From Innovation News Network: NASA has created the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI), bringing together teams of researchers who are interested in the Moon, asteroids, and the moons of Mars, airless bodies in Earth’s neighbourhood. Most of the teams involved in SSERVI are therefore interested in areas such as lunar geology, resource extraction, and so on. However, the Network for Exploration and Space Science (NESS), which is headed up by Dr Jack Burns at the University of Colorado Boulder, proposed to do astrophysics and cosmology from the Moon, as the far side of the Moon, in particular, is the only truly radio quiet location in the inner Solar System. As such, the far side of the moon is the perfect place to locate radio telescopes that can be used to explore aspects of the Universe that cannot be addressed in any other way. These include, Burns told The Innovation Platform, the so-called ‘dark ages’ of the Universe, the cosmic dawn, and, indeed, exoplanets. “We can also use these telescopes on the far side of the moon to look at the Sun,” he said.
Led by the University of Colorado, NESS has developed into a team of ten universities and NASA centres which have been working together for almost four years. The network is actively involved in addressing some of the broad design questions for missions to the Moon. Burns explained: “We look at the science drivers, undertake theoretical modelling, conduct equipment and instrument design, and plan missions. We have been successful in doing that, and there are a couple of exciting missions coming up in the next few years, and then we will propose more for the longer term.” Read more…