Preface

The purpose of this book is to assess the current state of knowledge of lunar geoscience, given the data sets provided by missions of the 1990's, to assess the remaining key questions and identify new ones for future exploration to address. It is also our intention to document how a planet or moon other than the world on which we live can be studied and understood in light of integrated suites of specific kinds of information. The Moon is the only body other than Earth for which we have material samples of known geologic context for study. We seek in this book to show how the different kinds of information gained about the Moon are related to each other and thus to aide in planning for the exploration of other worlds. We must get it "right" for the Moon if we are going to optimize our study of other planets, such as Mars.