Palscience

NASA has already awarded over 1.2 million to Li, Ron “Lowber B. Strange Designated Professor of civil and environmental engineering and geodetic science, to develop and new GPS-like system for the moon to help astronauts to navigate easily like people do on Earth.

“New technology — sensors, inertial navigation systems, cameras, computer processors, and image processors — will make the next trip to the moon easier for astronauts.” He said.

Li explained, people have certain visual cues to judge distances, for example, if you see a car far away from you can predict how far is that car from you based on its size right? But what about the Moon? As he said the moon has nothing and getting lost or misjudging a distant object’s size and location would be easy, and extremely dangerous.

The main priority for Li is to keep astronauts safe, and make the trip easier than ever before. “We will help with navigation, but also with astronauts’ health as well,” Li said. “We want them to avoid the stress of getting lost, or getting frustrated with the equipment. Lunar navigation isn’t just a technology problem, it’s also biomedical.” He said.

Source - EurekAlert