Air Force spends $7.5 million to research 'lunar traffic jams'

Lunar rover
(Image credit: China National Space Administrat/AFP/Getty Images)

A new $7.5-million Air Force research initiative is exploring ways to prevent "lunar traffic jams" ahead of a new slate of manned missions to the moon, The Hill reported Wednesday.

The collaboration between the Air Force Research Laboratory and University of Arizona "will start by mapping the dozens of natural and human-made artifacts in the 'chaotic environment' of lunar orbit," The Hill reports.

Between the more than 50 missions to the moon planned for the next eight years and all the junk cluttering space, it's getting pretty crowded up there.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"The space debris problem is a mess," said Vishnu Reddy, an associate professor at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. "We've gone for 60-plus years of uncontrollably trashing everything in space, right? Imagine we had taken every car since the invention of the Model T, and every time the thing runs out of gas — you leave it to the side of the freeway and pick up a new car, wherever you drop it. That's what we've been doing to space."

The grant funds will be spent on spectroscopy experiments and AI tools that will enable the U.S. Space Force to more accurately identify and track objects orbiting the moon.

Continue reading for free

We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.

Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.

Grayson Quay

Grayson Quay was the weekend editor at TheWeek.com. His writing has also been published in National Review, the Pittsburgh Post-GazetteModern AgeThe American ConservativeThe Spectator World, and other outlets. Grayson earned his M.A. from Georgetown University in 2019.