Lunar odyssey

What humanity intends to do on the only Earth’s satellite

The Moon has long captivated human attention. The ancients regarded it as a nocturnal goddess and offered lavish sacrifices, while many cultures across different parts of the world utilised lunar calendars. Even in antiquity, astronomers managed to determine the distance to the Earth’s satellite with considerable accuracy, as well as to calculate the tilt of its orbit and the approximate dimensions of the celestial body. Significant advancements in further lunar exploration were spurred by the invention of the telescope in the 17th century, followed by the development of photography technology in the 19th century, which allowed for images of the Moon’s surface to be captured from our planet. The 20th century granted humanity the capability to first send an automatic research station to the Moon, and subsequently, astronauts. However, the first lunar race did not mark the beginning of the colonisation of the satellite, and now we are witnessing a second attempt by earthlings to establish a presence on this nearby celestial body.

Unfulfilled dream  

Although the first man-made object on the Moon — the Luna 2 automatic interplanetary station, which reached the surface of the satellite on September 14th, 1959 — belonged to the USSR, as did the first spacecraft to achieve a soft landing (Luna 9 in 1966), the triumph of the first lunar race went to the USA, whose astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon on July 21st, 1969. However, hopes for the rapid colonisation of the celestial body were not destined to be fulfilled: the most recent mission to the Moon took place in December 1972.  
There are many theories regarding the reasons for the winding down of Soviet and American space programmes, including the suggestion of extraterrestrial intervention. In reality, however, it all comes down to a lack of funding and resources for continued exploration, a ‘glass ceiling’ in technological terms that prevented the creation of the necessary devices and materials for building a lunar base, as well as a shift in the political and economic priorities of the superpowers.

Resource base and launching pad 

The beginning of the second lunar race has been facilitated by a number of objective factors. Firstly, in the context of heightened political and economic confrontation in the world, leading powers must continually enhance their authority in the eyes of humanity. 
Secondly, the Moon, as specialists suggest, is a treasure trove of various valuable minerals. The depths of the Earth’s satellite contain titanium, iron, aluminium, magnesium, silicon, chromium, phosphorus, and rare earth metals such as yttrium, scandium, and lanthanides. 
However, the most promising resource on the Moon is considered to be the isotope helium-3. On Earth, its reserves are negligible — there are only about 35,000 tonnes in the atmosphere (although it can also be artificially produced through the radioactive decay of tritium), whereas its reserves on our satellite are estimated to be at least 500 million tonnes. The ‘lunar treasure’, as scientists have dubbed it, can be used for various purposes. 
Among the practical applications, a thermonuclear reactor appears to be the most promising. According to calculations, one kilogramme of helium-3 can ‘generate’ 19 megawatts of energy, meaning that one tonne of the isotope could produce as much electricity as can be obtained from burning 15 million tonnes of oil. 

When considering the minerals on the Moon, one must be realistic. Even if humanity manages to return there in the next decade, the extraction and transportation of raw materials back to Earth would be so costly that discussing their profitability would be futile. 

Finally, thirdly, the Moon is important to humanity both as a site for research and as a location where a base could be established for further expansion, for example, to Mars. However, to achieve all this, a number of serious problems must be addressed, such as the high levels of radiation and meteorite bombardment, the presence of lunar dust that is hazardous to machinery and humans, and the low gravity that negatively affects the bodies of Earth’s organisms.

Achievements and failures of Artemis

The outcome of the relevant programmes currently being developed in the USA, Russia, the People’s Republic of China, the European Union, India, and Japan should be the establishment of lunar bases. 
It is perhaps best to start with the United States. Artemis — the American Moon exploration programme — took shape during Trump’s first term, and it is no surprise that the promise to return to the Moon and even land on Mars became one of the Republican’s key campaign pledges. Artemis consists of several stages, of which only Artemis I has been completed as of February this year: in late 2022, the uncrewed Orion spacecraft flew around the Moon and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. Artemis II (a crewed flyby of the Earth’s satellite) and Artemis III (the actual landing) are currently scheduled for April 2026 and 2027, respectively. Following this, the plan includes the assembly of the Gateway station in lunar orbit, which could eventually serve as a transfer point on the way to Mars. Subsequent stages will focus on enhancing ground and orbital infrastructure, resulting in a fully-fledged base on the Moon capable of supporting long-term missions.
Even with the investment of funds and resources, the American programme faces a number of challenges: the astronauts’ spacesuits won’t be ready in time, the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield has proven inadequate, and the key element of Artemis — the Starship spacecraft’s Super Heavy rocket from Elon Musk’s SpaceX — is still far from ideal.  
What more can be said when the head of SpaceX himself described the programme as ‘extremely inefficient as it is a jobs-maximising programme, not a results-maximising programme’?

Joint programmes  

The closest competitors to the USA in the new lunar race are China and Russia. Moscow and Beijing have a joint project for Moon exploration, similar to that of the West, but it is based on principles of equal co-operation and a focus on tangible results — specifically the creation of an International Scientific Lunar Station (ISLS).  
It is expected that in the second half of the 2020s, a series of automatic spacecraft, Chang’e and Luna, will be sent to the Moon, with the station itself planned for completion by 2036. It will include both an orbital component and facilities on the Moon’s surface.  
In addition to the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, the programme also involves Belarus, Pakistan, the UAE, South Africa, the Asia-Pacific Space Co-operation Organisation (APSCO), Azerbaijan, and the Swiss company Nano-SPACE.  
Our country joined the ISLS project on October 23rd, 2023, following the signing of a joint declaration on co-operation between Belarus’ National Academy of Sciences and the China National Space Administration (CNSA).  
Academician Lev Zelenyi, Scientific Director of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, stated in April last year that Belarus would participate in the Russian lunar programme with its electronics and mechanical devices.
Another important area in which Belarus is participating is the experiments simulating a flight to the Moon. In November last year, the SIRIUS-23 mission was successfully completed, featuring Belarusian Olga Mastitskaya among its crew. Six individuals spent a year in a confined space, practising both standard and emergency situations that could arise during a real expedition to the Moon.

The exploration of the nearest celestial body to Earth is one of the promising tasks facing humanity in the 21st century. The success of this endeavour will significantly affect the fate of Earth civilisation’s expansion into distant space. It is encouraging that Belarus is participating in the preparation for this crucial step alongside the world’s most powerful nations.

384,400 km — Moon’s distance from Earth
3 days — travel time from Earth to Moon using current spacecraft technology
-23°C — average temperature on Moon   
27 days, 7 hours, and 43.2 minutes — time for Moon’s complete orbit around Earth
59 percent — area of Moon’s surface visible from Earth

By  Anton Popov