Lunar Leftovers: How the Moon Became a Trash Can
We hear about the amount of waste floating around space all the time. However, the biggest trash can outside of earth’s atmosphere is in fact the moon.
The moon has only been accessible for decades, rather than hundreds of years. However, in the short time available to humanity it is estimated that we have left over one hundred and seventy thousand kilos of debris on the surface of our once pristine satellite. Here are some of the more notable pieces of trash on the moon.
Luna 2 – 1959
If HG Wells and others were correct and there were civilizations on the moon then they would have expelled a communal gasp of horror in 1959 when the first piece of man made technology hit the moon dust. Looking now like some steampunk version of what we regularly send spinning in to space, Luna 2 was launched by the Soviets when the Cold War was at its height. The collision with the moon at least proved one thing – that our nearest neighbor in space has no appreciable magnetic field. To add insult to injury, half an hour after Luna 2 hit the moon, so did the third stage of its rocket.
Ranger 4 – 1962
Ranger 4 was the first US craft to reach the moon and it did so with a bang. The power of the central computer failed and it drifted aimlessly for a while before it made impact with the surface of the dark side of the moon. The original plan was for the Ranger to fly over the surface and transmit close up pictures to earth, before crashing. The catastrophic failure of its systems meant that it did the latter but not the former. A great shame, perhaps, but you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.
Luna 5 -1965
The Luna 5 was designed with one remit – to further study the scientific possibility of a soft landing on the moon. It was destined to make a crash landing on the Sea of Clouds. A course correction made the craft spin around like an outer space Kylie Minogue – the flotation gyroscope was faulty – and that was the end of the science bit. It was at least the second Russian craft to reach the moon even if it did not do so in quite the way that had been anticipated. The same fate met Luna 7 and Luna 8. Things were not looking good until…
Luna 9 – 1966
1966 – The Beatles controlled the airways of the planet below but all eyes were looking upwards in anticipation of the first soft lunar landing. Luna 9 did not disappoint. It sent a series of TV and radio signals from the surface and finally proved one thing that had been disquieting scientists for many years. That was that the moon would not simply swallow up anything that landed on it but the surface was able to hold significantly heavy man made objects. After three days contact was lost with Luna 9 and so it joined the rest of the defunct junk beginning to pile up on the lunar landscape.
Surveyor 1 – 1966
It took the USA a further three months to make its first soft lunar landing and that was behind the successful Russian craft Luna 9 and Luna 10. It was more of a ‘see if we can’ mission than anything else and there were no scientific experimental equipment on board. However, this was a significant boost for NASA as the TV system on board transmitted images back to earth which excited the general public. A huge amount of data was gathered about radar reflectivity and how much the surface could bear in terms of weight which would prove invaluable later. Another plus – the television transmissions continued for six whole months after landing.
Apollo 11 – 1969
The list of Lunas and Surveyors continued, some crashing and some making successful landings. Of course the significant date in terms of humanity and the moon is July 21 1969. The Eagle landed and left behind it quite a lot of stuff. Among the objects they left were an American flag and a plaque which reads Here Men From The Planet Earth First Set Foot Upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D. We Came in Peace For All Mankind. They also left being a memorial bag containing such items as a gold olive branch and a disk carrying messages of greeting from world leaders. After The Eagle ascended back in to space its ascent stage was jettisoned. It is thought that after a few months circling the moon its orbit would have decayed and rejoined the descent stage on the moon.
Moon Buggy – 1971 onwards
Possibly one of the more useful objects left on the moon during the Apollo mission was the Lunar Buggy – if of course it still worked (which it wouldn’t). There are three altogether on the surface, gently gathering dust, left over from Apollo 15 through to 17. First used in 1971 it hugely increased the mobility of the astronauts. It provided the most fun experience possible outside of earth’s atmosphere – possibly to this very day.
Chang’e 1 – 2007 (impact March 2009)
So, it goes on, through the years. The list is not exhaustive and there are those attempts by the European Space Agency, Japan and India that have not been included. About the most recent debris on the moon is from the 2007 Chang’e 1, seen here being launched. It was the first stage of China’s extremely ambitious Lunar Exploration Program. In March of 2009 the satellite impacted on the surface of the moon. China insisted that it was a controlled and planned impact. This may well be so as the craft had already had its mission extended by a year and was considered as still being controlled from earth.
Finally, though, does any of this junk on the moon still work?
The answer is yes, but not a definite or deafening answer in the affirmative. The Apollo program left behind it (as did Lunokhod 2) several vital pieces of Lunar laser ranging equipment. Lasers down here on earth are pointed at the ones on the moon and the time in which it takes the light to return is measured. In this way the distance to the moon can be measured and monitored. Apollo 11 left the first one in 1969 and it has had forty years of continuous operation ever since. Apart from these few pieces of equipment, the rest of the items on the surface of the moon are redundant – or destroyed by impact. Welcome to the most distant trash can we have.
Liked it
56 Responses to “Lunar Leftovers: How the Moon Became a Trash Can”
On May 9, 2009 at 6:21 am
very great information.
this is a very well researched piece that must be shared.
thank you
On May 9, 2009 at 6:34 am
Well, I never thought about that before, thanks for an interesting article. It deserves a thumbs up
On May 9, 2009 at 6:51 am
Never widely or openly revealed in American educational books, at least twice the Soviets gathered and returned samples of lunar soil before the successful manned Apollo moon mission.
The Soviets were quite fond of depositing small patriotic ‘plaques’ with insignia, and it is assumed that there are quite a few of those scattered around too.
On May 9, 2009 at 7:26 am
Yes RJ leave it to mankind to litter maybe it’s alright that the moon was inhabitable or we would have that, well littered, by now. Excellent article very interesting.
On May 9, 2009 at 7:41 am
Man litters wherever he goes. Everest is supposedly littered with stuff left by climbers.
On May 9, 2009 at 8:25 am
Thanks R. J. for a super informative article.
On May 9, 2009 at 9:17 am
Another winner RJ. Well done and an absolutely enjoyable read with great pics. Space flight has always intrigued me, but I really did not know most of this. Awesome and thank you.
On May 9, 2009 at 9:26 am
Excellent!..That was very informative and well-written piece about astronomy
On May 9, 2009 at 11:03 am
Poor moon up there so abused and so many accolades for moon from here .Excellent article.
On May 9, 2009 at 11:08 am
That’s astounding! I hadn’t actually given the litter aspect a thought – but you’re quite right; doesn’t matter where we go it seems, we have to chuck the ‘wrappers’ on the ground!!
On May 9, 2009 at 11:33 am
That was very interesting.
On May 9, 2009 at 12:23 pm
That is almost unbelievable. I had never given it a thought before. I wonder if there is a way any of it can be removed.
A great article R J as always.
Christine
On May 9, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Why would you want to remove it? The remains of space probes and landing craft is not causing any harm. It does nothing to the eco-system on the moon. If anything, it shows that we existed and will continue to do so long after we are gone. In fact, a million years from now, it might be the only evidence of our existence.
How much do you want to spend on a space liter program rather than a space exploration program? What will it actually accomplish?
This entire article seems to be a jab at the greatest exploration endeavor in history.
On May 9, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Not a jab at all. However, as you no doubt appreciate, Dave, this is a problem that is already coming back to haunt us. There have been problems with debris in space already and the stuff on the moon will be a problem for future generations.
On May 9, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Typical of humans.. go somewhere for a cool vacation, and leave half their crap behind. If you look hard enough there are probably a few Starbucks cups too!
On May 9, 2009 at 3:30 pm
I think there is a golf ball up there.
On May 9, 2009 at 3:51 pm
~
Why can’t you see any stars in the lunar photo?
On May 9, 2009 at 5:18 pm
This is a pretty silly article. 170,000 kilograms. Let’s call it 20 tractor-trailers. Consolidated in one place, it’d take up less room on the Moon than a football field. The Moon is 38 million square kilometers. I guarantee you, if I drop you randomly on the Moon with a month’s supply of air, you’ll wander until you run out of air and never encounter the first bit of Earth junk.
On May 9, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Good article. SU’d
On May 9, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Very interesting read.
On May 9, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Shame shame on us. We are not satisfied to defile our earth, we have also trashed the moon.How low can we get?
On May 9, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Great piece!
I’d be more than willing to help clean it up if they’ll send me there!
Thanks,
Clay
On May 10, 2009 at 7:12 am
Excellent presentation of this very important information. I very happy that I chose to read this piece. I enjoy reading it and now I am more informed. Thanks.
On May 10, 2009 at 8:24 am
Clean it up? Just imagine what all that stuff will be worth a thousand years from now when the moon-men put it all up on Ebay…
On May 10, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Great article…It kinda made me sad. I thought about that often…the moon becoming a garbage dump.
On May 10, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Really enjoyed reading your article and seeing all the things that are on the moon. Mankind sure knows how to trash things up.
On May 11, 2009 at 5:54 am
Good article, but did you take into account the various booster segments that were intentionally crashed into the moon? Most notably the various Saturn S-IVB stages (ie: 3rd stage) that were used for lunar insertion on the Apollo missions, plus I am sure that other programs have done the same. At roughly 120,000 kilos each, the five S-IVBs on the lunar surface add another 600,000 kilos to your number.
“During Apollo 13, Apollo 14, Apollo 15, Apollo 16 and Apollo 17, the S-IVB was crashed into the Moon in order to perform seismic measurement used for characterizing the lunar core.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-IVB
On May 11, 2009 at 10:08 am
Earth first! we can screw up the other planets later!
Seriously, in addition to what algomeysa said, space junk is different than moon litter. We are shooting golf carts to Mars, if I was a martian I would send a thank you card for the cool new toy!
It’s funny how there are tire tracks and rake marks under and behind the surveyor-1 and as mentioned no stars in the other photograph.
On May 11, 2009 at 10:10 am
and happy faces behind Luna-9!
On May 11, 2009 at 11:52 am
Hey Crusty, maybe us reaching the moon is just a hoax and it’s just a big black curtain back there. And the CEO took all the money that should have been spent on space exploration and gave himself and some of his favorite employees as a bonus.
On May 11, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Crusty:
“It’s funny how there are tire tracks and rake marks under and behind the surveyor-1 and as mentioned no stars in the other photograph.”
Its pretty obvious that the Surveyor 1 picture was taken on earth. It was shot during tests of the sampling equipment. Otherwise, who was standing on the moon to photograph an unmanned probe launched three years before the first human landing?
As far as the lack of stars: that claim only means you have no clue about photography. The Apollo missions used 35mm film still cameras and fairly primitive video cameras on the moon. The surface brightness was so great that they had to adjust shutter speed and aperture so they could photograph what they were looking at on the surface. And when they did that, the stars were too dim to show up on the film. So NASA had a choice: take pictures of what was going on on the moon OR get shots of the stars and have everything else hopelessly overexposed. Pick up a 35mm SLR and some 200 ASA film and go to a night game at your local stadium. You will not be able to get a shot of the action on the field AND stars in the sky.
Oh Yeah, the original article!
It is quite interesting–but what is sitting on the mood is more of historical artifacts and less litter.
Littering usually is committed by unthinking jerks who toss their garbage without a single thought as to the consequences on their own environment. Almost all litter on earth is recoverable.
The stuff on the moon was left there by people knowing full well that it was going to be unrecoverable. It was a trade off: leave some material traces behind while expanding human knowledge or never send anything and thus learn nothing.
On May 11, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Dave H
Thanks for the comment… yeah. I should have made it obvious which pictures were taken on earth, though I thought people may have put two and two together (as usual they did and made six). Apologies for any obfuscation of facts long ago regarded as such.
I think when writing the article I was more astounded by the amount (as added on and taken away) by various contributors and may have assigned more of an ‘earth bound’ and contemporary verdict on what was left behind. Various people have commented on the ‘ecosystem’ of the moon – and, with apolgies to Supertramp, ‘What ecosystem?’.
I guess I was just a little taken aback by the sheer amount of stuff up there.
We can only hope that the trade off works out. Given the recent problems with eensy weensy little bits of our rubbish up there in space, we can only hope that the moon-bound stuff doesn’t give us an even greater headeache in the future.
Thanks again for putting the record straight about the pics and your reasoned points about the rubbish.
RJ (author)
On May 11, 2009 at 5:02 pm
As a side note, according to NASA’s website, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will able to return satellite imagery of some of this stuff for the very first time. Cool stuff…
http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/
On May 11, 2009 at 5:32 pm
RJ:
I was really intrigued and impressed with the amount of the stuff up there. It all adds up, don’t it?
What concerns and amazes me is the sheer tonnage of junk flying in low orbit around our planet. And some of that stuff keeps coming down. NASA has a full-ime debris tracking department, as do the Department of Defense and NORAD–it junk or is it an incoming ICBM?
Many years ago, I heard Edward Teller speaking in support of the Strategic Defense Initiative (or ‘Star Wars’ in the Reagan Years). A physicist sitting next to me said he could defeat Teller’s laser satellite for under a hundred bucks. Launch about a hundred bucks of ten-penny size nails in an orbit opposite the satellite and at 20-plus Kilometers per second closing speed, the effect would be like a giant shotgun blast.
BTW, for some impressive pics of landing space junk check out this url.
http://www.eclipsetours.com/sat/debris.html
On May 12, 2009 at 7:46 pm
“Never widely or openly revealed in American educational books, at least twice the Soviets gathered and returned samples of lunar soil before the successful manned Apollo moon mission.”
No. The Soviets attempted several sample returns before Apollo 11 and one during Apollo 11 (Luna 15) but the three successful Soviet sample return missions (16, 20, and 24) were after Apollo 11.
“Good article, but did you take into account the various booster segments that were intentionally crashed into the moon? Most notably the various Saturn S-IVB stages (ie: 3rd stage) that were used for lunar insertion on the Apollo missions, plus I am sure that other programs have done the same. At roughly 120,000 kilos each, the five S-IVBs on the lunar surface add another 600,000 kilos to your number.”
The Wikipedia article quotes the gross fueled mass of the S-IVB. Dry mass was 12,900 kg. I’m pretty sure that was already included in the 170,000 kg figure.
In fact, I think it’s safe to say that the vast majority of that total mass consists of LM descent stages, plus the S-IVBs and ascent stages crashed on the moon.
And I do not think that’s a bad thing. Better to crash them than allow them to continue as space debris.
On May 14, 2009 at 8:38 am
I’ll tell you what. Who cares one fig about what human objects are left on the moon? Or Mars? Or Titan? Or any other planetary body in this solar system? The way I see it, we were here first, so it’s all ours. We’re not encroaching on anyone else’s turf — there are no other bug-eyed alien settlements here, or anywhere within a quintripleskillion-mile radius.
If you ask any NASA engineer what they do before any Mars mission launch, they’ll tell you that each spacecraft is painstakingly sterilized to prevent any contaimination of the planet by onboard microbes and bacteria. If the danger to any life already on Mars — so far unproven — is removed, then who the hell cares if there are spent rocket stages and pieces of heat shield lying around up there? No one owns anything out there, so I say we go ahead and do whatever it takes to get our stuff there, and then get us there. Then we will plant the Flag of Earth into the red clotted dust and then build strip malls, gas stations, and 24-theater multiplexes. We can do whatever we want with it. Who’s going to stop us?
On May 14, 2009 at 8:57 am
This definitely is a good article.
Thought I’d note a few spelling mistakes as I run across them, in case the author wants to polish things up:
Luna 2: “Steampunk” is usually written as one word, would it be better to say instead of “steam punk”?
Luna 2: “at least proved on thing” should be “one thing”
Ranger 4: Should “first US craft to read the moon” be “reach the moon”?
Surveyor 1: “to make it first soft lunar landing” should be “to make its first”
Apollo 11: “After the Eagled” should be “Eagle”
On May 14, 2009 at 11:59 am
as if we really went to the moon,, look at all the info WE NEVER WENT TO THE MOON
On May 14, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Apollo 11 landed on July 20, 1969. Not, as you state here, July 21.
On May 14, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Re: Comment #3
Soviet sample returns were actually after Apollo 11:
Luna 16 in 1970
Luna 20 in 1974
Luna 24 in 1976
On May 14, 2009 at 11:28 pm
What are those small smileys in the Lune 9 photo?
M.
On May 15, 2009 at 1:30 am
What a silly article. The probes we left on the moon are trash are they? So we shouldn’t have sent them at all? It’s not like throwing a fast food wrapper down in a national park. If you really think the fruits of all our knowledge of space are trash as well, then just say so. If you want the knowledge then you’re going to have to leave a few bits of metal around somewhere. Just ridiculous. Bottom of the class.
On May 15, 2009 at 5:50 am
To Joanne
What a silly comment. Yes, the probes we left on the moon, bar the ones that are still operational are trash – simply by definition. This, however, does not mean we should not have sent them in the first place. They do, however, pose problems for the future. *Your* logic is skewed. Just ridiculous. Bottom of the class.
On May 16, 2009 at 4:33 pm
This was very well written, thought out and presented to a hungry and curious public. After reading this though, I am now more concerned about the instability of the gravitational link (pull) our planet earth has while keeping the moon in our present atmosphere? How much weight in excess, do you think it can handle ?
sharing the light,
On May 16, 2009 at 11:32 pm
very good article. well informed and interesting.
On May 17, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Nice article. I love the pictures!
On May 18, 2009 at 1:08 pm
I thought Andy Griffith and the Salvage 1 crew went up there and cleaned it all up?
On May 27, 2009 at 1:59 am
Good article! Unfortunately earthlings are slobs – we leave our garbage all over the universe.
On May 27, 2009 at 2:02 am
Are those happy faces behind Luna 9 aliens?
On May 30, 2009 at 9:09 am
That is really interesting. This is a really good piece.
On June 2, 2009 at 11:29 am
a truly wonderful article full of invaluable information. i thoroughly enjoyed reading and learning from it.
On June 9, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Great heads up! I never gave much thought to the surface of the moon. I knew about space stuff floating around, We should be careful about such things in the future. As for the litter left behind Once hollywood figures out theres a story there and gets some brave volunteers, Theres a whole new McGiver series just waiting to be produced! Or Stargate to a moon museum. Oh and I did notice that the rake marks had to be done prior to being sent off on its mission, Hallooo folks Who took the Picture? I,m betting not the man on the moon! Keep the Dream alive!
On June 11, 2009 at 5:09 pm
DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT THE MEN LANDED ON THE MOON? I REALLY FEEL SORRY FOR ALL OF YOU…
On June 15, 2009 at 5:48 pm
I’ve often wondered if they bothered to bring all that stuff back… apparently not. As thought we’re not happy ruining the earth, we’ll dump rubbish on the moon too. *sighs* Interesting article though.
On July 16, 2009 at 10:04 pm
MMMMMMmmmmm crap on the moon well leave it there, there’s already to much crap here on earth including people.
Its about time we went there again, soon we are going to start populating that that place to then we can clean the place up.
Mars next, hope so.
Remember they said we would never fly MMMMMMmmmm how wrong. The earth is flat how wrong. is the moon flat how wrong.
On July 23, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Any actual pictures of these items still on the moon?
Post Comment