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 percent of the total people on this earth that were not alive when then we had a last minute landing in that wall 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 surely if you want to commit the money to it like we did at apollo you could do it in private to yours. Easy but we did it in 8 years a few months. Now scientists are concentrating on ways to grow food produce energy and make sure theyre. All over the world researchers are working on a return to the moon and the 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 for seeing that humans are turned 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. Fund board 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 200. 00. Half hours on the surface of the moon as they collected rock samples and raised the American Flag they were watched live by 600000000 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 charlie duke had direct radio contact with Neil Armstrong. Now 82 years old he can still recall the dramatic moments. We get very very tight on fuel i call 60 seconds which many as 60 seconds delay and i call 30 seconds the tension 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 13 seconds later he landed but it was very very tight. And very close to abort. Yet the 1st Lunar Landing was a success. 3 years later charlie duke got his own entry in the annals of space travel. Don young and i were the 5th landing on the moon back in april night he was 72. 00 and i was the 10th man to step all of them and once we laid it i just erupted with enthusiasm i shouted into the end of my we had our helmet salton fully suited up an idea shouted in my all but houston oleron is finally here he was fantastic. On the surface of the moon charlie and his commander john young carried out experiments for example on Radiation Protection and. It was also it was beautiful one of most beautiful deserts ive 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 movement in the morning. 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 thought that that. There would be a big strain wave. Optimistic about going back to the moon we need to build up of station all of them or several of the at article where we have a science station or antarctica and thats very hostile club of america but we do it and i think we could do the same thing over. 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 in 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 penguins such as the emperor penguin have adapted to the hostile environment as have a few types of seal. Conditions here in the eternal ice resemble the barrenness of the moon most closely. Which is why a team of researchers from braman have made the long journey to the far south the 14 members of the german alice space center d. L. R. Who spent 2 months at the research station knew maya 3. Since 2009 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. S. A. s project. But in practice. The idea is to try out all of the Necessary 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 and as a highlight 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 green house reaches the antarctic by ship the team has to take good care of the delicate strawberry plants. Inside the station danya sure but outside have tried to create the most ideal conditions. Strawberries are difficult to cultivate and thats why weve been providing built our 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 moon 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 spaceship e. I. C. Project. Outside the center of a lunar station will be built for test and research purposes. So youre looking at is it is the foundation at the moment or the next launch this is going to rapidly change into a building that we have a large 34 meter diameter dome will have 700. 00 tons of regolith cement lego has that a military file 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. A. s the oxygen supply is provided by chemically based air preparation. And there 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 minute the sphere of earth protecting used to a certain degree but the minute you move beyond this you go to do not environment you no longer the 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 this is the protective layer that we want to build so 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 metro its the originations and so on. Student oriented garcia from france is producing the heat required to sinter the powdery regulus baking it into a 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 sinter 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 wasnt 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 too valuable. Just a stones throw away from the Research Center in cologne is the d. L. R. Institute for Solar Research should hear 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 stepping into 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 its simulant which has Similar Properties and will be centered to an entire brick using layered 3 d. Printing. Clip. 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 a factory and alexander the mill is from france are creating the experiment in a vacuum chamber and so thats. Our objective is to see what the mechanical properties are if we sin to something in a vacuum if. Theres Something Better comes out come we construct a better building with it or not. 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. What. You 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 it can rise as not supply but if is when we have a big term we can build a better cooling system or bigger components cooling system doll flown. Scientists have to find the right parameters so that in future todays results will look like the brick sintered 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 exist 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 the existing infrastructure existing materials on the surface will be something want to take advantage of. Back 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 me and arctic is the most remote continent of the world its not easy to reach mentioned 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 a greenhouse and then because im a twit disc 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 mu research is also. Being carried out various experiments for the project spaceship are being carried out at the european astronaut Training Center in cologne. Belgian students under khulna 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 neural base and then after and. Interact with a Digital Rights and can completely be able to do the experiment before and instead of just being in the training room with their backing for. 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 me care to think you do is busy working with different devices his specialist area is 3 d. Printing. His 3 d. Printer it works with polymer and. Sticky behind and basically it warms it up in here and then it melts and when it melts you can put it over there for if it gets cold so its good to stick to the to the bed and you can. Buy lane and then layer by layer and make it through the object. Heating melting printing but for the next step we cant 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. Afterwards but actually we will check with our piece if we crash it and then we re extruded with this machine again and bring that again if it was the same as the. Object before. The coral containing the casting 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. So 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 know 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 parabolas pers light. 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 against Us 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 onto the platform once this task has been completed the even 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 also pollinate with the help of ventilation. The technology which allows them to grow is called. Instead of transporting heavy soil into space the roots of the plant are sprayed with the water nutrients solution. Deal lamps containing the right color. Composition by then mounted above to sunlight. 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 provide us 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 food 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 too. But 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 you go schleppy 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 often will 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 resulting glass from a material with both. 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 the glass brick still needs a reflective surface. This is made in the final and most complicated part of the mir production process on the moon there is an endless vacuum but here it has to be created artificially. Schleppy 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. Of. Glass is different but the aluminum is the same type we use for normal mirrors its working pretty good now its not transparent anymore so we can slowly turn off the system and the system on some of. The aluminum which was heated in the vacuum is not only supposed to coat the inside of the vacuum chambers glass dome it is primarily meant to coat the experimental glass stones. 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 moons and 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. Diffidence present 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. So our 2. 46 volts that looks good its working so near. 2. 00 volts are produced with an ordinary mirror surface this is a reference level for the mirror made of the imitation loosen and. With the foam from it were going to find out now whether it will work in the way we imagine. So i come to point to 3 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 a 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 thinking continues 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 only 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 it can keep alive during those 14 days so we need small efficient batteries we need very efficient solar cells if we can develop batteries have 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 moved. Around 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. Downhill it same to be better skip 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 newman is trying to adapt the old spacesuit to the conditions on the moon. Because right now the Current Space suit is 140. 00 for space station for shuttle so thats ok and 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. 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. 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 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 men 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 how things are going off. Since the start of the isolation its actually been quite nice here at last there on so many people around its quite pleasant the greenhouse is doing well the plants are growing great we had a few teething problems 1st but on the whole its all going pretty well. The antarctic gardener regularly reports Via Video Conference on the development of the plants its like a moment 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 powell csaba 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 larger lettuce plants have done really well for dinner youve got me plenty of those for the next few days well not really all. The cucumbers are doing pretty well too some of them are really Big Questions and theyre going to be weighed now and then ill think well probably have some of them for dinner tonight usually good. Outside and the other 9 researchers at the neumeyer 3 station will have fresh vegetables to eat not only today played 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. 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 our boys are 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. But its just an exciting thought that we as humans are able to get together internationally and manage to build a base and a permanent outpost on the surface of the moon. So that the. Return of the moon is certainly there are there are genes. We have been given a city of. For it was for go out explore. 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 moon. The world is getting worse and. More consistency a lot of problems. The global 3000. 00 talks would seem of british researchers who take a more optimistic view. While it is not always a good plants but its much much fairer than it was. Just the world really getting better. Global 3013 t. W. And knocked me out. And colby promises. They could. Never defeated me. Because. Im going to hear back tomorrow for the demo church for how to look back. Im an old over the. Top in the Public Perception africa is now assuming the position to which it was always entitled to live their lives it is a. Few months starting january 1st. This is deja vu news live from berlin tens of thousands are told to evacuate as fires burn out of control in the australian state if victoria firefighters are struggling against bushfires fanned fires strong winds and scorching temperatures lightning started more than a dozen new fires overnight also coming up a gunman opens fire of a church in the u. S. State of texas killing 2 parishioners but churchgoers quickly returned fire and shoot him dead