Last Thursday, Barcelona Moon Team together with other dozen teams joined NASA Ames by telecon, to learn about NASA’s recommendations on the preservations of the lunar historical sites, including the Apollo sites. In a long but very interesting day, NASA presented the legal frame, the pictures of the existing hardware left in the lunar surface, the effects of the rocket engines in a too close existing hardware (based on the real experience of Apollo 12 which landed within walking distance of the Surveyor 3), and some actual approach at the Planetary Protection issues, which the Barcelona Moon Team also has in its objectives.

A set of reccomendations on the distances and trajectories for the landings, as well as the roaming procedures around the American hardware were and will be discussed in the next months. Although the main interest obviously remains to the Apollo missions hardware left on the Moon, the Barcelona Moon Team would like to see a similar initiative from the Russian Federation on the Soviet hardware on the Moon.