Astronaut Lunar Field Exploration Training

Introduction: Astronauts have not explored the lunar surface since December 1972. NASA's new plans for the manned return to the Moon revolve around the construction and establishment of a lunar polar outpost starting around the year 2020. Therefore, in order to achieve NASA's new exploration objectives it seems prudent to dust off certain aspects of the Apollo playbook. The six Apollo lunar landing expeditions provide us with the only experience for manned surface exploration. It seems reasonable to assume that some of the guiding principles and lessons learned from Apollo will be useful in the scientific training of the crews for these new lunar expeditions. The Apollo Approach: The Apollo astronauts received extensive geologic field training to insure maximum scientific gain and reduce risk to the EVA team. These field exercises proved to be invaluable and contributed greatly to the achievement of all lunar surface science objectives (including intelligent sample acquisition and documentation). Moreover, these field based exercises were also useful in sharpening the skills and interaction of astronauts and the ground science teams. The Apollo astronauts felt that they had been too rigidly scheduled during their surface EVA's and recommended that this should change. They also stated that the crew should be " essentially autonomous " and have a more dynamic role in planning the mission than they had during Project Apollo [1]. New Approaches: Technological developments since Apollo should be implemented into this next phase of manned lunar surface exploration. Some examples would include handheld spectrometers, hi resolution digital