www.ditl.org

Hopes, dreams and practical plans to colonize or otherwise exploit the moon as a source of minerals or a launch pad to the cosmos got a boost today with NASA's announcement of significant water ice at the lunar south pole.

The LCROSS probe discovered the equivalent of a dozen 2-gallon buckets of water in the form of ice, in a crater at the lunar south pole. Scientists figure there's more where that came from.

...

The water discovery firms up previous detections of the signature of water molecules by three independent spacecraft. But the new finding makes more of a splash in that the detections come from both infrared and ultraviolet measurements, and a lot more of it was detected than scientists had expected.

"It is a big 'wow,'" said Jack Burns of the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and director of the Lunar University Network for Astrophysics Research.

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Having that store of water on the moon could be a boon to possible future lunar camps. In addition to a source of drinking water, lunar water ice could be broken into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms, ultimately to be used in rocket fuel. That would mean spacecraft ferrying future colonists to the moon would not have to take fuel for the return trip, or the fuel could be used to launch trips beyond the moon. And water could be used as a shield from cosmic radiation.

"We now can say ... that the possibility of living off the land has just gone up a notch," said Peter Schultz, professor of geological sciences at Brown University and a co-investigator on the LCROSS mission, referring to past detections of water on the moon.

Mark wrote:Bet you guys anything that withing ten years, they'll be marketing bottled "Moon Water" at some insane price.

Mark wrote:Bet you guys anything that withing ten years, they'll be marketing bottled "Moon Water" at some insane price.

Committee:SPECPOL
Topic: Operation Moon Water

Sponsors: Uzbekistan*, United Arab Emirates*, Azerbaijan
Signatories: Tajikistan (i think)

Recalling the existence of the moon.

Recognizing, the significance of the recent LCROSS findings,

Suggests, the developed, imperialist nations begin harvesting of moon water for it's potential magical properties

Further Suggests, that the Magical Moon Water be used to replenish the Aral Sea in an effort to help rejuvenate Uzbekistan's abysmal agriculture status

Recommends, that excess Magical Moon Water^tm be shared amongst developing nations unable to access their own water supplies

Encourages, the search for extraterrestrial water on other bodies of the solar system such as Jupiter's moon Titan

Further Encourages, that any polar melt-water be transported to the moon to be refrozen and returned to the Polar Ice Caps on Earth.

Avatar2312 wrote:Sure, but no one said something about uniform.

Water in form of ice can only survive in eternal shadows on the moon, meaning only in polar craters, or chemically bound to other substances like dust, where it is also protected from the extreme temperatures.

But to find water in one polar crater means that either the aim was SO ASTRONOMICAL LUCKY, that you could not believe it (if it is only present at this spot), or that water is somewhat present in "abundance" in many of the polar craters. It is not unlikely if you take into account, that it is compromised of 2 hydrogens and 1 oxygen. The first being an element 2/3 our universe is made of and the latter, which is also not as rare among the elements if you rule out H and He.

Avatar2312 wrote:Since we have just one figure, I stick to it as the average value until further analasys tells otherwise.

Äh... The dark side... you mean the dark sider of the moon or regions in eternal shadows?

Cpl Kendall wrote:*snicker* The Moon is Wet! We must visit it's Dark Star! *snicker*