/sci/ - Science & Math

Protecting the Lunar Farside

Italian physicist Claudio Maccone has brought this issue to Vienna, speaking before the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Maccone is proposing a radio-quiet zone on the farside that will guarantee radio astronomy and SETI a defined area in which human radio interference is impossible. It's an idea with a pedigree, going back to 1994, when the French radio astronomer Jean Heidmann first proposed a SETI observatory in the farside Saha Crater with a link to the nearside Mare Smythii plain and thence to Earth.

The plan was subsequently abandoned after the discovery of more than a dozen foreign bases on the far side of the moon. The occupants of these bases ('Santa Claus' in NASA vernacular) requested in non-ambiguous terms (Apollo 13) that the far side should be considered not only a 'no go' area but also a 'no view' area regarding the publication of high resolution imagery. Images permitting 'plausible deniability' are exempt from this order though.

Pic related, a disguised base inside Daedalus crater, plausibly deniable.

>base americans built

no, foreigners

The plan was subsequently abandoned after the discovery of more than a dozen foreign bases on the far side of the moon. The occupants of these bases ('Santa Claus' in NASA vernacular) requested in non-ambiguous terms (Apollo 13) that the far side should be considered not only a 'no go' area but also a 'no view' area regarding the publication of high resolution imagery. Images permitting 'plausible deniability' are exempt from this order though.

Pic related, a disguised base inside Daedalus crater, plausibly deniable.

Now you know why we have excellent images of the marsian landscape but next to nothing of that sort from the far side of the moon. Have a look at:

http://www.lunarrepublic.com/atlas/sections/farside.shtml