Lunar research loses its bounce

LONDON - An experiment, begun when Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left a mirror on the lunar surface 40 years ago to allow Earth-based astronomers to fire lasers at it, has been ended by American science chiefs.

The National Science Foundation has told scientists working at the McDonald Laser ranging station in Ford Davis to tell them the annual US$125,000 funding for their project was going be terminated following a review of its scientific merits. Four decades of continuous lunar laser research at the McDonald Observatory, run by the University of Texas at Austin, will be halted by the end of this year.

Among the project's unlikely achievements has been the discovery that the moon is moving away from Earth at a rate of 6.3cm a year.

The mirror's existence, and the fact that astronomers can bounce lasers off it and detect the returning beam, has also provided scientists with compelling evidence to refute the claims of moon-landing deniers who claim the Apollo lunar mission were hoaxes filmed in an Earth-based studio.

The mirror left by Aldrin and Armstrong after they landed on the Sea of Tranquillity on July 21, 1969, was one of five known as "corner mirrors" or "retro-reflector arrays" that were taken to the moon. Two other mirrors were taken to the moon on the Apollo 14 and the Apollo 15 missions.

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