Why did NASA crash a craft into the moon?

The crash was carefully targeted to one of the regions on the Moon where scientists believe there may be large deposits of water, in the form of ice, just below the surface. These special regions are all in craters at high latitudes, near the poles, where they are permanently shaded from the Sun by the crater walls.
The Moon has virtually no atmosphere, so permanently shaded regions are exposed to cold space and have very low temperatures, less than minus 200 degrees Centigrade. At such low temperatures, any traces of water vapour exhaling from the interior of the Moon, or falling onto it as meteors or small comets, can remain trapped for billions of years.
We know that the Moon used to be volcanically active, and that icy grains do fall onto its surface (and onto all of the planets, including Earth) from space, so this is a plausible scenario. The experiment was designed to find out if it is actually what happened.

How can this prove whether there is water on the moon?

The impact generates heat that vaporises any water that is present and throws it up in a plume that can be observed with instruments on spacecraft orbiting the Moon, including spectrometers that can distinguish water from other materials. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was placed in a low, polar orbit around the Moon by NASA a few months ago specifically for this purpose.(Incidentally, one of the instruments carried on the Reconnaissance Orbiter was designed and built partly at Oxford. Our device, Lunar Diviner, uses infrared radiometry to map the temperature of the Moon’s surface, including the permanently shaded craters and the crash site.) The plume was big enough to be observable through telescopes from the Earth as well, although obviously that is more difficult and did not deliver such good results.

Why do we want to know whether there is water up there?

Water is a very important molecule (as everyone on Earth knows from our own experience) and we want to know how much of it there is in the Solar System and where it is. For something that is so common on Earth, water seems to be in remarkably short supply on Venus, Mars and the Moon. We now believe that they all had lots of water initially, but either lost it to space (like Venus) or buried it below the surface, as on the Moon and Mars. Whether this is true, what happened to the water and what processes changed the climate on all of these Earthlike bodies is a topic of great scientific interest at the moment.
Another important reason for finding water is that it is an important resource – future astronauts will not be able to survive on the Moon for long without a water supply. Water is heavy and it would be expensive to bring the amount needed for a future manned Lunar base all the way from the Earth.

How does this fit into NASA’s broader programme of lunar exploration?

NASA plans to have a permanent presence on the Moon by 2020 or soon afterwards, and to go on from there to land a crew on Mars. There have been discussions to the effect that the European Space Agency, to which Britain belongs, may join in with the US programme of exploration, and the Chinese and Indian agencies have indicated that they each have plans for their own expeditions to the Moon.

Why is it important to explore space and its contents?

Three reasons:

1.To understand the origin and evolution of the Solar System and the planet upon which we live. What is the history of the Earth, and of the development of life? What parallels to this exist on other worlds?

2. To gain knowledge about how planets work so we can better understand and control our destiny on Earth. For instance, we now know that Venus has a hot climate for the basically same scientific reasons that the Earth is getting hotter. We need to understand the common Physics of the processes involved if we are to survive in the longer term.

3. Because it’s there! Humans love to explore, and most of us would like to know, for example, whether there is life on Mars.

Professor FW Taylor is the Halley Professor of Physics at Oxford University

‘Sex ed helps young people make healthy choices’

Kat Wall, OUSU VP for Women

The UK still has the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in Western Europe. With 42,900 conceptions amongst under-18 year olds last year something must be done to make sure young people understand the ramifications of pregnancy, the responsibilities of having a child and how to prevent unwanted or unplanned pregnancies from happening in the first place. As Gill Frances, the chairman of the Independent Advisory Group on Teenage Pregnancy said, “Evidence shows that sex and relationships education helps young people…make healthy choices when they eventually do become sexually active.”

It is not only because of unplanned pregnancy rates however, that children should learn about sex from a young age. The prevention of disease is also of concern with Chlamydia at its highest peak to date. Teaching young people who may be sexually active to practice safe sex is important. Giving young people an understanding of the contraceptive options available to them and encouraging a dialogue about how to prevent the transfer of STI’s is to the benefit of the population in general, as well as to the children we are teaching.

The government’s proposals also include relationship education within the new sex ed curriculum which may remove some of the pressure for young people to rush into sexual activity. Providing advice and guidance on relationships alongside sexual education may also provide those young people who lack good role models at home to gain an understanding of what a healthy relationship is. This may also assist in helping to prevent abusive behaviour; children will learn younger that they do not have to stay silent and that certain kinds of behaviour just aren’t acceptable.

The fact that this programme is not hetronormatively biased is also a great sign of progress. To teach about sex in the context of a variety of relationship settings, whatever the gender mix, allows for the development of non-judgemental and free discussion. This may reduce the stigma around being gay at school, and ensure that whatever kind of sex young people practice, they will do so safely.
Children often do not receive adequate education on sex and relationships from their parents, largely because full information is not provided due to a lack of medical knowledge, life experience or embarrassment. Having a wide-ranging education in school on these issues should help to combat current levels of ignorance, unsafe practice and such high levels of unplanned pregnancy.

‘These classes fail to teach children anything’

Ben North, History, Magdalen

The issue of making sex and relationships education mandatory for all 15-year-olds skews and obscures to a dangerous degree the wider, more important issue of deteriorating sexual health among Britain’s young people. The behaviour of parents in removing their children from sex education classes is certainly irresponsible and misguided. ‘If this is the case, then bring in these mandatory reforms and be done with it’, you may reply. The issue is not as simple as this. There are two important factors which override any benefits that such a change may bring: the dire state of sex education generally, and the scarcity of political capital that exists in this area of reform.

Why force children to go to classes which fail to teach them anything? A recent NHS survey found that only 11% of respondents saw school or college as their main source of information about STIs, while television programmes and adverts were the two most popular authorities. This coincides with an alarming rise in infection rates; chlamydia rates almost tripled between 1998 and 2007. The fact that people find a thirty second advert more helpful than a qualified teacher indicates a fundamental failure on the part of schools to provide clear, neutral and thorough advice on sexual health.
The issue of misguided parents is merely ancillary to this fundamental problem of poor sex education – currently less than 0.1% of parents withdraw their children from classes. I would like the needs of 99.9% of families attended to first.

Sex’s continued status as a taboo subject means that as much as a breath from politicians that broaches the issue of educating about sex can whip up storms of controversy. Current developments in sex education reform emphasise the extent to which the vast majority of young people are at risk from chances of reform being dashed by the stifling effects of this taboo.

A recent government review has produced recommendations that will help tackle such shocking statistics as seen above. Despite the wide-ranging nature of the review, it is parents’ right to choose which has been focussed on in the media – this is the aforementioned skewing and obscuring at work. Educational reform will do far more to tackle sexual health problems among young people, which will consequently erode arguments in favour of parents’ right to choose. The fundamental problem is being confused with its ancillary; we have to get the education right first.

The government’s new plans regarding sex education should be welcomed with open arms. Given rising rates of teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and underage sex, it seems ludicrous that such a move has not been implemented sooner. I attended a Catholic high school and while we did receive sex education, it was nervous at best. Teachers tread the fine line between doing what they feel will protect their students and arm them for the realities of sex and relationships and the moral precepts of the school. Making it a legal obligation to teach sex education at this age means that teachers need not fear reprisals because of faith.

“Learning about contraception, abortion and homosexuality should only allow children to make informed decisions; not indoctrinate them”

The right of the parent to withdraw their child from learning about these topics seems to me to be a strange idea to cling to. While it is true that a parent may wish their child to hold a certain morality regarding these issues, it is surely their responsibility to instil these in the child based on the impartial information the child receives. When a child learns about the political parties of the United Kingdom as is the case in some religion education syllabuses, it does not mean that the child will declare they will become politicised. In the same way, learning about contraception, abortion and homosexuality should only allow children to make informed decisions; not indoctrinate them.

Some fear that educating students about the methods of contraception and abortion will lead to moral degradation as children are told that they can do as they please without consequences. The problem with such a view is that it seems to be based on a complete fallacy that children are currently all innocent and never have sex or engage in anything outside the moral precepts held by such groups. This clearly is not the case and given that the young people of the United Kingdom are having underage sex, it seems ridiculous to think that keeping them ignorant of the dangers and realities associated with this does anything to help them.

“The advent of the internet has led to an explosion of easily available pornography, which propagates unrealistic images of sex and indeed the human body”

If we refuse to give information to our children on such matters, they will seek it in other places. The advent of the internet has led to an explosion of easily available pornography, which propagates unrealistic images of sex and indeed the human body. The whole issue seems to come down to the maintenance of a taboo. The younger generation routinely break the sexual taboo that still exists and clinging doggedly to the fear of a sexualised society will do nothing to halt this or help guide children through the minefield of the adult words of ‘sex and relationships’. I would prefer children to be educated in school rather than through hearsay and nervous whispers.

After an eleven-hour flight from Chennai to London on an economy seat with a man snoring like a Neanderthal seated next to you, the virtue of patience tends to lose its appeal. The last thing I wanted to do was stand in an overcrowded immigration queue for an hour lugging hand luggage that weighs a ton. That said, I must admit it was one of the most amusing sixty minutes I’ve spent in an airport. A group of middle aged Indians travelling on a tour package formed an unruly little circular blob in what was otherwise an orderly queue to the immigration post. The immigration officer, appalled by this uncouth behaviour, came down and requested them to fall in line; which they did for about five minutes, before returning to the relatively circular, loud cluster. A second officer who tried reasoning with the elderly ladies came to the realisation that even the fear of being rebuked by authority wasn’t going to win a battle against years of tradition: a tradition that celebrates a strange conception of personal space.

“It is part of our historical tradition that influences how we view space and privacy”

The roots of such a tradition can be best understood by spending a day in a typical Indian household: a large group with representatives of three generations living under the same roof. It has long been the norm in Asian cultures that the woman marries into a family. Newly-weds stay with the husband’s family and live with his parents, brothers and their children. In such environments, personal space is a liberty that is seldom enjoyed. Everyone is in everyone else’s way and nobody is ever alone. As an Indian, I lived in such a household when I was growing up, and now that I live alone, I miss the sense of chaos and disarray that constantly consumed our lives and unintentionally gave each individual a sense of purpose and responsibility. We shouldn’t be quick to assume that this phenomenon is purely a result of financial difficulty. Joint families can be seen in households at both ends of the socio-economic spectrum. It is part of our historical tradition that influences how we view space and privacy.

“It’s very similar to ants sprawling over a piece of candy”

This idea of personal space or absence thereof has a spillover effect in the public sphere. If you have ever had the privilege of taking a public bus in India, you would realise that, given the loads they carry, they defy every scientific principle. People cram into, onto and hang off the sides of buses, until there is no part of the body of the bus that can be seen other than the front windscreen. To put it in perspective, it’s very similar to ants sprawling over a piece of candy. What’s interesting is that this isn’t just because of inefficient public transport. Even if there are empty seats in front and behind where you are sitting, a traveller usually occupies the seat next to you, and starts a conversation. You grow so accustomed to close proximity that its absence can seem strange.

A few years ago, a friend of mine from Toronto took up an internship at the Hindu, a daily that is circulated largely in South India. While pitching ideas to the editor, he thought it might be interesting to reflect on the intimacy between Indian men, particularly the tradition of holding hands in public. Having been accustomed to the idea that men holding hands outside a funeral setting meant they were homosexuals, the Canadian presumed that India had a tradition of open-mindedness and tolerance to homosexuality that was unexpected in an Asian country. For the Indian man, however, the act of holding hands or putting an arm round another’s shoulder is not ‘intimacy’ in the traditional western sense. It is a consequence of ‘brotherly love’ that is enshrined even in the Indian national pledge.

The next time you happen to see an Indian taking a seat next to you on a train, which it is relatively empty, or when you find someone standing very close to you in a supermarket queue, take a moment to reflect on how even these mundane and annoying experiences are filled with clues of what living in India is like. Often these hidden clues can give you invaluable tools to understand what life is like on the Indian subcontinent.