MOON FARSIDE PROTECTION FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH IS URGENT

The Moon Farside is the only place free from radio transmissions and noises produced by ground-based and Earth-orbiting instruments. The spherical body of the Moon blocks them, acting like a shield. Thus, the Legal Protection of the Moon Farside from all kinds of non-scientific future exploitations (real estate, industry and military) has long been a concern for many scientists.
In December 2021 the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) created a new Permanent Committee devoted to the Moon Farside Protection. This Committee is chaired by this author and the Committee’s Co-chair is Prof. Jack Burns of the University of Colorado at Boulder (USA).
In this presentation we advocate the support to the Moon Farside Protection by all scientists working in four different areas of science: SETI, Astrobiology, Cosmology and Planetary Defense. In fact:
1) SETI needs radio quietness to possibly detect Alien Civilizations “signatures” that reach us very feeble because of the huge distances among stars in the Milky Way, if not from other galaxies. The discovery of one or more ExtraTerrestrial Civilizations in this or other galaxies would change the history of Humankind.
2) ASTROBIOLOGY studies pre-biological interstellar molecules by virtue of their roto-vibrational spectra: a delicate search for feeble spectral lines that only advanced radio telescopes and the Moon Farside radio silence may achieve.
3) COSMOLOGY needs the radio quietness on and above the Moon Farside to pick up the extremely feeble radiation of the hydrogen line at 1420 MHz as down-shifted to much smaller frequencies, MHz or kHz, by the 14 billion years of universe expansion.
4) PLANETARY DEFENSE. The seeing from the Moon is wonderful (though the micro-meteorite risk is high). Thus, optical telescopes pointing at the (blocked) Sun would enable high-accuracy measurements of the orbital parameters of NEOs, greatly improving all data for Planetary Defense.
By May 1st 2022 (when this Abstract is being submitted) this new IAA Committee has obtained supports from many countries worldwide (including China). We are now seeking for the support of the United Nations COPUOS, the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and other radio astronomy organizations (like CORF and CRAF) to prepare a Farside Treaty to legally protect the radio-noise free Moon Farside in the future. Finally, please note that this is hardly just a SCIENTIFIC ISSUE only: it is actually an URGENT POLITICAL ISSUE for the Entire World.