The garbage on the moon is not 100 tons, but 200 tons. There are clothes, food, and feces in it. Could it be left by Chang'e? Of course, this idea is just for entertainment. Since humans began to explore the moon in the 1960s and 1970s, we have not found any living things on the moon. The real moon is completely silent. So where did these 200 tons of garbage come from? Where are you coming from? Obviously, these garbage come from human civilization, including part of the garbage left by our country. With the development of the times, there are more and more garbage on the moon. Is it possible that humans plan to turn the moon into an exclusive space garbage dump?

The U.S. Apollo Moon Landing Program

In the 1960s and 1970s, the United States and the Soviet Union began to compete in the space field. Among them, the United States’ Apollo program was the most dazzling. The Apollo spacecraft they designed It consists of command module, service module and lunar module. During the take-off stage, the Apollo spacecraft slowly lifted off on the Saturn V rocket, and then entered the Earth orbit, the Earth-lunar orbit, and the lunar orbit in sequence. After entering the lunar orbit, the spacecraft will separate. The command module and service module will remain in the lunar orbit, and only the lunar module will enter the moon and land on the surface. After the astronauts complete their mission, they will continue to ascend in the lunar module and enter the lunar orbit, then dock with the command module and service module in orbit, then return to the Earth-lunar orbit, the Earth orbit, and finally Landed somewhere on earth. What are the 200 tons of garbage on the moon?

In the Apollo moon landing program, each spacecraft weighed approximately 45 tons, of which the command module weighed approximately 6 tons, the service module approximately 25 tons, and the lunar module approximately 14 tons. The lunar module is generally divided into ascent and descent stages. As we know from the above, only the lunar module actually reaches the lunar surface. Among them, the lunar module's descent stage is the heaviest, including the landing engine, landing legs, Instrument module, etc., when leaving the moon, the descent stage will not return to the earth with the lunar module. Therefore, all the descent stages in the six lunar landings are on the moon, and the weight of this part is about 70 tons. So where did the remaining 130 tons of garbage come from? When astronauts perform missions on the moon, they need to use a lot of equipment, such as photographic equipment, flags, etc. In addition, American astronauts have also done a lot of experiments on the moon. For example, if a hammer and a feather fall at the same height, which one will happen? The object fell to the ground first, and during a series of experiments, a large number of props were left on the moon.

And all the domestic garbage produced by astronauts on the moon, including clothing debris, excrement, space boots, diapers, vomit bags, golf balls, hammer feathers, uneaten food, etc., Everything that could be thrown away was thrown on the moon, because every gram carried by the spacecraft must be strictly calculated. Of course, there is another layer of meaning, which will be discussed later. Although the United States has only successfully landed on the moon 6 times, it has carried out dozens of exploration missions. Some equipment and instruments malfunctioned and were also left on the lunar surface. Therefore, scientists estimate that the United States has garbage on the moon. The weight is about 120 tons. Although only 12 American astronauts have landed on the lunar surface, it does not mean that other countries have not "thrown" garbage on the moon. In the past few decades, countries have rushed to launch a large number of probes to the moon, such as the "Vikram" lander carried by India's Chandrayaan-2 probe in 2019. These probes were left behind on the moon after completing their lunar exploration missions. Become part of the garbage. Therefore, the total amount of garbage generated by the United States and other lunar exploration countries is about 200 tons. It seems that "the more garbage", the stronger the lunar exploration capability...

Why must garbage be thrown on the moon? Isn’t it bad to be in space? Currently, the space rockets carrying lunar probes are basically the largest models and cost tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. Therefore, when designing the probe, experts must take into account every gram of weight. Take our country's Chang'e-5 as an example. Every step of its mission has been calculated in advance, including where to land, how many samples to collect, and how many resources to throw away. After completing the mission, Chang'e-5 will leave behind a lot of garbage. If these garbage are to be thrown into space, the probe must first take off with the garbage. Then the fuel aspect will be a big problem, and the harm of garbage in space is many times greater than that on the moon, even in many cases. The International Space Station has to make adjustments to avoid space junk.

If space junk piles up more and more, they will slowly surround the earth's orbit. This will undoubtedly increase the difficulty of human exploration of outer space, which is equivalent to humans "locking" themselves on the earth. 200 tons of garbage will not cause much harm to the moon, and the controllability is relatively much greater.

And some of the garbage left on the moon is of research value, such as human feces and urine. Scientists have previously conducted microbial experiments in space, and they found that some microorganisms can survive in space, and It can also reproduce, so the answer to whether microorganisms can survive in space for decades may have to be found in lunar garbage.

Why do humans want to explore the moon? In 1979, the United Nations adopted the Moon Agreement. The main content of this agreement is that all countries have equal rights to study celestial bodies and prohibits all countries from declaring sovereignty on other celestial bodies. The general idea is that "the moon belongs to all mankind and everyone is equal." However, most powerful countries have basically not signed it. The signatories of the "Moon Agreement" are all small and medium-sized countries without lunar exploration capabilities. Therefore, there is still a blank in terms of the distribution of lunar benefits. Since it is blank, how should the benefits of the moon be distributed? Not using the oldest method, first come first served! Although the far side of the moon is not suitable for establishing a space base, the area of ??the front side of the moon is as high as 19 million square kilometers, which is almost twice the area of ??Europe. With such a huge area, which country wouldn’t be attracted by it? Moreover, there is a large amount of high-quality resource helium 3 on the moon. This resource is called by scientists the mother of future energy for human civilization. In addition, the moon has no atmosphere and small gravity, which makes it particularly suitable to serve as a "pedal" for human exploration into outer space. It is so uniquely endowed. It’s a strategic location, and who doesn’t want to get a piece of the pie?

As the saying goes, "One step first, one step at a time." How can major countries hand over the benefits of the moon to all countries on the earth equally? As for how much benefits can be shared, in the final analysis, it depends on their strength, so Lunar garbage is an inevitable result of the development of human civilization.

Extended reading: Is the US Apollo program true or false? There are now a lot of rumors on the Internet. They say that the American Apollo program was a complete scam. Is this really true? The U.S. moon landing program that year involved almost 200 universities and 80 research institutes, involved hundreds of thousands of people, cost tens of billions of dollars, and took up to 11 years. The United States first launched a large number of probes, then launched 17 Apollo spacecrafts, and finally achieved manned moon landing. In recent years, there have been rumors that "the Apollo moon landing program was shot in a studio", "there are no stars in the photos", etc. If it is really a hoax, how could American scientists make stupid mistakes? Moreover, with the progress of society, other countries have sent a large number of lunar landing probes. Aren't the flags, traces, legacy equipment, etc. on them all leftover from the American moon landing program? In addition, the United States has installed three laser reflectors on the surface of the moon, which can be seen by observatories from all over the earth, so the Apollo moon landing plan is real.