Moon museum: Race to save space relics

by Leonard David, SPACE.com Special Correspondent

Rover tracks cross the path of Apollo 17 astronauts' boot prints. New treads by commercial rovers may threaten erasing history.

July 26, 2008, Mountain View, Calif. — The moon is sprinkled with historical hardware hurled from Earth that signifies the pioneering steps taken over decades in robotic and human exploration of Earth's celestial next-door neighbor.

But numbers of spacefaring nations, including commercial enterprises, are readying their respective assaults on the moon. That fact has sparked growing concern about safeguarding lunar heritage sites, keeping them free of future "Kilroy was here" graffiti-like abuses.

This issue was aired at the NASA Lunar Science Conference staged here July 20-23 by the new NASA Lunar Science Institute situated at the space agency's Ames Research Center.

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