Technology

Take A Rare Look Inside NASA's Latest Moon Mission

GREENBELT, Md. ((WJZ)) ― America is going back to the moon and beyond to Mars, and the first step is being built in Maryland.

Vic Carter of Baltimore CBS staton WJZ-TV gained rare access inside the lab where NASA engineers are making space history.

American pride soared when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon nearly four decades ago. Now, the race is back on to fly from Earth to the moon and eventually to Mars.

NASA engineer Craig Tooley works at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

"Our space program is really about exploring and understanding. Our quest to return human beings to the moon and use the moon as where we can learn to go farther out in the solar system, extensibly extending human presence throughout the solar system," he said.

To get back to the moon, NASA needs the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter or LRO. It's being built from scratch at Goddard and will map the lunar surface. LRO's basic mission is to create "Google Moon," similar to "Google Earth."

"We basically make an atlas for those people who are going to build the human return to the moon," says Tooley, who is LRO's project manager.

He says the lessons they learn from living and working on the moon will help NASA hone those skills to take on bigger challenges.

Tooley invited WJZ to take a rare up-close look at the orbiter as it prepares for flight.

The spacecraft is fragile so it must be protected from even microscopic contaminants. Everyone who gets close must wear protective suits. Only 20 workers at a time are allowed inside the "clean room" where the orbiter is being built.

The huge international effort is costing $491 million, causing some critics to question the mission.

"When we flew Apollo, our overarching goal was to get humans to the moon and back home safely. Our objectives this time are farther reaching because we intend to send people to the moon, establish human presence at the moon -- an outpost really-- and begin to live and work on the moon. If we can learn to work and live on the moon, our more ambitious goal of having human beings go to Mars and other places, we think that is the best way to enable it," said Tooley.

Once LRO launches, it will fly 225,000 miles to the moon and spend a year mapping the surface. Craig Tooley hopes the hard work will pave the way for the next generation.

"Our greatest hope is that when we look back on this, you know in just a few years from now, we can see the linkage between the mission that we did, the maps that we made and those new fresh footprints on the moon."

To learn more about the LRO, click here.

To see NASA animation, click here.

(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)