ANALOGS BETWEEN ANTARCTICA AND THE MOON: A SOUTH POLE EXPERIENCE FOR PLANNING LUNAR MISSIONS

摘要

In planning any human missions to the Moon, experiences in Antarctica are worth reviewing because of numerous environmental and logistical analogs. At the time of growing interest in the south pole of the Moon, analogs between Antarctica and the Moon are presented based on the experience of executing an astrophysics project at the South Pole. Since the 1950s, numerous countries have established stations in Antarctica, overcoming many challenges similar to those involved in going to the Moon. The lunar surface and Antarctica, particularly the south poles of the Moon and the Earth, have many environmental analogs that make them desirable sites especially for astronomy. One experiment is the BICEP telescope, which was installed in 2005 at the South Pole to investigate the origin of the Big Bang through the cosmic microwave background. The entire process of designing, building, transporting, deploying, and operating the telescope has involved many considerations perhaps analogous to those required in executing a human mission on the Moon.