Abstract
The Hubble Space Telescope images might lure us into believing that solar system exploration ended with the Voyager program but the Galileo (Jupiter), Cassini (Saturn), and Mars Global Surveyor missions prove that solar system exploration still yields spectacular new insights into the origin and evolution of planets and their satellites. The Apollo program already left a legacy of great images—such as Earth rising over the lunar horizon—to highlight the interconnected nature of the Earth‐Moon system. Apollo's other legacy is a collection of lunar samples. Today a shrinking group of scientists who “were there” keeps lunar sample science alive. Lunar science received a boost with the realization that lunar rocks can be used as local resources for building materials and oxygen to support a manned lunar base. Attempts using the lunar sample database to calibrate the Clementine mission's high‐resolution element distribution maps of the lunar surface reinforced a need for sample analyses from solar system bodies. The recent detection of hydrogen in craters at the lunar poles does not necessarily imply the presence of water ice but it does rekindle old interests.
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