eclipses anymore.
Margaret Landis: We're living in a kind of an interesting time where the, the angular distance in the sky of the Moon and the Sun are such 
that you can actually completely cover the sun, the moon in the right solar eclipse setup and eventually that's going to go away. So, I think
Margaret Landis: Yeah, I think that the biggest thing to worry about is living in a world without solar eclipses, which, 
on one hand seems really simple, but on the other hand, isn't it wild that like our moon can exactly Eclipse the sun.
Margaret Landis: Like there's something to be said about living in a very specific and very interesting 
kind of orbital configuration with your moon like that not all the planets have that
Tara Tomlinson: I actually just saw some pictures published, like, a week ago maybe have a solar eclipse from Mars, 
where it's two little tiny moons when front of the sun and it was like, oh, that's adorable, how cute they block a little bit
Margaret Landis: Yeah, so I probably should correct myself and say, you can have a solar eclipse.
Margaret Landis: From basically anywhere where the moon that cover that will go over the sun but like having a total solar eclipse.
Margaret Landis: Is kind of is, is a very unique thing and will eventually go away not fast like I think we still got at least in our lifetimes plenty of salt 
that total solar eclipses, but it's one of those things kind of go, oh, that's, I better see as many as I can before I die slash they go away.
Collin Sinclair: Well, they're pretty powerful events and I can't remember whether it ended or started a war between
Collin Sinclair: It was it was between the Greeks and the Romans; I think.
Collin Sinclair: Right. And you can. It's actually, we know exactly. It helped us know exactly when this 
moment in history was because they wrote down the sun just turned black. In the sky is dark.
Collin Sinclair: It's the middle of the day and we think it's the gods telling us to, you know, do or don't do whatever it is that we were going to do.
Collin Sinclair: And now we're like, hey, that happened exactly here because we can run time backwards 
with math and say, all right, but yeah it's, you know, witnessing it is very like, Oh my gosh, it's kind of like
Margaret Landis: One of the most interesting science memoirs I ever read. And I need to find out more about this author, as far as I can tell, was like
Margaret Landis: A lady from Boston. And she somehow decided she wanted to see a total solar eclipse and she ended up going, I think two
Margaret Landis: Three different potential solar eclipse observations and I think the first to either 
got rained out. Are there was whether or they were trying to go see it and then World War One happen.
Collin Sinclair: Oh, no.
Margaret Landis: She saw solar
Margaret Landis: This series of misadventures where she said, I just want to see a solar eclipse and like, 
here's the travel log how leasing went wrong, and we missed it this time.
Margaret Landis: And she eventually saw one, but yeah. If there's not, it was the beginning of the 20th century, 
and there's not a lot of other information about her. I've been able to like
Margaret Landis: Find her in some like Daughters of the American Revolution records in Boston, but I don't 
know that much about her. So, it's one of like my side projects, whenever I have air quotes time
Margaret Landis: To try to figure out exactly why she decided that she had to see a solar eclipse because it's one of those things where
Margaret Landis: It's my knowledge, she's not an astronomer, she's just a person who went. These are really cool, and I want to do this. 
So, it was kind of a fun science memoir is it is a, I think a lay person who was just like, yeah, this is cool, and I want to go see it.
Tara Tomlinson: I think that's an excellent metaphor for science in general. Like, I think this thing 
is really cool. Here's all the times that I've been stopped from actually observing this
Tara Tomlinson: Other reasons why this went horribly wrong.
Tara Tomlinson: And then World War one happened.
Margaret Landis: Like, shoot.
Tara Tomlinson: All right, well thank you so much for joining us today. Dr. Margaret Landis
Margaret Landis: Yeah, thanks again Collin and Tara, for having me and it was a lot of fun chatting with you all about the man.
Collin Sinclair: Alright, so now we are talking to Dr. Paul Hayne who is an assistant professor at 
CU Boulder studying surface and atmospheric processes on terrestrial bodies like the moon and Mars.
Collin Sinclair: Is especially interested in ices and how they affect the atmospheres of these bodies.
Collin Sinclair: Dr. Hand is involved with several NASA missions, including the Lunar 
Reconnaissance Orbiter or LRO the Mars Climate sounder and the upcoming Europa Clipper
Collin Sinclair: He is currently the lead on an instrument slated to be launched to the moon as a part of the Artemis series of missions.
Collin Sinclair: This radiometer will help map the distribution of different chemicals and materials on the moon. 
And there are thermal properties. Dr. Paul Hayne thanks so much for being with us this morning.
Paul Hayne: Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.
Collin Sinclair: So, the first question I want to ask you is, if you could give us a brief overview of this thing called the Artemis mission.
Paul Hayne: Sure. So, Artemis is actually a program that intends to put a human back on the surface of the moon by 2024 so it'll actually be 
a sequence of missions, culminating in footprints boot prints on the surface of the moon sometime in 2024 is the plan.
Paul Hayne: And also going to places that we haven't been before with humans or any other robotic explorers. So like places like the South Pole of the Moon.
Collin Sinclair: Very cool. So, this is the so when we refer to Artemis collectively, it is the series 
of missions that will occur in succession to put people back on the moon.
Paul Hayne: Right. So, in NASA parlance, that would be a program
Colin Sinclair: Okay,
Paul Hayne: And each part of that program will consist of a mission or sequence of missions. So, for example, one of the first 
missions is going to be to put something called the lunar gateway in orbit around the moon. This is a mini space station sort of
Paul Hayne: Smaller version of the International Space Station. It's going to go into orbit around the 
moon in a very special kind of orbit that will allow it to deposit things on the lunar surface.
Collin Sinclair: Very cool. So, so we'll move into kind of what you're doing a little bit more here. You are leading the development of an instrument.
Collin Sinclair: Called the lunar compact infrared imaging system or LCIRIS. Once we get to know him better that will ride on board, one of 
the three landers associated with the Artemis program. What will this instrument do and what can we learn from its observations?
Paul Hayne: Yeah, so LCIRIS is a camera, but it's sort of a night vision or heat sensing camera, 
so it's a thermal infrared camera that takes pictures just like your iPhone.
Paul Hayne: But it's sensing wavelengths of light, beyond human vision. So, it's going to sense into the thermal infrared. So, everything that 
we see with this camera will be the emitted radiation from the heat of all the objects around us on the surface of the moon.
Paul Hayne: And I say us. But really this is a robotic lander. There are no human beings on board, 
and we have a fully automated camera system that's going to
Paul Hayne: Generate these images. So, once we land on the surface. The instrument will then scan to make these sorts of 
panoramic images over and over again. So, we can see how things change over the course of the lunar day
Paul Hayne: And our landing site is a very unique place we don't have it picked out yet.
Paul Hayne: But it's going to be unique place near the South Pole of the Moon and
Paul Hayne: NASA or anyone else has never sent any anything this close to the lunar poles.
Paul Hayne: So, getting back to that LCIRIS than our instrument will sit on the lunar surface on this lander, and it'll be right next to
Paul Hayne: One or more of these big permanently shadowed craters. And so, we're going to take 
images of those craters for the very first time from the surface.
Paul Hayne: And map out where are these cold regions, I said that we can measure the heat. So, we're going to measure the temperature
Paul Hayne: Of these, these craters and see which ones are cold enough to trap ice and then other instruments 
on the land are going to actually search for that ice and those cold regions, including a little
Paul Hayne: Rover, which is sort of like a little you know toy rover, kind of like the Sojourner rover. I don't know if you're familiar with that on
Paul Hayne: Mars Pathfinder. There was this little tiny rover that rolled off the lander.
Paul Hayne: So, we have one of those called moon Ranger. And that's going to roll around on the, on the surface, exploring for ice also
Paul Hayne: So LCIRIS will help map out where that little rover should go to search for ice. And then finally, we also learn something about the
Paul Hayne: Geology and the geologic history of the moon and the moon formation with LCIRIS because we have these compositional
Paul Hayne: Wavelengths that we use to look for to look at the composition of the surface. So, in a nutshell, that's what LCIRIS is 
doing mapping out the temperatures and the cold traps for water and looking at the composition and geologic history.
Collin Sinclair: What just to get a feel for kind of what this process looks like. What if you had to guess, what fraction of instruments 
go all the way from someone thinks about them to they end up on a planet or a body that's not the earth.
Paul Hayne: That number is very small.
Collin Sinclair: So, it's a very competitive, if you will, fields to develop an instrument and
Paul Hayne: It is, but you have to keep in mind that that nobody's proposing once right so
Paul Hayne: Right. We all propose over and over and over again. And that's one of the things I tell students, 
especially, is that the best way to succeed in in astronomy and planetary science in any field is to fail.
Paul Hayne: Over and over again and get really good at failing and but what I mean by that is, is to
Paul Hayne: Accept the fact that that failure is a part of the process and not let it hurt your feelings too much, you know,
Paul Hayne: It does hurt. Of course, it hurts, and you feel it and you say okay, like that's done, 
what can I learn from this experience and move on to the next opportunity.
Paul Hayne: Because if you ask anybody who, who, you know, has an instrument that's on another planet. They'll tell you that there's, 
you know, a floor somewhere littered with, you know, chunks and broken parts of instruments that failed. You know, so
Paul Hayne: That's, that's kind of the story. There is that, yeah, it's a small fraction but
Paul Hayne: Most people
Paul Hayne: eventually succeed.
Collin Sinclair: We I'm going to kind of change directions here in astronomy. We often talk about geologically active or inactive bodies.
Collin Sinclair: Meaning for listeners that there is or isn't seismic or volcanic activity occurring somewhere on the body. 
Right. So, you can think of this body, you know, planet or a moon or asteroid being active or inactive.
Collin Sinclair: And more and more the consensus is that it seems to me that that the more we learn about all of these bodies that we 
thought were inactive that there's not really such thing as a truly inactive body that there is absolutely nothing happening.
Collin Sinclair: On you know on you know somebody in space, and what can be said about activity happening on the moon. 
Is there any activity happening on the moon that may impact Artemis astronauts when they arrive, for example?
Paul Hayne: So, so a lot of a lot of people do think of the moon as a relatively dead rock and space with not much activity, but in fact, 
we're starting to think that there is activity on the moon that that may be ongoing today and there. There's certainly
Paul Hayne: External activity that is affecting the, the moon surface which will certainly affect the Artemis astronauts once they get there. 
So, by that I mean there are
Paul Hayne: Meteorites hitting the surface of the moon constantly, you know, you can imagine the big impacts that produce craters 
and all that are pretty infrequent. But the impacts of the much smaller things, the kind of particles that we see produce
Paul Hayne: Shooting Stars, you know, meteors in our, in our sky. Those are very common and if you know if you're an astronaut. 
On the surface, and you've got your space suit, you know, which is protecting you from the vacuum of space.
Paul Hayne: One of those little you know pebble sized projectiles is a big deal. You know, so
Paul Hayne: So, we would like to know about that kind of activity. The external activity. There's also a lot of radiation 
activity in terms of both from the sun, the solar wind.
Paul Hayne: And things like coronal mass ejections that introduce high energy particles.
Paul Hayne: From the sun and then also galactic cosmic rays, which are constantly bombarding the lunar surface. 
These, these things cause more long-term damage, although sometimes something like a CME can trigger a power outage by
Paul Hayne: You know, discharging a whole circuit. So, we do have to worry about the space environment affecting 
the activities on the lunar surface, not just for astronauts, but also for our robotic emissaries
Paul Hayne: And then there's also internal activity to the moon. So, we know from Apollo, that there is seismic activity, both on the surface and in the deep interior of the moon.
Paul Hayne: Triggered by moonquakes and the way that those moonquakes and the deep interior are triggered is probably
Paul Hayne: Due to the interaction with earth, which is pretty interesting, actually, as, as the moon moves around and its orbit.
Paul Hayne: around the Earth, the Moon creates tides on Earth, but the earth also creates tides on the moon. And because the 
earth is creating tides on the moon, that's causing some kind of squeezing and flexing inside the moon, which then
Paul Hayne: Makes faults form and slip. So those deep moonquakes are mostly probably triggered by that kind of activity 
which is ultimately the cause of the Earth and not really because of the moon's own activity. Right.
Paul Hayne: But there are there's some, some of those moonquakes did not really match up with that kind of title forcing. And so, we think there 
is some deep seismic activity on the moon, that's caused by the moon's own internal motions activity, maybe even because of some
Paul Hayne: regions that are still melted from the formation of the Moon, which is pretty surprising. After you know 4 billion years that that it would still 
be molten down there, but it looks like at least part of it is, and then finally there's some evidence for volcanic and tectonic activity, meaning
Paul Hayne: Eruptions and also faulting at the surface from data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. So, you see a few of these features.
Paul Hayne: One is called Ina, I-n-a, and if you haven't seen a picture of it, you should look it up, it's beautiful and stunning and mysterious so it's a
Paul Hayne: Clearly a volcanic eruption feature. It's some kind of volcano lots of this what we call pancake batter blobby material on the surface and
Paul Hayne: If you, if you take account of all the craters on those features you can kind of tell their age, at least in a relative sense and they look very young.
Paul Hayne: Like maybe less than 10 million years, which is a blink of an eye in geologic terms. And so, people put forward the idea that
Paul Hayne: Maybe those things are were not only active 10 million years ago, but they're active today and that would be very surprising, you know, given how
Paul Hayne: Old and cold. We think the moon is so if there's volcanic activity today. That's something that the Artemis
Paul Hayne: Missions could definitively identify and for the first time you say yes. The moon is volcanically active today, or no, 
it's not. And that would tell us about the whole history of its formation and its interior
Paul Hayne: And also, lastly, you know, we see lots of evidence in the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera 
data for landslides and things new fresh impacts big craters that are formed.
Paul Hayne: By literally impacts that are happening before our eyes. Basically, and that will you know those larger 
impacts would definitely pose a hazard to astronauts on the surface.
Collin Sinclair: Wow. So, it sounds like the moon is very much not dead. You know, as, as it, you kind of think about it 
sometimes, you know, like, oh, you know, this moon is just a rock in space, but it's really there's a lot going on there. It's
Paul Hayne: A lot going on, yeah.
Collin Sinclair: Is there any consideration as to, like,
Collin Sinclair: You know, we're sending astronauts to the moon. This is something that we talked about, 
also with Mars. You know, when we get to that point, we have to deal with.
Collin Sinclair: You know, radiation that we haven't really, you know, dealt with before. And how are we going to deal with that is 
that conversation happening about putting people on the moon did happen. Also, in Apollo, you know, in that era.
Paul Hayne: Yes, it is. And it's a big concern. I think a lot of people have spent their entire careers studying 
how to mitigate and deal with radiation exposure for astronauts.
Paul Hayne: And we deal with this all the time. By the way, for robotic spacecraft because we have to protect our electronics and in the
Paul Hayne: Inner workings of the instruments as they fly through space over a long period of time, you know, 
and we've been successful with that, like, you know, for example, there's still
Paul Hayne: Instruments operating on Voyager, you know, and those spacecrafts are now in interstellar space. So, you can do this for decades. 
The key is that you just need enough shielding between the environment of space and your body, right, or your electronics, as the case may be. So
Paul Hayne: That's challenging you know because you need a space suit to be able to be
Paul Hayne: maneuverable right. You have to be able to work and so
Paul Hayne: You can't completely shield with just a space suit alone so long-term exposure, which we didn't 
really encounter and Apollo, because those missions were, you know,
Paul Hayne: On timescales of days, not months or years that kind of radiation exposure for over a long period 
of time is a big concern and a lot of people think that the moon is a good
Paul Hayne: Testing ground proving ground for the kinds of technologies that people have been developing to help mitigate radiation exposure 
and also to understand that the effects on the body because we have a lot of experience on the International Space Station with long term.
Paul Hayne: Exposure to the low Earth orbit environment that's very, very different from even the moon or 
especially in an interplanetary space out on the way to Mars so
Paul Hayne: Once you're on the surface of Mars situation is a little bit better than on the moon, but not a whole lot. And so, it's a very similar problem.
Paul Hayne: And yeah, the Keys. The key is shielding and limiting the time out on the surface, basically.
Tara Tomlinson: So, we're going to switch a little bit now because we always like to get a little personal with our 
interview there at the end. And I definitely wanted to ask you about this really awesome thing they
Paul Hayne: No more questions. No more questions
Tara Tomlinson: Not that kind of personal, but I wanted to ask you about the Ad Astra Academy that you work with. It's super cool. 
Can you tell us a little bit about kind of their mission and the kind of things that you do with Ad Astra?
Paul Hayne: Yeah so Ad Astra is an organization that we founded in 2015 to work with underserved 
students in mainly developing countries, but also in the US.
Paul Hayne: Who are not exposed to cool science. And so that's basically the gist of it is to get kids involved in not only 
learning about science but doing science and we like to involve them directly in NASA missions and you know research.
Paul Hayne: cruises with, you know, research boats and that sort of thing. And to get them to tap into their natural 
curiosity that otherwise, you know, we think would basically go dormant, we want to
Paul Hayne: Awaken it and give them opportunities that that they wouldn't normally have. And so, we involve you know NASA scientists and
Paul Hayne: You know, researchers who are working direct directly with these NASA missions and biological 
missions and stuff to help the students look at real actual science data and, you know, for example.
Paul Hayne: We had the students in the first
Paul Hayne: First program in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2015 we had them request images from the 
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter high rise camera of locations on Mars that had never been
Paul Hayne: imaged at that resolution so no one had ever seen an up-close shot of that 
location on Mars. And so, they had to come up with a science justification for
Paul Hayne: You know why they wanted to study this place on Mars that have never been seen before. 
And in a whole you know research plan for what they were going to do with it. And then they proposed it to the NASA
Paul Hayne: Team, and then the images were required. We did a big unveiling ceremony and they got to like, 
you know, look at the images for the first time and then do their, their
Paul Hayne: Mock rover to reverse across the image, you know, studying the surface and more details. So that sort of thing. And, and also just doing
Paul Hayne: hands on activities outside of the classroom that they normally don't get a chance to do 
so we build like a scale model of the solar system, we take them on a field trip. That's usually either
Paul Hayne: Biology or geology oriented.
Paul Hayne: Which is something these kids, you know, typically don't have any opportunities to do and
Paul Hayne: We've been pretty successful in encouraging students, not, not just to become scientists, because we're not
Paul Hayne: Naive, you don't think that everyone's going to become a scientist but do least, you know, 
pursue that interest in and maybe think about, you know, studying science and at the university level.
Paul Hayne: So right now, we've done programs in
Paul Hayne: Brazil several times and
Paul Hayne: Bangladesh and Oakland, California and
Paul Hayne: Nigeria and we are looking to expand during the year of COVID we're looking to expand more locally.
Paul Hayne: In in the US, including juvenile detention centers in Colorado.
Collin Sinclair: That is
Collin Sinclair: Fantastic like hearing you talk about this program is just awesome.
Collin Sinclair: Well, Dr. Paul Haim thank you so much for speaking with us. It was super interesting to hear about the science that you're working on and
Collin Sinclair: It's exciting to look forward into the future about these, you know, this program, the Artemis 
program and also perhaps getting to Europea's ocean. So thanks a lot for your time. Yeah.
Paul Hayne: Thank you very much. It was a pleasure.
Tara Tomlinson: Alright, that's our episode for today. Thank you guys so much for joining us. Be sure to come back 
next week we have Dr. Luis Zea and Dr. Bruce Jakosky who are going to be talking to us about all sorts of
Tara Tomlinson: astrobiology asteroid mining weird space life stuff is going to be really exciting. We definitely also want to 
thank our guests for this week. Dr. Margaret Landis, and Dr. Paul Hayne for giving us a really cool information about the moon.
Tara Tomlinson: Now, of course, those are just excerpts from our full interview. So, if you want to hear the full extended 
interview with either of those. You want to check out our YouTube and SoundCloud accounts. You can find those there.
Tara Tomlinson: And as always, we are available on YouTube and SoundCloud but also Spotify and Apple podcasts and be sure to like 
and subscribe and comment and do whatever you need to do to make sure that you don't miss any of our upcoming episodes.
Tara Tomlinson: We also want to invite you to check out our website www.colorado.edu/Fiske
Tara Tomlinson: There you can see our schedule of upcoming shows and topics and guests. There's also an option for 
you to submit questions for our comm Q&A section so we can pass those on to our experts.
Tara Tomlinson: And maybe get them answered on the air so you can send us a message to our email fiskepodcast@colorado.edu 
or check out the form there on our website. Otherwise, that's it for this week. Hope to see you guys next week.
