Lunar Lighthouse Poster Contest 2007 Background

For National Astronomy Day April 21, 2007

See National Astronomy Day Lunar Lighthouse Poster Contest Flier for additional details.

Note: the National Astronomy Day Lunar Lighthouse Poster Contest 2007 is open to K-6^th grade students in Brooke, Hancock, Marshall, Ohio, and Wetzel Counties of West Virginia.

The Lunar Lighthouse is the first proposed interactive space mission that will connect the entire population of the Earth with the Moon using green laser flashes just visible to an observer looking through binoculars. The Lunar Lighthouse beacon will bridge the gap between the two worlds – inviting humanity back into deep space, and reminding them that we humans once walked the Lunar surface and will do so again soon – this time to stay to live, work, and play.

The Lunar Lighthouse is a small robotic space craft that will soft land on the summit of Malapert Mountain not far from the Moon’s South Polar Region. Malapert Mountain is about 5,000 meters high (16,400 feet) and always has a view of the Earth. Malapert mountain is one of the Moon’s “Peaks of Eternal Light” where the Sun shines much of the time keeping the Lunar Lighthouse warm and allowing solar power to run the Lighthouse.

The Lunar Lighthouse will have cameras to study the Moon, an Earth telescope to observe the Earth from space as another planet, and a telescope to study the Universe from the lunar surface.