Community Magazine April 2019

50 Community Magazine The entire project’s budget is said to hover at around $100 million, a fraction of $469 million NASA spent in the 1960s on seven similarly sized Surveyor moon landers. NASA’s total would be approximately $3.5 billion today, about $500 million per mission, after adjusting for inflation. Technical Challenges Even though the craft has a full mass of nearly 1,300 lbs. (900 lbs. of which is fuel) – about a third of the weight of the average car – the challenge for a space flight is to launch the craft out of the earth’s gravitational field. That requires the craft to travel 25,000 miles per hour to enter orbit. To save on fuel, and lessen the energy required to send it through space, SpaceIL was made smaller than any other lunar vehicle launched to date, at about five feet tall and six feet wide. To further cut costs, the craft piggybacked its launch with two other devices: a U.S. Air Force satellite named S5, and an Indonesian communications satellite called “Nusantara Satu,” weighing in at 10,000 lbs. The one disadvantage to the craft being built that small and that light is that there was no room to place a coolant system, and designers expect themechanisms to overheat after three days, when the craft is exposed to the high heat of the sun’s rays on the moon. Until it overheats, Beresheet will take measurements of the moon’s magnetic field, and may try to “hop” to another location using its thrusters. It has already sent back stunning photographs. Israel’s Fascinationwith Space The Beresheet project is only the most recent of Israel’s scientific breakthroughs in the field of space and discovery. The Israel Space Agency (ISA), in its current incarnation, was founded in 1983, but its research hails back to the 1960s. In the late 1980s, the country’s Ofeq satellites gave Israel the distinction of being amongst just seven countries to build, develop, and launch its own objects into space. (Israeli-made satellites have been able to spot the details of now-destroyed nuclear facilities in Syria, and explore enemy terrain in Iran. Israel is also developing what is called nanosatellites – satellites the size of a milk carton.) The ISA says that its missions in space exploration are “… the key to existing in a modern society; essential for developing an economy based on knowledge, and the central attraction for scientific and qualified human resources.” Their vision is “to preserve and broaden the comparative advantage of Israel, and to place it among the group of leading countries in the space research and exploration area.” The success of Beresheet also sends a message to Israel’s enemies: If it can achieve such success in space, it can do the same in the military sphere. Working Together And while Israel might be in some ways isolated on the world stage, criticized and singled out, many of the global space agencies have collaborated with ISA, with signed cooperative agreements with United States (NASA), France (CNES), Canada (CSA), India (ISRO), Italy (ASI), Germany (DLR), Ukraine (NSAU), Russia (RKA), Netherlands (NIVR), and Brazil (AEB). Meanwhile, the ISA and the Ministry of Science and Technology created what is now called the National Knowledge Center on Near Earth Objects, based out of Tel Aviv University. The Center was formed to study the solar system’s celestial bodies, not just to map them, but to find any possible threats (asteroids, meteors) that might head towards the earth, and to create ways to stop them to prevent any disasters. The Israel Cosmic Ray Center, in a similar way, monitors and predicts “dangerous meteorological and space phenomena,” including solar storms that contain high levels of radiation, and shockwaves from far-off stars, that can send magnetic interruptions to Earth. Such disruptions can wreak havoc on the planet’s electronic systems, satellites, space shuttles, navigational systems, aircraft flights, and even adversely affect the health of astronauts in space. Given Israel’s scientific know-how, its long list of firsts, and its continued successes in a variety of technological frontiers, it may not be unreasonable to believe that before too long, the second flag to be planted on the moon’s soil will have a Star of David on it! There is hope that the excitement generated by an Israeli moon landing will ignite enthusiasm among the country’s youth to study science and engineering, and that this in turn will help Israel to maintain its technological edge.