UK researchers set out goals for Lunar Mission One

Scientists have set out the detailed scientific goals of a proposed UK-led mission to the Moon, the BBC reports.

Its principal aim is to survey the Lunar South pole to learn more about the geology of the Moon and see if a human base can be set up in the future.

It will also drill 100 meters below the surface and also assess whether it is feasible to have observatories on the far side of the Moon.

Details of the Lunar Mission One program were announced last month.

Its backers hope to raise the bulk of the £500m needed for the project from public donations. In return, donors will be able to send messages, pictures and even hair samples which will be buried under the lunar surface.

However its organizers say that the mission also has a serious scientific purpose. Although there have been more than 50 expeditions to the Moon including six landings by Apollo astronauts there is still much to learn, according to Prof Ian Crawford, who is one of Lunar Mission One's principle scientific advisers.

"Until recently the European Space Agency had plans for a lunar lander (which has since been scrapped) and the science case for Lunar Mission One is quite similar," he told BBC News. "In addition, we propose to have a drill so there will be new science too".

In particular there have been no missions to the Moon's south pole, which is particularly interesting because it is the site of the deepest known impact crater in our Solar System, around 12km deep. It's thought that it might contain rocks from tens of km below the surface and even part of the lunar mantle dug up by an impact more than four billion years ago.

The site is in effect a portal into the Moon's interior and its distant past.

The deepest samples that have been obtained are from three meters below the surface, by Apollo 17 Astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt in 1972.

Lunar mission One aims to drill up to 100 meters below the surface of a site which is already thought to have material thrown up by a giant impact billions of years ago from several kilometers below the surface.