Laydown of a tether from Earth visible location to far side for lunar SETI Original Research Article

In order to keep about a third of the Moon far side free from radio frequency interference (RFI) of all kinds (including RFI produced by artificial satellites orbiting the Moon) this paper proposes a dedicated space mission to the far side of the Moon (SETIMOON). This is intended to set up and operate a SETI antenna inside the Saha far side crater. One important feature of SETIMOON is that no astronaut work is requested. In fact, the setting up of two antennas (one on the near side Moon plain Mare Smythii and one inside Saha), is achieved by virtue of a tethered system, in either of two ways: 1- gradually deploying the tether in orbit around the Moon until the two antennas land softly and the tether itself is also the cable connecting the two antennas; or 2- letting the Earth-link antenna in Mare Smythii land first, and then shooting from there the folded radiotelescope tied up with a tether to the crater Saha. Again the tether becomes the cable connecting the two antennas.