With the recent increase in lunar activity (e.g., the Artemis II mission), I have become very interested in the concept of an open-source moon map. I noticed on the OSM Wiki that there are already existing discussions and ideas regarding this within the community (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Moon).
In this context, I have been in contact with Open Lunar (https://www.openlunar.org), an international NGO whose mission is “to enable a peaceful, cooperative presence on the Moon that benefits all life.” They are very interested in realizing the vision of an open-source lunar map.
Given the immense expertise the OSM community has developed over the years in managing a shared, open map of Earth, it seems natural to explore potential areas of collaboration.
Would the OSM community be interested in collaborating with Open Lunar on an open-source Moon Map? If so, which areas of collaboration would be of most interest to you?
Aaron from Open Lunar is also following this thread and will be happy to answer any specific questions you may have.
As someone who is always interested in science and space, I find ideas like this inspiring, and I feel very positive about it.
On Google Maps, if you zoom out far enough, you can see a list of space objects. Their maps are stitched together from images taken by spacecraft, and you can explore them.
I am curious what principles such a project could be based on. It seems that open data should not be a big problem as a basis for mapping. Space agencies seem to publish a lot of data openly.
I also wonder how mapping itself would work in such a project. The objects that need to be mapped will be hard to visit — at least for the next hundred years :) So the mapping would be “remote”. But the most visible geological forms of the lunar surface could probably already be mapped right now.
The project infrastructure could perhaps be shared. It seems that people interested in cartography and open data, both for Earth and for the Moon, may often be the same people. Of course, I may be wrong :)
Oh I’m so glad I got pinged here, I would love to contribute! Unsure on how mapping would work, maybe it would work more like a topographic map(?) Maybe we could map the bottom and perimeter of craters and other geological features, as well as human made structures (List of artificial objects on the Moon - Wikipedia).
Thanks for your nice post and for your interest. Yes, mapping the Moon would be different from Earth. On the Moon, there would be more need to map geological features and the sites of past and future missions instead of man-made structures like on Earth. Mapping work would have to rely on open data provided by space agencies or private companies.
Regarding the software infrastructure required for lunar mapping: Yes, sharing software infrastructure would be fantastic, if it is possible. Over the years there has evolved a great ecosystem of open-source software around OSM. It would be great to explore which of these components could be adapted, how difficult that process would be, and at what point it would make more sense to build a necessary component from scratch.
Totally! Attic data won’t be enough here :) Though if anyone ever actually attempts this, it would probably have to be built as a Historical project from the ground up, with the active state just sitting on top.
