Although he never became an astronaut, Shoemaker trained the Apollo crews in lunar geology and impact craters. Shoemaker's friends say the geologist would have been intrigued by Lunar Prospector's work, which is expected to enhance greatly the understanding of Earth's barren natural satellite. If we're able to see further in lunar science, it's because we've stood on the shoulders of titans, and Gene Shoemaker was one of those titans. An hour after liftoff, the spacecraft fired its engines and started on its 105-hour journey toward the moon. Operated by Spaceport Florida, the launch site can accommodate a variety of rockets in an effort to bring more commercial launch business to the area.
Officials expect to start getting data back from the moon that same morning.
Prospector will circle the moon once every 118minutes using instruments to describe the moon's magnetic and gravitational fields while it also searches for water and minerals. Prospector's main goal is to detail the composition of the moon, where 75percent of the surface remains unmapped. Scientists are eager to study the entire moon's dusty crust. We learned through Apollo that there are abundant resources in the surface of the moon, but we only looked at very specific areas. If successful, Lunar Prospector will give us that information over the whole globe of the moon.