Moon Race

It was during the days of cold war between Soviet Union and America after World War-II. Rivalry exists in each and every thing between them. If Soviet sends a space craft, then America will send one on the next year.

Soviet leads the race till America’s Apollo-8’s manned lunar orbit on December 1968. Then on America becomes the front runner in Moon Race.

 The history starts like this…

• Nearly 50 years before on 2^nd January 1959 Soviet Union  made world’s first moon mission LUNA-1. But unfortunately the space craft missed the moon
• On 12^th September 1959 Soviet Union launched a space craft called LUNA-2 which made the first lunar impact.
• Then the race began between two rivalries with objectives to who touches the moon first.
• By the success of various Apollo programs America made successful landing on Moon. Neil Armstrong is the first man who made his foot print on moon’s Surface.
• Totally 12 persons landed on moon then after. This race nearly ends after 1976 when Soviet sends LUNA-24 which brings moon dust back to earth.
• Then it’s started again on 90’s
• During mid of March 1994 America’s Clementine discovered water ice on South Pole and North Pole.
• In 1998 January America’s Lunar Prospector discovered neutrons are reflected from moons surface due to Cosmic rays. Then it’s sure that enriched hydrogen will be available in these areas.
• In 2003 Europe’s Space Agency (ESA) sent SMART-I lunar orbiter.
• In 2007 September 14^th Japan sent a lunar orbiter called Kaguya
• In 2007 October China sent Chang’e-1

 After these many marches towards moon man kind knows some more interesting facts about moon. 

• It was nearly -200 deg Celsius cold on the other side of moon where light doesn’t falls.
• It was nearly 140 deg Celsius hot on the day time on the other side.
• There was no Ozone layer
• It was assumed that ice layer of nearly 50,000 Sq Km in North Pole and nearly 20,000 Sq Km in South Pole can be found. It means nearly 3 million tones of water.
• One kind of nuclear fuel called Helium-3 was discovered on moons surface. 

By these results man started his calculation like this.

• With the aid of water we can convert H2O into H2+O
• Hydrogen can be used to fuel space cars and rockets.
• Oxygen can be used for survival of space walkers.
• By the use of cold condition beneath moon surface we can store oxygen and hydrogen in liquid form.
• In moon the day light will have 200 deg Celsius hot; also one moon day is equal to nearly 13 days. By this with a 10 Sq feet area we can produce nearly 15 KW of electricity.
• By the possibility of Super Conductivity we can transmit High Voltage electrictity by high tension grids. Interesting fact here is there will be no energy leakage and energy loss on moon.
• Helium-3 also called as space fuel which attracts these nations even more than the above. 

In the end of 90’s the whole world suffers due to energy shortage. After Steam, Sunlight and Wind man liked most is Nuclear energy. So far we have technology of nuclear fission. There is another technology called nuclear Fusion, Scientists confirmed this Helium-3 will help for the nuclear fusion.

By burning Helium-3 in super heat we can produce energy which is nearly equal to 5.5 ton of burning Coal completely. In fact if we burn 1 ton of coal we get only one third of its energy. So the energy produced by burning 15 tons of coal is equal to the energy produced by 3gm of Helium-3. May be after 50 years we will produce energy by this method.

This may be the reason behind the moon race which brings Europeans, Chinese and Japanese. And now Great India too joined the race in the name of Chandrayaan-1 on 22^nd October 2008 at 6.22 am.

Now the name of the race was changed as “Helium 3 Run”.