Transcripts For DW DocFilm 20240713

The moon has been earths Constant Companion for 4 and a half 1000000000 years. Now its finally back in the focus of science almost 50 years after man last set foot on the moon. Has more people at the center the total people on this earth that were not alive when there we had a last minute landing its been that long day and we havent done the next thing and some people say been there done that but what we havent done is to just touch the ground and if i can left right we havent really lived we havent explored truly if you want to commit the money to it like we did on apollo or you could do it in probably 10 years easy we did make years a few months. Now scientists are concentrating on ways to grow food produce energy and make sure their. Own over the world researchers are working on a. Return to the moon and a chance to be able to stay there longer. We have to use the moon to operationally understand. How to live and work on phantom feeling there are many ideas but actually putting them in the practice is the final step thats missing to be great to see a humans return to the moment. When this will happen is not yet clear but science is making it possible to survive on the moon. On this wednesday in 1969 the world was holding its breath mankind was witnessing a historic mission. Onboard apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong Michael Collins and edwin buzz aldrin had a goal mankind had not yet reached to fly to the moon 5 days later in the Early Morning of july 21st Neil Armstrong uttered his unforgettable words. Or their. Armstrong and aldrin spent a total of 2 and a half hours on the surface of the moon as they collected rock samples and raised the American Flag they were watched live by 600000000. 00 people only a few of them were aware that the successful moon landing was hanging by a thread in now says Mission Control center in houston cap com charge. The duke had direct radio contact with Neil Armstrong. Now 82 years old he can still have a car the dramatic moments. We get very very tight all fuel our coal 60 seconds which many as 60 seconds to land i call 30 seconds the teachin is rising in Mission Control you could hear a pin drop and we were holding our breath will we make it i called 30 seconds and then 30 seconds later he landed but it was very very tight. And very close to overboard. Yet the 1st Lunar Landing was a success. 3 years later charlie duke got his own entry in the annals of space travel. John are you now where the 5th landing on the moon by can april might he 72 and i was the 10th man to step all of them and once we laid it i just erupted with enthusiasm i shouted end of the end of my we had our helmet solid and fully suited up an idea shouted in my helmet houston orion is finally here hes fantastic. You. On the surface of the moon charlie and his commander john young carried out experiments for example on Radiation Protection and he it was also it was beautiful one of most beautiful desert sun ever seen great a very rough topography up and down heli craters rocks hills everywhere and. Our objective was explore this valley so ahead i was excited was very. Happy to be there you were almost overcome with the thought of more numbers in the more number. On april 24th 1972 they lifted off again. Only one further Apollo Mission followed half a year later. Im very disappointed that we havent had somebody go back. That nasa would be. A strain way. Optimistic about going back to the moon we need to build up a station on the moon several of the antarctica where we have a science station on antarctica and thats very hostile climate a man or a record but we do it and i think we can do the same thing on the moon. And article is the earths most extreme continent nowhere else is it this cold with temperatures of minus 90 degrees celsius being measured here. 98 percent of the mainland is covered by ice thats 3 quarters of the earths freshwater reserves. The surface is one and a half times the size of europe and twice as large during the antarctic winter. Only a few animals can survive here several types of penguin such as the emperor penguin have adapted to the hostile environment as have a few types of seals in. The conditions here in the eternal ice resemble the barrenness of the moon most closely. Which is why a team of researchers from bremen have made the long journey to the far south the 14 members of the german allo space center d. L. R. Will spend 2 months at the research station new maya 3. Since 2009 and scientists have been conducting research here with different focuses such as meteorology geology and atmospheric chemistry the architecture of the neumeyer 3 station has been adapted to the environmental conditions of the antarctic. Its built on stilts to keep it free of snow drifts up to 60 scientists stay here in the antarctic summer between november and february an. Aerospace engineer powered sabah is the only member of his team who will also spend the winter here his task is to grow fresh vegetables as part of the even i as s. Project. Where activists. The idea is to try out all going to seri technology and operational procedures here in the antarctic so that in future our greenhouse can also work in space. From growing between 15 and 20 different species of plant. We also have little strawberry plants. Hope we can get them to flower so we can harvest strawberries in a few months. Until the mobile greenhouse reaches the antarctic by ship the team has to take good care of the delicate strawberry plants. Inside the station. And outside have tried to create the most ideal conditions. The strawberries are difficult to cultivate and thats why weve been providing own little makeshift greenhouse. Of course its not optimal but we dont have much of an alternative if we want to keep the strawberry plants alive. It will take at least a few more days for the greenhouse to arrive then the experiment here can really get going and soon. In order to live and work on the moon for a longer period of time. Research has to consider the conditions there and the differences to planet earth. 71 percent of the earth is covered in water it has an atmosphere a layer of air and gases that surrounded and protected for example from meteorite impact and damage from various types of radiation it also ensures that temperature swings are moderate. 400000 kilometers away rather different on the moon. Water would have to be extracted from lunar sand by a vast. Rating and condensing at the moment has no atmosphere to protect it from the impact of any flying objects. It is also exposed to dangerous cosmic radiation. Temperatures rise and fall so dramatically that humans could not easily survive. To make that possible in the future International Students of the European Space agency are conducting research with various experiments at the European Training Center for astronauts in cologne dr aden cowley is in charge of the space ship project. Outside the center of a lunar station will be built for test and research purposes. So youre looking at is a foundation at the moment or the next he wants to see going to rapidly change into a building and were going to have a large 34 meter diameter dome were going to have 700 tons of regolith cement lego has to be able to tell you find on the lunar surface. A small settlement for now in cologne but in the not too distant future one on the moon 2 this is how the scientists imagine it will look. Inside theres an airlock and a Technical Area the main room is provided with daylight like in the i s s the oxygen supply is provided by chemically based air preparation. And that are good example of why we should go back to the moon would be to understand the radiation environment so if youre in a lower orbit at the moment you have the might be the sphere of earth protecting used to a certain degree but the minute you move beyond this you go to do nerve vironment you no longer have that protection and now youve got an entirely new radiation environment that have a different effect on humans. The lunar habitat will protect humans from this radiation with the strong outer layer sister protective layer that we want to build so the idea is that we take the material that is already on the moon and by applying the microwaves we could put it around their habitat and build like solid structure that will protect their habitat from the originations and so on. Student oriented garcia from france is producing the heat required to sinter the powdery regulus baking it into hard layer. At the moment however it looks more like pebbles than a flat surface. On the moon special robot vehicles would spread the lunar sand and center at the same time which would take about 3 months back then the apollo astronauts didnt have such a protected building. Well in a little 3 days it was a bad you could survive with just the regular protection that we had it took about 40 years for the scientists to figure out what the Apollo Missions really brought back the takes that long you have to develop the the instruments to be sensitive enough to learn what these stones you know 300 kilos almost 400 kilos of stones that have been brought back from the moon what they really tell us. In the near. Neutron apollo astronauts were not allowed to keep any souvenirs the original lunar regolith was simply to dahlia of all. Just a stones throw away from the Research Center in cologne is the d. L. R. Institute for Solar Research here 2 scientists are researching regolith Radiation Protection professor matty espalier and his team seek the most moon like conditions possible for us here in our own making and often whats available in abundance on the moon is moon dust and plenty of radiation from the sun we would need several meters of moon rock or moon dust as protection from radiation from the sun and other cosmic sources. And thats one of the things that were researching this is i still think if you have a proof. The experiment is called regel light a word coined to combine regolith and light. Of course it doesnt use real lunar regolith but a simulant which has Similar Properties and will be centered to an entire brick using layered 3 d. Printing. What we want to show is that we can really produce a 3 d. Object whether x. Y. Or z. In a vacuum and this is the technology were developing here in fact. There is a vacuum on the surface of the moon to simulate this made under fatality and alexandra mill is from france are creating the experiment in a vacuum chamber on thats. Our objective is to see what mechanical properties are if we send to something in a vacuum. Theres Something Better comes out come we construct a better building with it or not see. The strong xenon beams imitate the sun and can create a constant heat of around 1100 degrees celsius channeled into one ray they hit the 3 levels of moving moon sand below. It can take up to 5 hours under lunar conditions to bake a 3 dimensional object such as a brick. We want to see whether anything comes out under the vacuum and then do the chemical analysis but the chamber is too small and very harsh we can rise as not supply but if theres one we have a Bigger Chamber we can build a better cooling system to get components cooling system doll flown on course the. Scientists have to find the right parameters so that in future todays results will look like the bricks entered without a vacuum. As a last step they have to replace the artificial light with their solar furnace which consists of 159. 00 square mirrors and concentrates the light energy. It produces the necessary heat through constant sun radiation as exists on the moon. You have to make use of every resource you have and so i think 3 printing structures for habitate for habitations you know all these things that we can do now with existing infrastructure existing materials on the surface will be something want to take advantage of. That to the antarctic the conditions can change unpredictably with the possibility of wind speeds of up to 60 knots thats hurricane force. The weather here is the deciding factor its exactly the right testing ground for the scientists with the perfect conditions for their research. Young doctors to stay up to be neat and arctic is the most remote continent of the world its not easy to reach to mention the People Living here are dependent on the technology which keeps them alive just like in a Space Mission so was the best place to test the whole operation of the greenhouse and in the twit disk of x. I was appalled. Almost everything is prepared for their project even i assess where theyre planning to grow vegetables and strawberries in a mobile greenhouse this platform has been standing here for a while 400 meters away from the German Research station neumeier 3 of the mobile greenhouse should have arrived here days ago but the cargo boat transporting it to the site is making slow headway through the thick pack ice. 14000 kilometers away in germany Moon Research is also being care. Read out various experiments for the project spaceship are being carried out at the european astronaut Training Center in cologne. Belgian students is working on a virtual environment where future visitors to the moon can train. Simulation like this we can train them into Virtual Reality as if they were already on the newer base and then have them. Interact with the Digital Rights and can completely be able to do the experiment before and instead of just being in the training room with their back in front of. The fertile moonscape is still in the Development Phase at some point however it could help with the preparation of future missions. A few rooms away colleague may care to think you do is busy working with different devices his specialist area is 3 d. Printing. This is 3 d. Printer it works with polymer and. Stick behind and basically it warms it up in here and then it melts and when it melts you can put it over surface it gets cold so its good to stick to the to the bed and you can break. And then layer by layer and make it through the object. Heating melting printing but for the next step we can is particularly interested in the real usability of the plastic what we are doing is here check if the materials work properly in the morning. After worth sickly we will check with our piece if we crash it and then we re extruded with this machine again and printed again if it was the same as the. Object before. The coral containing the plastic would of course have to be much larger when it is transported to the moon but once its there the plastic could always be reused. In bordeaux france the 3 d. Printing process is being researched in a parabolic flight. Professor yes good stuff from c. N. N. Berlin the German Federal Materials Testing institute has developed equipment with his team to enable parts such as tools to be made from metal powder in 0 gravity. Of the experiment is to try out a new process of sucking in powder and then trying to fix it and has 0 gravity environment so in principle you can produce parts on demand the part which has been centered with a laser on to this plate should be able to be taken out and its ready for use. Of. The for each flight the scientists draw their conclusions from the previous flight making minor adjustments to try and improve the results of their experiment. And this is our 3rd flight day last time we switched the material and this time we have adjusted the parameters of the equipment to be able to apply the layer of powder id say we managed to get about 70 percent of the powder on to the layer and the rest by the way we need to improve that we cant have the powder flying around. I the Berlin Research team is just one of many in total the participants here in bado fly for 4 hours on each of 3 days. There are 31. 00 parabolas per flight. The aircraft rises steeply upwards from its horizontal position. Reduces the thrust of the turbines and flies for around 22 seconds and 0 gravity. That is a particular challenge for the scientists as the Gravitational Force during a parabolic flight varies. Theyve adapted the structure of their experiment accordingly. The experimental apparatus looks like this. The metal powder is in a container at the beginning of the parabolic flight from there it spread in a layer over the base plate. So that it doesnt fly away in 0 gravity its sucked in by gas from below and kept on the base plate also during the 0 gravity. Then a laser melts the relevant information onto the freshly applied powder it melts the loose metal powder into a compact structure this is done with every layer producing a 3 dimensional object in this case a spanner. A good step and his team can follow this process which is repeated several times via the installed web cams. The final results can be seen a little later in the laboratory. The metal powder has really been transformed into 2 small spanners. The experiment by goods does Research Group was a success. In the not too distant future all tools could be produced this way in space. In the antarctic the long wait is over. The cargo ship has to from south africa has managed to break through the ice and the unloading can finally take place. After a 10 day delay the german scientists watch their mobile greenhouse being unloaded from the ship. Unloading on the ice has its hazards. Although the area around the ship is frozen the layer of ice is thinner then further inland. The whole process takes around 90 minutes in the end all is well and the squad sets off back to base. Its 23 kilometers away from the unloading point to new maya 3. Although there is no darkness in the antarctic summer as the sun never goes down they still have a regulated 8 hour working day this day ends with the long awaited arrival of the container at the station. The next day begins early its time to build the green house the scientists have a whole freight container full of equipment which they have to unpack and inspect after such a long journey. At the same time the mobile greenhouse is assembled. Its made up of 26 metre long containers and is precision lifted by crane on to the platform once this task has been completed the eden i s s project can really get going. Looking inside the container we can see how the ad arctic region house works in detail. The 1st part contains the Services Sector where all the technical systems such as air and Heat Management are monitored and controlled. The 2nd part contains herbs vegetables and lettuces which can all self pollinate with the help of ventilation. The technology which allows them to grow is called aero conic. Instead of transporting heavy soil into space the roots of the plant are sprayed with a water nutrients solution ele deal lamps containing the right color. Composition but then mounted above too. Complex water and air cleaning systems complete and independent and sustainable ecosystem. People think that the plants are only for us to eat but there are other reasons we take the plants with us as with oxygen to breathe they need the Carbon Dioxide that we humans breathe out its a perfect symbiosis. For days after the arrival of the container everything is installed to start up operations almost 2 weeks later than planned the german scientists can finally start sowing the seeds. Of course the long nurtured strawberry plant has top priority. As carefully as if they were performing surgery schubert and take care of the sensitive plant. After bathing it in water the strawberry plant is put into its new home using mineral wool and a plastic holder. The researchers are optimistic that most of the plants will thrive but theyre a bit concerned about the diva of their crops the strawberry plant. If you go on Long Term Missions such as the one to the moon you can use strawberries as an incentive just to keep the isolated team in good mental shape. This experiment works here in the antarctic were pretty confident that the whole thing will work on the moon to. Put on the moon the conditions are more difficult and unpredictable. Although the container could stand without being further secured due to the moons reduced gravity the parts of the Autonomous System still have to be transported there yet there is one key component missing on the moon which is guaranteed here by the connection to the neumeyer 3 station electricity. In edinburgh scotland a team is working on a solution to this problem at the harriet watt university. Is researching the topic of solar energy. Altamont of course on the moon we cant just plug our devices into sockets and we have to consider what kind of resources are available for producing energy there are no rivers theres no wind on the moon and theres no atmosphere if you will what is available is sunlight and its better than on earth because it is not weakened by the atmosphere but from. Your other schleppy wants to produce mirrors to create energy his experiment is also about how to use lunar regolith. Fortas off well have the materials weve brought with us and theres this basaltic samples but what we can build out of basaltic sand is relatively simple bricks or walls by heating the material or baking what if we can go one step further and produced results a glass from the material. Schleppy uses an ordinary microwave oven to make glass from the moon sand simulant. He grinds the molten regolith which is turned into glass as smoothly as possible so huge the glass brick still needs a reflective surface. This is made in the final and most complicated part of the mirror production process on the moon there is an endless that q but here it has to be created artificially. Fixes the glass elements which have been produced in recent weeks onto the frame of the vacuum chamber. Before he seals it he adds one small piece of aluminum which is heated and then evaporates distributing millions of tiny particles. The glass is different but the aluminum is the same type we use for normal mirrors its looking pretty good now its not transparent anymore so we can slowly turn off the system through. The aluminum which was heated in the vacuum is not only supposed to coat the inside of the chambers glass dome. It is primarily meant to coat the experimental glass stones. So it looks really good the mirrors have turned out really well they should be able to reflect our artificial sunlight well. Thats what matters at the end of his experiment it will only be a success if the mirror is made of moon sand can also Harness Energy from light. To test it the researcher has built his own construction his homemade mirrors have to pass the comparison test. Reference but so here we have a reference surface which reflects sunlight or rather the artificial light were going to produce from the surface to the lens which is attached to a solar cell the lens concentrates the light on to the solar cell and then we can produce electricity which we can measure at a certain voltage and we can read it here on the meter. With the reference surface mirror we expect to produce about 2 volts. 500. 00 lights out. Its like 2. 46 volts that looks good its working near. 2. 00 volts are produced with an ordinary mirror surface this is a reference level for the mirror made of the imitation lunar sand. With the foam from it were going to find out now whether it will work in the way we imagine. So i come up 2. 00 volts thats great were only losing about 10 percent compared to the reference mirror surface and thats really good for the 1st attempt very successful so the german scientist has really succeeded in producing energy from lunar regolith and light. You know if we can mine those resources and turn them into mirrors or some other. Solar type of energy that thats definitely going to be a way were going to you know maintain a base or our presence on the moon but the biggest challenge i think for living on the surface of the moon is dealing with the power and dealing with it with the infrastructure to maintain systems especially during the winter night whats interesting about the moon is almost anywhere on the surface youre going to experience 14 continuous earth days of light fall before taking continuous earth days of night. This day and night rhythm of the moon can be illustrated with the help of a solar cell which would be positioned on the side of the moon that we always see from earth. This phenomenon arises due to socalled syncrude has rotation. The moon needs exactly the same time to orbit the earth as it does to rotate on its own axis almost 28 days since it rotates on its own axis this means that the side with the solar cell faces the sun for 14 days during this period the Energy Production by the solar cell is constantly stable for the other 2 weeks the solar cell is on the shadow Side Solar Energy cannot be produced during the long lunar night. And that night its cold dark theres no solar energy to draw from you have to have power that can keep alive during those 14 days so we need small efficient batteries we need very efficient solar cells if we can develop batteries a way of 2 weeks for. Do all of the things you want to do. During that time then thats the answer. For dukes 3 day trip to the moon and the other equally short Apollo Missions energy was not a problem a much greater challenge back then was moving. The round in the bulky space suits the astronauts only learn to handle it once they breach the moon there are 3 ways to. Move around a lot of. Generally did i was just a regular was stiff legged walk that you could really get going fast but if i was going uphill i would kangaroo hop uphill. That hill it same to be better skill one leg in front of the other in a skip down like this so it depended to to me it depended on the terrain who i was on which one i use i think we really need a better space suit to stay on the moon a long time. Its precisely this project the development of a space suit for the moon and mars which is being pursued at the Massachusetts Institute of technology in boston. Professor David Neumann is trying to adapt the old spacesuit to the conditions on the moon. Because right now the current spacesuit is 140. 00 kilos its for space station it was for shuttle so thats ok in weightlessness but when we get to the moon and mars were in a gravity environment the moon only has about 17 percent of the earths gravity allowing large leaps but these can backfire especially in heavy spacesuits. I am. How do i make someone much more like an olympic athlete how do we perform and not use my waist my energy working against the suit but put all that energy into performing so you really have to think about a completely different design the only other way to keep someone alive and put pressure on them is to basically put it right on to the skin so thats called mechanical counterpressure. d davis version of the suit is skin tight exerting pressure on the body and the right pressure within the body this means that human tissue is not stretched and blood doesnt clot its made of 3 layers the inner layer controls body temperature the middle layer provide stability and flexibility and the outer layer is protective. If the suit tears it can be easily repaired. The outdoor work on the moon can then continue with current spacesuits a leak could be lethal as the gas it contains to maintain the pressure necessary for human survival could leak out this is what makes it so heavy and hinders the astronauts movement a major disadvantage compared to mits version. When working on it for a while for the last 15 years and so far it seems feasible. There moon suit is indeed feasible but whether it will be deployed remains to be seen elsewhere the successful implementation of an experiment is more concrete in the German Aerospace center and braman the scientists of the eden i assess project have been back from the end arctic for a month minus the one who has to stay and look after the plants in the greenhouse container they ask us things are going off. Since the start of the isolation its actually been quite nice here at last on so many people around its quite pleasant the greenhouse is doing well the plants are growing great we had a few teething problems at 1st but on the whole its all going pretty well. The antarctic gardener regularly reports Via Video Conference on the development of the plants. But its. Been about the strawberries were really sensitive and sadly they didnt make it we had to stop the experiment early were making a new start with the experiment from scratch. Because we dont have seedlings in there anymore weve planted them straight from seed and we think it will be a success. Every day since their return scientists have been observing the growth today is harvest day and gardener powered sabah can finally reap the benefits of his weeks long work. Yes there on 2. You can see our 1st harvest here on the table months mind should a lot of people let us plants have done really well and india youve got me plenty of those for the next few days well not really all. The cucumbers are doing pretty well too some of the really big ones and theyre going to be weighed now and then ill think well probably have some of them for dinner tonight usually when our missions. And the other 9 researchers at the neumeyer 3 station will have fresh vegetables to eat not only today but during their whole isolation period in the antarctic winter even i. S. O. s project is already a success and the basis for a food supply for future trips to the moon has been created. Perfect and well in a Perfect World we could put a moon habitat or at least a greenhouse on the moon within the next 15 to 20 years. But this isnt a Perfect World the Necessary Research funding for speedy progress is not as easy to come by as it was in times of the Apollo Missions i dont want just to apollo thats not thats not what i was at all sustainable long term exploration. 50 years after the 1st moon landing we will probably have to wait a few more years or even decades until the next one but preliminary preparations are underway. Its just an exciting thought that we as humans are able to get together internationally and managed to build a base and a permanent outpost on the surface of the man. So that the. Return of the moon is certainly there are there are genes. We have been given a quiz that if. At all for it was for go out if for. Nobody knows how long it will take until the next Lunar Mission takes place. But we do know that in the next few years a lot will revolve around the known. Fate she is off to the overthrow of the gadhafi regime libya has descended into own was continuous conflict between its rival senses a power my guess this week here in congress it is often with my cheek deputy Prime Minister of the un backed government of National Accord closely allied to groups of armed militias which are being credited for serious human rights abuses conflicts. In 30 minutes on d. W. Folks. Come to me. To me could be primitive. Never defeated me thank. God. Im not going to go back tomorrow far for them no church or for good out of a bucket. Of. A little powder oh oh oh my. Oh oh should it be as if it is if it is. A few months or something johnny said. This is d. W. News coming to you live from berlin. This. Small these capital mogadishu was rocked by a massive car bomb the blast took place during morning rush hour at a busy checkpoint Authorities Say at least 70 people were killed and many more injured also coming up recycling comes to russia