India on realty hunt on Moon

SOURCING HELIUM THE OBJECTIVE

Bhargavi Kerur & C Chitti Pantulu / DNA

Friday, October 2, 2009 2:41 IS

Bangalore: India is scouting for 15-16 sq km of land on the moon. The land should be flat in gradient, have an elevated terrain at one end to catch sunlight and a crater that has ample water. The land should also have enough shadow regions that stay cool in the peak of summer.

Indian scientists are confident they will be the first to identify, and perhaps draw the boundaries of, such a location to set up a lunar base when Chandrayaan-2, the second moon mission of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), takes off in 2013. The point where the mission's moon impact probe (MIP) hits will probably be named after Mahatma Gandhi.

"We are confident we will be able to locate such property that will be necessary to carry out experiments and begin the work of setting up a base station in 2020, when India plans to launch a manned mission to the moon," a senior scientist associated with the programme said.

Isro has sought to name the point of landing of the MIP on the edge of the Shackleton crater after an "important national leader", who is not living.

"An ideal location is on the edge of the lunar impact crater Erlanger close to the northern pole and is suited for people to live," said TK Alex, director of Isro's satellite centre. "The conditions are ideal there to set up green houses for vegetation."

The proposed location should also have ample deposits of titanium oxide, a compound which indicates the presence of helium-3, which has an earthly price tag of $125,000 an ounce. Helium-3, rare on earth, is sought for use in nuclear fusion. "On the moon, there are many potential areas of the titanium-based mineral that contains helium-3," Alex said.

India aims to share the lunar base with the global community through an international collaboration under the aegis of the International Lunar Network (ILN), a partnership of 10 space-faring nations, including India, set up last July.

Nasa has indicated its own resolve to set up a lunar base in 2015. In 2006, it reportedly offered India space at the proposed location.

While the race to the moon is on, no nation can actually own a piece of real estate there. In 1967, at the peak of the space race between the erstwhile Soviet Union and the US, the Outer Space Treaty was signed between the two and eventually ratified by about 100 countries under the aegis of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa), to prevent the colonisation of Earth's natural satellite.