Posted on 08/23/2010 11:07:10 AM PDT by ATOMIC_PUNK
By now, most of us know there is water on the moon. But did you know that it comes in three flavors and there is so much of it--158 billion gallons--that it could fill all of Seattle's water needs for three years?
It turns out there is water all over the lunar landscape, which is rather astonishing since astronomers were convinced for such a long time that it was bone dry.
Discovery.com and Space.com report this all changed when actual measurements were taken using the Mini-SAR and Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3 or "M-cubed") instruments on India's Chandrayaan-1 moon probe and NASA's recent LCROSS mission when the moon was "bombed."
There are three flavors of moon water:
1] Thick, nearly pure crater ice
2] Fluffy mix of ice crystals and dirt
3] Thin layer of ice that covers much of the lunar surface
One mystery still to be solved: Scientists don't know why some of the lunar craters contain pure ice, while others have an ice-soil mixture. One idea: The moon water is generated by more than one source. "Some of the water may be made right there on the moon," Paul Spudis of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas told Space.com. "Protons in the solar wind can make small amounts of water continuously on the lunar surface by interacting with metal oxides in the rocks. But some of the water is probably deposited on the moon from other places in the solar system."
Why is water on the moon an important discovery? Water is not only the key ingredient for life as we know it, but also would be essential if we were to ever establish a human outpost on the moon.
"It's a different world up there, and we've barely scratched the surface," Spudis told Space.com. "Who knows what discoveries lie ahead?"
Well, if there is water on the moon, there is oxygen on the moon. A LOT, apparently.
I thought they were going to say they found Osama bin Laden or G. Gordon Liddy’s radio show.
And that is why abandoning a moon-first approach to space exploration is lunacy.
But still no sign of Sheila Jackson-Lee’s brain? Maybe Mars, where the astronauts planted their flag.
What happened to Liddy?
He was on here in Rochester for years then when I came back to town he was off the air.
I happened to catch him on a different stationa dn he sounded incredibly old and almost frail- not good at all
Great, now NASA's charter will be changed to get the latest bottled water fad for Seattle yuppies.
This is fantastic news for the Chinese manned lunar program! I wish the USA had one.
If the Chinese are correct in their analysis that there is lots of helium-3 there too, they’ll have water, oxygen, energy, fuel all in one convenient place. Add a beanstalk or two and you own the Solar System. Well, maybe they’ll need to figure out fusion once they have several tons of He3.
Klingons?
I’m pretty sure it’s George W. Bush’s fault.
When we get back to the moon, there won’t be anyplace to plant the wheat because of all of the rice paddies... /s
I’ll second that. A wonderful read.
Did we waste all that money developing astronaut life support systems? Could we have sent them there with a picnic basket and a six-pack of Pepsi?
"Discovery.com and Space.com report this all changed when actual measurements were taken using the Mini-SAR and Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3 or "M-cubed") instruments on India's Chandrayaan-1 moon probe and NASA's recent LCROSS mission when the moon was "bombed.""
So if water is so abundant on the moon, why didn’t the Apollo and/or Lunar Lander missions discover this?
Just asking?
LOL
Mike: Man? Is that you Man?
And also hydrogen. By placing a small nuclear reactor on the moon, we could produce oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for fuel by breaking down the water. Perfect for a mars mission, with a lunar launch pad with a fraction of earth's gravity to escape.
Since each pound of material costs $10,000 to rocket out of earth's gravitational pull, the discovery of large amounts of water resource on the moon is worth trillions of dollars, if not quadrillions of dollars, as a launch point to other planets.
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