Moreover, it is pointing the way for future missions, including one proposed to study Jupiter’s moons that would launch no sooner than 2012.
“It’s forwarded our understanding to the point where we have new questions to ask,” Alexander said.
Which is what good science should do. Why, then, do we have such a ho-hum, “been there, done that” attitude towards the Moon? You’d think we’d explored the whole thing already, but we’ve sent what, two probes there since the end of Apollo?
Perhaps we’ll see another Lunar mission in the not too distant futgure, when TransOrbital launches TrailBlazer, with its iPAQ PDA providing the communications. The test article was launched almost a year ago, but I haven’t seen any info on the mission schedule. Here’s the URL for the mission:
*http://www.transorbital.net/TB_mission.html*
Chris