NASA's LCROSS Mission Proves Lunar Ice Suspicions

NASA is reporting that preliminary data from the LCROSS mission indicates that there really is water in one of the permanently shadowed lunar craters, just as they suspected back in September. "'We are ecstatic,' said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist and principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. 'Multiple lines of evidence show water was present in both the high angle vapor plume and the ejecta curtain created by the LCROSS Centaur impact. The concentration and distribution of water and other substances requires further analysis, but it is safe to say Cabeus holds water.'"

Comments

Whats the hold up

[thenextstevejobs]

Base on the moon! Lets go fuckers!

Re:Whats the hold up

[nexxuz]

Sorry, All your base are belong to the Mooninites!

Re:Whats the hold up

[Abcd1234]

The hold up? Probably the part where a base on the moon is pointless and exceedingly expensive? I mean, sure, it'd be cool... but let's be reasonable, here: there is *nothing* on the moon worth getting (and before you He3-fusion wankers chime in, go read this).

Re:Whats the hold up

[MickyTheIdiot]

Space 2099

Re:Whats the hold up

[yincrash]

the view of earth

Re:Whats the hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the hold up?

Sadly, it is the elephant in the room; Mineral Rights.

Capitalism, will eventually rear its ugly head on this one. We know there's water, as well as salts, metals, He3.... With the amount of clout Corporations have, and the number of 'elected representative' they've put into office, we won't be going to the moon until the powers that be have sorted it all out in the back room. Altruism, and space exploration for the benefit of mankind is on the down swing. Economics, by way of profits, has been god for a while now, and isn't going to falter into that dark abyss anytime soon.

The adventurer in me, wants and knows we should be up there traipsing on the moon as I type. The realist in me knows it won't happen for at least a decade, regardless of what else is discovered.

Re:Whats the hold up

[Leafheart]

from the darkside?

Re:Whats the hold up

[BlackSnake112]

I still say the far side of the moon would be the best place to have a base that we Earthlings would not be able to see.

Re:Whats the hold up

[Monkeedude1212]

What about Cheaper mission costs if shuttles can be assembled on the moon and then launched from there with low orbit?

I mean, by your logic, the ISS is a complete waste of time and money, yet we still did it. Why would we back down from terrible Ideas NOW?

Re:Whats the hold up

[Phoenixlol]

Plus i MIGHT not be able to hear my neighbor's trunk thundering my house with bass from there

Re:Whats the hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

Pointless? That's pretty much the reason you don't design interplanetary vehicles. :) Go and look at the space shuttle. Now look at the space shuttle compared to the size of the fuel tanks needed to lift it into orbit. I'll wait. Hell I'll even give you a link. http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/history/shuttle-mir/multimedia/photos/sts-79/79p-065.jpg Notice anything? The space shuttle is pretty small compared to all the fuel required to break orbit isn't it? The fuel required to leave moon orbit is astronomically smaller than the fuel required to leave earth orbit. Setting up a manned moon base would be the first step into real interplanetary travel. Your quip that it is "exceedingly expensive" is laughable when you look at how much money the US wastes daily on war and other negative influences to humanity.

Re:Whats the hold up

[whois_drek]

There's nothing worth "getting" at the Lagrange points, or geosynchronous orbit, or any number of places. That doesn't mean it's not worth going there.

Re:Whats the hold up

[khallow]

That was a pretty ignorant post on He3 mining due to the exaggerated cost estimate, lack of local manufacture, and ignorance of other materials found in lunar regolith.

Even if it does require half a million tons of equipment, that equipment can be made on the Moon rather than launched from Earth at $40k or even $4k per ton. Also it's worth noting that current GDP contribution from natural gas and electricity in the US is somewhere around $200 billion dollars. If you can get the overall fusion power infrastructure including lunar mining to under say, a couple of trillion dollars, then you could switch over the US electricity and heating infrastructure completely to lunar-fueled fusion power. My view is that this mining infrastructure could probably be made and deployed for hundreds of billions of dollars *or less* once manufacture is established on the Moon.

Finally other materials than merely He3 are present. You'd have platinum group metals which would in the presence of significant lunar launch infrastructure be worth exporting to Earth. Rare earths of high enough value might be present in sufficient quantity to extract. Any activity off of Earth would be closer to the Moon in terms of delta v than Earth. So it'd start making sense to launch common materials like glass, iron, oxygen, aluminum, titanium, etc from the Moon rather than from Earth. From this site, it estimates:

Since about 100 million tons of regolith must be heated to about 1400 deg. F to get one ton of helium 3; 4000 tons of hydrogen; 2800 tons of helium 4; 10,000 tons of nitrogen; 20,000 tons of carbon and 54,000 tons of sulfur will also be obtained.

All of these would be byproducts of such a vast mining operation. Revenue from this operation would be more than just He3.

Re:Whats the hold up

[dkleinsc]

We all know that the reason to have a moon base is to build a libertarian utopia.

Some actual serious reasons:
1. We'd get off this rock for more than a quick visit. If you're looking at major achievements of humanity, I'd think that would definitely rank somewhere significant.
2. Because we'd be off this rock, we'd have a good environment to test handling that sort of thing from an engineering standpoint, with the possibility of a much more manageable return if something were to go wrong. Important questions like "how do we handle the issue of solar radiation", "Can we grow enough plants in controlled environments to sustain an off-Earth colony", and so forth.
3. Heck, I'd pay good money to walk on the moon.

In short, this sort of thing isn't about making cash, it's about taking yet another small step for mankind. Yes, that requires looking past your lifetime, but that doesn't mean it's not worth doing.

Water is good news. I'm sure there's going to be lots of water reclamation equipment for any base we do end up building, but having external sources of water is a definite plus.

Re:Whats the hold up

[Hurricane78]

Yeah! Don't first ask what the actual point is! Go!
We can always make up a reason for it, when we're there.

</sarcasm>

Re:Whats the hold up

[Abcd1234]

What about Cheaper mission costs if shuttles can be assembled on the moon and then launched from there with low orbit?

Yes, because that's *so* much cheaper than just building them in orbit. Yes, let's ferry all those materials hundreds of thousands of miles to the moon and then sink them in another gravity well... that'll be *so* much better.

Re:Whats the hold up

[skine]

I'm more afraid of being scrooched by Gidney and Cloyd.

Though we may be safe as long as NASA never get their hands on the Mooseberry fudge cake recipe.

Re:Whats the hold up

[pwfffff]

Moon base, Earth bass; what's the difference?

Re:Whats the hold up

[StikyPad]

It's better for us as a society to try new things than to be paralyzed in debate over cost/benefit analysis.

A base on the moon is a good interim step, learning to crawl before we walk, and while it may not have any known payoffs in material gains, the increased knowledge will be priceless. Further, it's a lot easier to resupply and make significant changes on the moon than on a distant planet.

There's a reason we test designs on earth as much as possible before we launch them, and it's the same reason we should be testing designs for human habitation on the moon before we try them elsewhere.

Unless you think there's no point in exploration period, which ignores the entirety of human history and a good portion of its technological advances.

Re:Whats the hold up

[Monkeedude1212]

Supposedly it would be - or thats what people on /. have said before (though thats hardly a reliable source). Because the Moon's Gravity is so much lower than Earth's, it'd be SO much cheaper to launch a LONG RANGE shuttle from there (say, one past mars), that the cost of sending a simple cargo run to the moon is less than the amount you'd save.

Re:Whats the hold up

[Abcd1234]

That was a pretty ignorant post on He3 mining due to the exaggerated cost estimate, lack of local manufacture, and ignorance of other materials found in lunar regolith.

Given that the moon is composed of largely the same minerals as those on earth, you'd have to massively deplete our terrestrial resources before mining the moon became even *remotely* cost effective.

Even if it does require half a million tons of equipment, that equipment can be made on the Moon rather than launched from Earth at $40k or even $4k per ton.

Uh... from what, exactly? Or do you plan to bootstrap and entire manufacturing sector on the moon and *then* start mining He3?

If you can get the overall fusion power infrastructure including lunar mining to under say, a couple of trillion dollars, then you could switch over the US electricity and heating infrastructure completely to lunar-fueled fusion power. My view is that this mining infrastructure could probably be made and deployed for hundreds of billions of dollars *or less* once manufacture is established on the Moon.

Wait wait... let me get this straight. *If* you can build a fusion power infrastructure *and* lunar mining, including an *entire manufacturing base on the moon*, for under a *couple of trillion dollars*, a moonbase is suddenly worthwhile?

Wow. That's a really convincing argument, there. ::rollseyes::

Or we could just get Hydrogen-Boron fusion working, which runs at lower temperatures, and uses materials easily available on earth.

But you're right. I'm sure your idea is much better.

All of these would be byproducts of such a vast mining operation. Revenue from this operation would be more than just He3.

None of which is worth the cost of retrieval. All are exceedingly common, save for helium, which, conveniently, is a by-product of H-H fusion, and so if we ever did manage to develop controlled fusion, we could just make it ourselves.

Re:Whats the hold up

[rockNme2349]

Whoa hey man, keep your voice down.

Re:Whats the hold up

[mi]

there is *nothing* on the moon worth getting

Your statement may prove similar, to Bill Gates' famous predictions regarding 640k memory... How do you know, for the Moon does not have expensive commodities to mine? It is hardly explored — up until recently, we didn't even know, there is water on its surface!

You are lacking imagination... How about vacation-destination for those, who want to experience five times lower gravity? How about retirement homes for people, too frail to move on their own on Earth — they may be able to dance on the Moon? Technics may appear exploiting the low gravity for therapies for, say, spine-injuries (such as when a person needs to re-learn, how to walk). Barring major world-conflicts, we might be able to have all or some of that within 40-60 years.

Lower gravity may also allow for some new manufacturing methods... You name it...

So, medicine, novelty, mining, manufacturing, what else? Oh, science! What will the scientists, able to dig a space body literally under their feet, be able to find out about Space in general, and Solar System in particular? What discoveries — some of them even with prompt practical applications — await?

Re:Whats the hold up

[Toonol]

It's a far better staging point for interplanetary launches than Earth is. Not as good as high orbit, but a large moon base may be arguably more practical and economical than a large orbital base.

Re:Whats the hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because that's *so* much cheaper than just building them in orbit. Yes, let's ferry all those materials hundreds of thousands of miles to the moon and then sink them in another gravity well... that'll be *so* much better.

If a small nuclear reactor has a mass of 100 tonnes, a spaceship has a mass of 50 tonnes, and the fuel required to launch from the Moon to Mars weighs 500 tonnes, it's a hell of a lot cheaper to land a reactor on the Moon, launch the spaceship from Earth, land it (empty) on the Moon, and fuel it there.

If you're doing going to Mars from earth orbit, you've gotta haul 5000 tonnes of fuel out of Earth's gravity well for every flight.

If you're launching from Luna, you pay the 5000-tonne penalty once from Earth orbit to Luna, but the rest of the fuel's effectively free, and you're burning it in 500-tonne increments, not 5000-tonne increments.

Re:Whats the hold up

[khallow]

I didn't consider any of your other points interesting. If I build hundreds of billions of dollars in lunar infrastructure, then it's a safe bet that I'll develop considerable lunar manufacture. And I wouldn't make such an investment unless corresponding Earth sources either were depleted or didn't exist (as in the case of Helium 3) in adequate quantities in the first place.

Or we could just get Hydrogen-Boron fusion working, which runs at lower temperatures, and uses materials easily available on earth.

This is a killer and one of the big problems now for anything coming from space. Namely, why go to space to get something, if there's an easier, cheaper Earthside solution? I was under the impression that proton-boron fusion was harder than helium3-helium3 fusion, but that doesn't turn out to be the case (an interview with Richard Nebel on the Polywell fusion prototype project which he heads).

Question: Assuming a Polywell demonstrator works in say 3-10 years, would a developed reactor be able to burn 3He/3He, or does Polywell's performance "max out" with p/11B?

Answer: We looked at 3He/3He and concluded that the fusion reactivity was just too low. (The characteristics of 3He/3He (cross section, reactivity, Lawson criterion) are at least an order of magnitude below those for p/11B.)

You still have deuterium-helium3 which is easier (in terms of temperature and Lawson criterion), but that's less aneutronic than hydrogen-boron (due to the presence of deuterium-deuterium fusion which generates a neutron 50% of the time it occurs).

Re:Whats the hold up

[Snarkalicious]

The value of experience and exploration is not judged from the present, holmes. We build the first one on the moon so we learn as many of the painful lessons up front as we can, in a location that's relatively easy to access. In an emergency, we might get there in time to save staff or salvage something. Even in the event of a toal loss, gathering evidence of cause is a crap load easier than it would be if we built elsewhere. Water or no, the moon may be a worthless rock. But it's a close worthless rock we can make good use of.

Re:Whats the hold up

[Dr. Evil]

China has something to prove, so they'll probably be next.

The space race was always politics. When the cold war ended, there was no more tech race. There never was any altruism, except on the part of the scientists, astronauts/cosmonauts.

Re:Whats the hold up

[camperdave]

Let's see:

1. Haul the Long Range shuttle from Earth into orbit.
2. Lower it down to the moon
3. Haul the food/water/oxygen/science payloads into orbit
4. Lower them down to the moon
5. Haul the fuel into orbit
6. Lower it down to the moon
7. Load the shuttle
8. Launch everything back into orbit
9. Be on your merry way

1. Haul the Long Range shuttle from Earth into orbit.
2. Haul the food/water/oxygen/science payloads into orbit
3. Haul the fuel into orbit
4. Load the shuttle
5. Be on your merry way

See, the thing is, in order to launch something from the Moon, that thing has to get to the Moon first.

Re:Whats the hold up

[Monkeedude1212]

Except thats not how we do things - we do not Put a shuttle in orbit, then give it payload, then give it fuel. We put all that in the shuttle at once, and launch it from Earth.

For a far away mission, each piece of weight you add to the shuttle makes it that much harder to break Earths Gravity, requiring more fuel, which is also adding more weight.

So the benefit of launching from the Moon is that Sending 8 trips of 1/8th the fuel cost to the moon (and assembling it there) and then launching is going to be less fuel costly than trying to send the full 8 parts in 1 piece from Earth.

Re:Whats the hold up

[dvice_null]

Can't we use materials that exist on the moon instead of sending them from Earth? We could probably dig some tunnels there and live under the ground, safe from the radiation. Solar panels, lights, plants, water, air. We could bring microchips, perhaps some plastics from earth, get the metals and fuel from the Moon. Also having a colony there wouldn't hurt human kind.

Re:Whats the hold up

[The Grim Reefer2]

In short, this sort of thing isn't about making cash, it's about taking yet another small step for mankind. Yes, that requires looking past your lifetime, but that doesn't mean it's not worth doing.

I totally agree with you, unfortunately until you figure out how this can be used to win in the next election cycle it's just not going to happen any time soon.

Re:Whats the hold up

[Tetsujin]

Can't we use materials that exist on the moon instead of sending them from Earth? We could probably dig some tunnels there and live under the ground, safe from the radiation. Solar panels, lights, plants, water, air. We could bring microchips, perhaps some plastics from earth, get the metals and fuel from the Moon. Also having a colony there wouldn't hurt human kind.

It's hard to imagine any kind of mining operation on the moon being economically viable at this point in time. For what we'd have to pay (and you can think of this as a cost of "money" or of "energy" - the two concepts are equivalent to some degree) to send work crews (robotic or human) to the moon, provide them with necessary supplies, maintain them... extract the raw materials, refine them, turn them into a useful form... Sending rockets up periodically to resupply them... At the present time it would simply be far cheaper to build what we need here. Even if you figure in the cost of launching that built equipment from Earth instead of from the Moon, the benefits of not stretching our supply chain to (or beyond) practical limits during the preparatory phase of an interplanetary expedition make up for any extra cost of launching from Earth.

Re:Whats the hold up

[Tetsujin]

What's the hold up?

Sadly, it is the elephant in the room; Mineral Rights.

Bah! Small potatoes, I tell you...

There's sovereignty at stake. Remember the Larkin decision?

Re:Whats the hold up

[Dhrakar]

Plus, we can also have a large radio telescope that is shielded by the moon itself from all the stuff we broadcast on Earth. Not only that, but just the knowledge that we have people living and working on the moon may be enough to get folks to remember that there is more to this existence than just grubbing around in the mud.

Re:Whats the hold up

[grayshirtninja]

Once you're in orbit you're halfway to anywhere.

Re:Whats the hold up

[geekoid]

Science, deep mission launches, tourists, exploration, experience in space habitation, robotic testing ground, and so on.

of course, there are the whalers:
" we're Whalers On The Moon, we Carry A Harpoon, for They Ain't No Whales so We Tell Tall Tales.."

Re:Whats the hold up

[turbidostato]

"he benefit of launching from the Moon is that Sending 8 trips of 1/8th the fuel cost to the moon (and assembling it there) and then launching is going to be less fuel costly than trying to send the full 8 parts in 1 piece from Earth."

Last I looked gravitational field was a conservative one so I say bullshit to that.

Re:Whats the hold up

[geekoid]

It would be cheaper, and easier. The moon has some gravity;which makes assembly much easier.

Since the moon has water, the can create fuel right there and nt ahve to carry very much of the earth, but in orbit they have to take up all the fuel the will need.

Maybe you should think this through?

Re:Whats the hold up

[geekoid]

You're missing a very critical point:
There is water ON THE MOON. we can make fuel there and not need to haul it off the earth, and it is easir to build something on a surface with some a gravity.

Re:Whats the hold up

[relguj9]

Launch platform too.. I'd imagine that launching a rocket off of the moon would cost much less fuel than launching one from Earth and that it would be easier to maintain a sustainable base on the moon than floating in space. You could probably also construct and launch a much heavier Mars exploratory craft from parts shipped to a moon base than you could from Earth.

These things would be expensive, but if we had a sustainable / expanding base there it would get cheaper and easier over time.

Re:Whats the hold up

[camperdave]

A source of water provides a much bigger gain than merely being a source of something to drink (and breathe). It can be used as propellant. Propellant is everything in space travel. You need roughly ten kilos of propellant for every kilo you launch into orbit from Earth. For the trip to Mars, you would need: propellant to do the Earth-Mars transit, propellant to enter into Mars orbit, propellant to descend to the Martian surface, propellant to ascend back into Mars orbit, propellant for the return transit, and propellant to re-enter Earth orbit. Every kilo of all that propellant needs to be launched from the Earth, and it'll take ten kilos of propellant each to do it. Altogether, to return a tonne of stuff from the surface of Mars (astronauts and such), may cost you a hundred tonnes of propellant.

Now, if you had a source of propellant in orbit around Mars already, then you wouldn't need to cart the descent fuel, the ascent fuel, and the return trip fuel with you. Suddenly, instead of a 100:1 ratio, you're down to a 50:1. That means either the ability to use much less fuel to launch the same cargo, or the ability to launch much more cargo with the same amount of fuel.

Suppose you found a rich source of water, enough to make a million kg of propellant. The equipment needed to process that water: to filter it, and electrolyze it, and compress the gasses into liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, plus the tanks to store it in, may weigh less than the fuel required to get a million kg of fuel from Earth to the same point. Suppose we find an asteroid with a couple of trillion kilograms of water. It's fairly cheap, propellant wise, to ferry stuff from the asteroid belt to where it would be handy.

Re:Whats the hold up

[WindBourne]

Nothing except for possibly lots of Uranium/Plutonium for use in space exploration, Rare Earth minerals (which may causes wars/world war to be started in the next 5 years), the ability to launch a number of sats at high speeds cheaply, a new tourist location for Billionaire (who would then fund a lot of this), New Robotics that come back to Earth and on to mars, the ability to test equipment prior to sending to mars, the ability to put lasers, rods from gods, etc if needed, or even better yet, stop others from doing it, etc, etc, etc.

BUT, hey, it is silly waste of resource to the idiots that think that they will solve all of the World's need by focusing HERE. Right?

Re:Whats the hold up

[jfdawes]

None of which is worth the cost of retrieval.

Except for one thing. If you want to build an infrastructure in space, getting materials off the moon is far cheaper than getting the same materials off Earth. If you're planning on a large enough infrastructure, spending a couple of trillion on moon mines may become the smart thing to do.

Re:Whats the hold up

[DerekLyons]

there is *nothing* on the moon worth getting

Your statement may prove similar, to Bill Gates' famous predictions regarding 640k memory... How do you know, for the Moon does not have expensive commodities to mine?

Because we know A) the cost of materials on Earth, and B) the cost it takes to get materials back from the Moon. Comparing 'A' to 'B' one discovers that there is not one single material on Earth whose cost 'A' isn't a fraction of its cost 'B'. There could be a cubic mile of gold in LEO (which is an order of magnitude cheaper to get to and from then the Moon), and even if were already broken up into 10kg chunks so that all you have to do is shovel it into your spacecraft... you'd go broke mining it.
 
We don't have to know what's there when we know that there's no possible substance that can pay its own way.
 
 

You are lacking imagination... How about vacation-destination for those, who want to experience five times lower gravity? How about retirement homes for people, too frail to move on their own on Earth -- they may be able to dance on the Moon? Technics may appear exploiting the low gravity for therapies for, say, spine-injuries (such as when a person needs to re-learn, how to walk).

Imagining things is trivially easy. And pretty much meaningless. In the real world, numbers matter - and the numbers say "no way José" The costs of space travel would have to drop by four or five orders of magnitude before any of that becomes barely affordable for Bill Gates and others of his financial stature, and another couple of orders of magnitude before John Q Upperclasspublic can afford it, and yet another couple before Joe Punchclock can even dream of it.
 
Barring some hitherto unforseen 'killer app' or government investment on the order of the entire national budget for the next couple of decades - that nine to ten orders of magnitude drop simply isn't happening.

Re:Whats the hold up

[apoc.famine]

The moon is NOT "composed of largely the same minerals as those on earth". It's got far less metals and useful stuff than earth. As far as we can tell, the moon is the splashed-off surface of the earth, after an impact with another body.
 
The heavy, useful stuff like metal didn't really make it to the moon in any good quantity - it's mostly the lighter silica that the upper crust is made up of. Recall that most of our metals come from mines - those holes which go deep into the ground.
 
If you want to make glass and ceramics, maybe the moon would be an ok source for materials. But for anything else, it's terrible.

Re:Whats the hold up

[Idiomatick]

I imagine a lunar space elevator is feasible using today's technology.

The vast bulk of the materials would be on the moon (fuel and coarse structural components can be produced on the moon). Spaceships need not be so sturdy if they don't crash into thick atmospheres. Specialty parts would be produced on earth and shipped up to low lunar orbit. Manufacturing of a lunar space elevator and bulky parts could be done on the moon. They would be shipped up to Lmo by the elevator.

The neat thing about this is that if the ship is never intended to go to earth we can pick w/e the fuck size we wish. If we want one that's big enough for 5,000 people the cost scales much more nicely than a ship made on earth.

Re:Whats the hold up

[mi]

The costs of space travel would have to drop by four or five orders of magnitude before any of that becomes barely affordable for Bill Gates and others of his financial stature, and another couple of orders of magnitude before

Low-ranking millionaires can already go to the Space Station — one at a time. If the costs drop simply by 5-10 times (or did you mean binary orders of magnitude), it will not be unfeasible for a group of such people to travel to the Moon — getting on and off that rock is much easier, than Earth.

before John Q Upperclasspublic can afford it

I put my estimate at 40-60 years, and I'm sticking to it.

Re:Whats the hold up

[Idiomatick]

"regardless of what else is discovered."

Bin Laden?

Re:Whats the hold up

[StikyPad]

We don't explore because of what we know we'll find -- that's expansion or migration -- we explore because we *don't* know what we'll find.

The only valid question is whether we should use men or machines. Machines are robust and don't require life support, but they can't fix themselves, and for the most part, they can only do what they were intentionally designed to do. They cannot make decisions about unexpected events, although we don't particularly care if they die.

Additionally, people like to see and experience things for themselves. It's all well and good to record a video of a ride on a roller coaster, but it's a poor substitute for the real thing. Space tourism, including trips to the moon, may well be a huge industry in the future, but it can't exist absent a supporting infrastructure. Maybe you don't think that should be a role of NASA, but again, governments have been creating infrastructure and funding exploration since the beginning of recorded history, so it's not exactly without precedent.

Finally, the costs are relatively minimal. As a percent of Federal spending, NASA's budget is just over 0.5%. If your monthly expenses were $2,000, then NASA's budget would represent about $10 of that. So *even if* you were right, in that the only reason to go is for the cool factor, then that's a pretty good bargain to be cool. My poop costs more than that to make, and *nobody* thinks that's cool.

Re:Whats the hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming the rockets are just as efficient, it would cost the same amount of fuel (8*1==1*8). However, you're ignoring the cost of getting the pieces down to the moon (1/6th) and back up again (another 1/6th). So, for a moon launch, you're talking 8*1+8*(1/6)+1*(8/6)==10.6666... vs 8 for a launch from Earth.

When you're sailing from New York to London, it doesn't make sense to sail to Montego Bay first.

Re:Whats the hold up

[hazem]

Your point about the composition of the moon makes sense, but your citing mines going deep doesn't.

The deepest mine is about 4km, and compared to the Earth's diameter of 12.7k km, that's not very deep. To scrape enough mass off the surface of the Earth to make the moon, you'd probably be going deeper than most mines.

However, I suspect that while there are rich veins of metal in the surface of the Earth, most of the metal is below the surface, in the mantle and the core. But none of our mines go anywhere near that deep.

Re:Whats the hold up

[hazem]

Or even large optical telescopes. Imagine if the lens could be manufactured on the moon, you could build a telescope much larger than any orbiting platform could support.

Plus, there's just the engineering solutions that would have to be invented and developed to even support any kind of settlement on the moon.

There are huge potentials for exciting new technologies and knowledge available when you start working out how to live and work on the moon.

I just hope I live long enough to spend some time there.

Re:Whats the hold up

[DerekLyons]

Low-ranking millionaires can already go to the Space Station -- one at a time.

If I need to point out to that visiting a station in LEO where someone else is paying the bills is quite different than visiting a place that is not only more expensive to get to, but you're paying the bills to boot... There is no no sense in continuing this conversation. You haven't the background to be able to comprehend it.

Re:Whats the hold up

[R3d M3rcury]

"Even if you figure in the cost of launching that built equipment from Earth instead of from the Moon, the benefits of not stretching our supply chain to (or beyond) practical limits during the preparatory phase of an interplanetary expedition make up for any extra cost of launching from Earth."

Personally, I'm not all that interested in an "interplanetary expedition" just yet.

One of the big questions is, "Why should we have a manned space program--or any space program at all? Why send men when we can send robots cheaper, easier, and safer?" Now we all have our etherial answers about the good of mankind and science and propagating the species and yadda yadda yadda. And all that is well and good. But I think it would far better serve our purpose to get some people living and doing work in space. And not just scientific work but the kind of work that Joe Sixpack can understand--building stuff.

There are great reasons to launch rockets from the moon rather than from Earth. One of the ones I bring up over and over is the fact that you can use things like nuclear propulsion without necessarily worrying about what happens if the rocket fails. Everybody's afraid to lift uranium out of the atmosphere--"What happens if the rocket blows up?!? We'll all die!!" Well, there's uranium on the moon. As has been said over and over, chemical propulsion isn't going to get us where we want to go.

The idea of going to the Moon should be to stay there. Lots of useful stuff to build things with. Less gravity which is good for launching stuff, but not so much less that normal operations are hindered (as I've said in other posts, if you drop a screw it falls on the ground--it doesn't go floating off).

When we have done this, we can build the ship that will transport explorers to Mars on the Moon.

Re:Whats the hold up

[physburn]

But it would be so COOL to have a base there. A moon base might be pointless from the view point of the earths physical economy. It would be very good for a space based economy, since with sun-light, water, and moon rock, would provide a near self substaining lunar economy (might be carbon short), that would provide cheaper earth satallites and fuel for exploring the rest of the solar system. From a science point of view, the far side of the moon, is a great place to put an observatory, optical, infrared or radio waves. Provided water is in polar Lunar craters in the gigaton quantities, it becames the source of cheap rocket fuel for the rest of the solar system. Finally until the human race are not limited to living from just one planet we have a very real risk of permant extinction, and that should be motivation enough to colonize the planets, even if it wasn't for the excitment and cultral stimulation to the earth human.

---

Space Craft Feed @ Feed Distiller

Re:Whats the hold up

[WindBourne]

Because we know A) the cost of materials on Earth, and B) the cost it takes to get materials back from the Moon. Comparing 'A' to 'B' one discovers that there is not one single material on Earth whose cost 'A' isn't a fraction of its cost 'B'. There could be a cubic mile of gold in LEO (which is an order of magnitude cheaper to get to and from then the Moon), and even if were already broken up into 10kg chunks so that all you have to do is shovel it into your spacecraft... you'd go broke mining it.
We don't have to know what's there when we know that there's no possible substance that can pay its own way. Of course, you picked an element that is actually pretty plentiful on earth. Instead, pick something that MIGHT suddenly be hard to obtain; Namely a number of the rare earths. A number of these are already difficult to find and about the best location is in CHina. And china just recently forbid them to be exported. The more rare and the less that they they will allow exporting. That means that a number of these will go up in price. Not, this low price like Gold. MUCH MUCH MUCH higher. And these are showing increasingly to be important for Electronics as well as Alternative energy.
Basically, China is trying hard to corner the future.
That is the kind of action that leads to wars.

To prevent that, we need to locate these. One POSSIBLE smart source would be the moon. Others might be asteroids. The smart leaders will realize this and push to explore into space (along with more of the planet). Sadly, far too many ppl LACK imagination for what can happen. I have to say that Imagine that as we get fewer nukes, we have a higher likelihood of multiple wars. Hell, W/neo-cons invaded/occupied Iraq for OIL, and that is very plentiful item.

Re:Whats the hold up

[4181]

A source of water provides a much bigger gain than merely being a source of something to drink (and breathe).

Waterboarding at 0.16G? Will Malia Obama's 2048 presidential campaign include a promise of closing down the Cabeus Crater Detention Facility?

Re:Whats the hold up

[DerekLyons]

Of course, you picked an element that is actually pretty plentiful on earth. Instead, pick something that MIGHT suddenly be hard to obtain; Namely a number of the rare earths.

I picked gold because it's a material most are likely to be familiar with. But it really doesn't matter what element you pick - there isn't one single element who terrestrial price isn't a small fraction of what it would cost to haul out of orbit, let alone mine it on the moon. None. Zip. Zero. Nada.
 

A number of these are already difficult to find and about the best location is in CHina. And china just recently forbid them to be exported. The more rare and the less that they they will allow exporting. That means that a number of these will go up in price. Not, this low price like Gold. MUCH MUCH MUCH higher.

When prices get around a quarter of a million dollars a pound, then lunar mining becomes attractive. Not practical or economical, just worth starting to think about
 
Of course, at that price - practically anything manufactured with them will be unaffordable.
 

Sadly, far too many ppl LACK imagination for what can happen.

Ah yes, the penultimate argument - I simply am not imagining hard enough. Well, in that you are utterly and completely wrong, I can imagine just fine. What I don't do is confuse imagination with the real world.

Re:Whats the hold up

[Nathrael]

Build a mass driver on the moon and there you go - the ultimate way to ensure *nobody* is ever going to attack you, as despite all the missile interception technology you can come up with, it'll be a long time 'till you can shield yourself against a deadly barrage of big, fat asteroids raining down from the sky. Forget about nukes.

Of course, it would also be useful for more peaceful purposes. Before setting up a base on Mars, it would be quite useful to build a base on the moon to test everything and maybe discover something new that'd help as well.

Re:Whats the hold up

[WindBourne]

I picked gold because it's a material most are likely to be familiar with. But it really doesn't matter what element you pick - there isn't one single element who terrestrial price isn't a small fraction of what it would cost to haul out of orbit, let alone mine it on the moon. None. Zip. Zero. Nada.
That is changing RIGHT NOW thanks to China.
When a company does a fraction of these actions, it leads to monopoly charges against them. When a nation does this, it leads to wars.

Rare Earth is interesting in that only VERY SMALL AMOUNTS are needed. VERY SMALL AMOUNTS. For example, the prius uses 2 KG. Western Missiles use only grams. BUT, you will go NOWHERE without these elements esp. if China DOES establish the strangle hold that they are working hard towards.

Ah yes, the penultimate argument - I simply am not imagining hard enough. Well, in that you are utterly and completely wrong, I can imagine just fine. What I don't do is confuse imagination with the real world.
Oddly, I was not thinking of you. I was thinking of world leaders. BUT, I do have to say that I believe that you have blinders on. You speak of the costs of various things TODAY. Yet you ignore the history of discovering new places by nations. For example, China explored all the way up to the southern tip of South Africa and subsequently colonized all of Africa and Europe. Right? Likewise, the Vikings colonized all of Greenland and the Americas since they 'discovered' it first. Right? Nope. Both were by done by entities that said that we do not need this now and withdrew. In fact, the Chinese explorers hit the southern edge of Africa and were ordered back by their emperors. The world would be vastly different today had they allowed support for such exploration for just another 2 years. This world would have been colonized by China, and that means all of Europe. As it is, Europe is the one that did all the conquering and created the world that we have today.

Re:Whats the hold up

[wisdom_brewing]

what about... all of the above other than just launch a solar panel array, a small water extraction plant an electrolysis plant and a compression plant.

you have water, you have abundant sunlight, you now have loads of hydrogen and oxygen in a much "cheaper" gravity well that can now be used for fuel for any missions...

is it just me or would this be a fantastic saving given how difficult it is to currently get fuel into orbit?

Re:Whats the hold up

[lena_10326]

• Research: The dark side of the moon is the most quiet nearby location for interstellar telescopes. Quiet means seeing much further into space.
• Population Size: A space station has a very limited maximum sustainable population size. The moon would support much larger populations.
• Comfort: If you are manufacturing worker, where would you rather spend 10 years? A tiny cramped space station with no gravity and a very small population available for social life? Or, the moon where there is open space, room for green houses large enough to contain entire parks with trees and meadows, large buildings, gravity, a variety of recreational activities, and a much larger population? Which option do you think will let you take your spouse and kids along? Unless you're a high ranking official, definitely not the space station. A lifestyle similar to a lifestyle on Earth is achievable on the moon--but not in a space station. Do you realize how important little things become over time like being able to bath normally? Many things you take for granted are not possible in zero gravity.
• Safety: A moonbase is safe from solar flares and radiation bursts from space if covered with moon soil or made with thick walls. A fixed pressurized structure is MUCH safer than a pressurized tin can in space. Which will hold up better against space debree traveling at 20,000 mph? Space docking is dangerous to two vehicles. Moon landing is dangerous to one. Less risk when ships arrive.
• Quarantine: People get sick. Where do you quarantine them on a space station? There's lots of room on the moon for that scenario.
• Permanency: It's easier to setup a self-sufficient colony on the moon rather than a space station because many raw materials are available locally: metals, water, oxygen, fuel, silica, concrete, etc.
• Maintenance: Space stations need constant course corrections which requires fuel. A base on the moon does not.
• Stockpiling: Where would you rather store your stockpiles of fragile goods? In space blasted by radiation or in an underground moon bunker?
• Mining: It'll be cheaper to mine for metals and building materials on the moon and lift them into orbit using locally made rockets using locally refined fuel for building massive space stations.
• Land Grab: Ignoring the landmass of 4 United States for colonization and exploration would be stupid. If we don't claim it, someone else will (the Chinese).
• Tourism: room for hotels, ability to wear wings and fly indoors, craters and caverns to explore, amazing views, etc.

Re:Whats the hold up

[DerekLyons]

The prices to mine the moon remain astronomical no matter what China does. So you can stow you fear mongering. It's disconnected from the real world.
 
Insofar as 'imagination' goes, same deal. Fear mongering and smoke blowing disconnected from reality.

Re:Whats the hold up

[Dollyknot]

I wrote this for another place on the 'net but thought your comment deserved a copy for /.

The high cost to the human race's colonisation of space, is caused by the complexity and danger of reaching escape velocity within the atmosphere, whilst lifting the fuel with which this is achieved from the surface of the earth.

There is another route, we can reach the edge of space safely and relatively cheaply no problem, Burt Rutan proved this with 'Space Ship One' when he won the 'X' prize by reaching over 100 km high, twice in one week.

My idea is, to create rocket fuel on the moon by splitting the water discovered there, into oxygen and hydrogen using solar energy, then use that rocket fuel to fuel a space tug, place the space tug in orbit around the earth, slow down the space tug using moon fuel, attach the space tug to 'Space Ship One' then using the space tug, accelerate the whole kit and caboodle from the edge of space, to escape velocity and orbit, safely in the vacuum of space.

The moon is the door to the solar system.

If we can control robots millions of miles away on mars, I'm fairly sure we could control water extraction plants on the moon.

Another potential source of rocket fuel on the moon, is the large amounts of aluminium present in moon rock, aluminium burns in the presence of oxygen, moon rock is around 40% oxygen.

Re:Whats the hold up

[camperdave]

launch the spaceship from Earth, land it (empty) on the Moon, and fuel it there.

Why penalize yourself by landing on the moon? This is what I don't get. Leave the frelling ship in orbit, and just ship the fuel up to it.

Re:Whats the hold up

[cdavidneely]

BUT, hey, it is silly waste of resource to the idiots that think that they will solve all of the World's need by focusing HERE. Right?

No, its a waste of resources to those of us who know that we can't solve our problems by leaving. We will just be carrying our problems with us by pretending the solution is out there somewhere. This insane and continuous focus on other there instead of in here. Moving into space will not alleviate greed, it will not alleviate over-population. It will not alleviate the wasting of resources or the pollution of our living spaces. It will simply allow us to go somewhere else and do the same thing to some other place.

Re:Alright...

[Alcohol Fueled]

I, for one, welcome our new drunken Moon landing alien overlords. :)?

Re:Oblig

[Conchobair]

My humor tastes are too dry for your water puns.

Drill baby drill!

[eln]

So now we need to get up there with some drilling equipment and figure out if there's actually water beneath the surface or if the only water on the moon is trace amounts leftover from the occasional comet impact.

Re:Drill baby drill!

[ianmkz]

This is clearly a non-renewable resource - the paltry accumulation of billions of years of comet strikes. I'm sure you'll agree that it should be declared a protected area. I'm sure...

Re:Drill baby drill!

[khallow]

Yea, yea. The exploitation of this water must be protected. That only makes sense.

Re:Drill baby drill!

[Rei]

If you do the math, there's not much water there. A crater ~80 feet by ~13 feet, and the plume only showed evidence for about 25 gallons of water. That's ~150ppm. Better than the ppb quantities that were previously known, mind you...

Re:Drill baby drill!

[apoc.famine]

That's a good point. And for that sort of water, how much ACTUAL water could you send up in place of the industry needed to extract it from the soil? Last I knew, water was pretty recyclable.
 
25 tons of machinery to process lunar regolith to extract water, or 25 tons of water? Given how machinery is prone to fail at times, I'd go with the water and an aggressive recycling program. Hell, for the cost of the machinery, you could easily send more water. That stuffs pretty much free on earth. I bet you'd be far better off just sending tanks of water instead of budgeting for the design, testing, shipping, and maintenance of a lunar water extractor.
 
You don't really have to worry about the loss of a rocket filled with water, nor the vibrational and g-force stress on it.

Re:Drill baby drill!

[Idiomatick]

"detected more than 100 kilograms in the part of the plume it observed."

And they couldn't see the vast majority of the plume.

Life and death

[dogmatixpsych]

Where there is water there is life...and death! Death to all who disturb the moon water guardians.

Okay seriously, this is pretty big news. Kudos to NASA for another successful mission!

Re:Wait?

[Chris Burke]

It refuses to account for its location on both November 22, 1963, and on September 11, 2001.

Moonshine

[Conchobair]

Anyone else really want to use this water to make liquor? Even if coke just bottled it, I'd drink some moon water.

Re:Moonshine

[ircmaxell]

The only downside would be the absurdly high price... Imagine a 750ml bottle of Scotch made from Lunar Water(tm), with a price tag of $5.2 Million USD... $500k per ounce... $5k per drop... But I'd bet it'd sell like hotcakes!

Re:Moonshine

[cmiller173]

Given the opportunity, I'd brew a batch of beer with it. Boiling point on the moon is a lot lower though, hop utilization is going horrible. Definitely going to need a pressurized dome for this to work.

Re:Moonshine

[natehoy]

Greetings, Sir or Madam.

I have managed, through sources connected to major aerospace corporation, to collect a small sample of the water of moon and I can assuring you it is both refreshingly also delicious.

Do not listen to the naysayers who undoubtedly assure that such a beverage must be much expensive for the average person can afford! It is most assuredly not that way!

I have decided to assist them in the funding of their next expedition to moon by selling some of water that was returned from the last expedition. The aerospace company is located in small country in southern Africa, so you must comprehend there are bribes and other politics involved extracting an amount for your purchase and enjoyment.

However, I can assure you that the water is pure and safe, ready to drink, and unaltered. Through amazing coincidence, it contains all of the same chemicals found in most spring water, so it is most assuredly beneficial to your consumption use.

If you are interested in such opportunity, please reply soonest and I will arrange to have a sample sent to you. I may need small amount sent in cash, and if sample is of proven quality to you we may further discuss additional quantities.

I await eagerly your reply.

Re:Moonshine

[MBGMorden]

I'm guessing it tastes like . . . . water.

Don't get me wrong I'm sure there would be a hell of a market for the stuff, but despite having tried vodka or bottled water made from glacial water, stream water, tap water, magic water, or any other water you might think of, they all tasted pretty much the same.

The only reason I buy bottled water these days is that it's already conveniently packaged. I go to the gym sometimes (ok, I admit I went every day for the first month after I signed up and more recently have been making it in once or twice per month :D) and it's easy to just grab a bottle of water out the trunk of the car and take it in. The stuff I buy is dirt cheap from Big Lots though. Tastes . . . like water ;).

Re:Moonshine

[Conchobair]

Moon Whiskey would have its own distinct taste to the refined palate. A Scotch connoisseur can tell you what region of Scotland a Scoth comes by the taste. A lot of the the taste comes from the local water used in the distillation process giving Scotches from certain regions distinct tastes.

Re:Moonshine

[MBGMorden]

Which I'll believe as much as a $500 ethernet cable brings out the "subtle nuances" in an MP3 file ;).

What's the point?

[Pro923]

I mean will Lunar Springs really be able to compete in the bottled water sector? Will I be able to choose between filtered and "Some Regolith"?

Re:Alright...

[alexborges]

Man... I wanted the scotch joke.

You nerdy killjoy you....

Re:Oblig

[alexborges]

r-u a-bot?

Re:Alright...

[NotBornYesterday]

Everyone wanted that joke, including the uptight wussies with all the "-1, Overrated" mod points today. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that when we all heard "water" we all thought "Goddammit, it's Friday, where's my scotch?"

Futurama

[Anonymous Coward]

Whales live in water.
There is water on the moon.
Therefor it is reasonable to assume there are whales on the moon.
The lunar whales are likely to be hunted by whalers.
Proving that Futurama is 100% correct and there are whalers on the moon.
They probably carry harpoons.

Re:Alright...

[IrquiM]

Everybody knows that you have to use the same water as the distillery is using to avoid ruining the taste.

It's all gone now.

[nomorecwrd]

, but it is safe to say Cabeus holds water

Or, maybe it did hold water... until the impact.

Mining

[PolarBearFire]

Finally! Something we can mine the Moon for. This will spur space competition to get this valuable resource. I can't wait for my first sip of $10000 Evian Moon Mineral Water.

Re:Mining

[alexborges]

10,000?

Keep dreaming.

At least add another zero per litre on top of that.

Re:Mining

[khallow]

Who said anything about liters? That was a $10,000 sip. It'll probably come in a gold-plated ochoko (sake cup).

Re:Mining

[StikyPad]

Man, someone's going to be *pissed* when they find out their "moon water" actually comes from a tap somewhere in Jersey.

Can we just clarify something?

[wandazulu]

When they say ice and water, are they talking about the stuff you can fill up your canteen and go, or is there something else in it that would make it undrinkable?

I ask because Mars has its ice caps, but as I understand it's just dry-ice (frozen CO2) that would make for an awesome Halloween party effect, but obviously won't sustain any sort of life.

Re:Can we just clarify something?

[Cyberax]

"When they say ice and water, are they talking about the stuff you can fill up your canteen and go, or is there something else in it that would make it undrinkable?"

Plenty. Probably, heavy metals and other inorganic contaminants.

But it should be easy to filter them. Even if you have to break down water to hydrogen and oxygen, it'll still be cheaper than hauling water all the way from the Earth.

Re:Can we just clarify something?

[alexborges]

"but obviously won't sustain any sort of life."

You clearly have never been to Berlin.

Re:Can we just clarify something?

[natehoy]

They have found water, as in H2O, not CO2.

It may or may not be mixed with anything narsty (I'd lean toward "almost certainly does"), and it may or may not exist in sufficient quantities to be useful.

However, this is still a potentially significant discovery. If a future expedition discovers that there's enough water up there, it could make lunar bases easier to build. After all, water is probably the single heaviest thing you'd have to carry up for a lunar base. If a ready supply is already there, that's a big start, even if you have to develop some technologies to scrub the nasties out of it before you can drink it. It's also an important building component if you want to use local materials to, say, build protective walls over your delicate settlement. Lunar adobe brick made of local dirt and local water, for example. Then you wouldn't care what contaminants are in it, as long as it could be used to solidify bricks.

Re:Can we just clarify something?

[nedlohs]

They don't mean dry ice, obviously because they are talking about water.

Re:Can we just clarify something?

[Loomismeister]

They are talking about water ice specifically, as in H2O. There are also a number of other compounds that they found as well.

Re:Can we just clarify something?

[MBGMorden]

It'd require a bit of work before being drinkable, but as other posters have pointed out, water is a specific compound. If they'd said ICE then that is very ambiguous, but the word "water" is quite specific.

Re:Can we just clarify something?

[jhfry]

Better yet... H2O has a great O element... and you can breathe it!

So, suppose you could drill down and hit a well of ice. A bit of solar energy pumped into that frozen mass yields liquid water, a bit more gives hydrogen and oxygen. Now you have fuel (fire) and air and water. Earth will be the tough element to obtain. I don't imagine that moon soil is all that good for planting, and most plants need nitrogen that may not be easy to come by on the moon.

Either way... water far more valuable when you realize that its not just water but O and H too.

Re:Can we just clarify something?

[natehoy]

Good point.

I'm not so sure about the "fire" bit, since burning Hydrogen for fuel requires recombination with Oxygen, so you're back to square one with less energy than you started with in solar energy to start with...

But it is efficient storage, so you could H2 and O2 tanks to fuel your vehicles, for example, and only have to have one mother of a huge solar array to collect the energy necessary to make it...

Re:Can we just clarify something?

[jhfry]

Actually thats exactly what I was thinking... sure you need to supply O to the equation to burn the H... but thats exactly what they do in rockets to get things into space in the first place.

If they can use solar energy on the moon to create liquid H and O to refuel spacecraft it could provide a much needed boost into the outer solar system. Using solar energy directly doesn't yet give a lot of thrust (as far as I understand it) so it can take a long time for a spacecraft to accelerate.

Not to mention storing energy for further surface exploration, heating and cooling during extreme temp situations, etc.

Perhaps they could even build structures from the water by melting it into panel molds, and then assembling the panels, finally sealing seams with sprays of liquid water... it would make an airtight structure that may be habitable.

Re:Can we just clarify something?

[Anonymous Coward]

actually.... plants can do just fine in lunar soil

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7351437.stm

Re:Can we just clarify something?

[jipn4]

The water may just be stored in rock hydrates. In that case, you wouldn't even be able to tell that it's there, it would look just like rocks.

Re:Can we just clarify something?

[rachit]

Oxygen is cheap on the moon if you can get a good energy source (ie. nuclear reactor). The moon is mostly silicon / iron / calcium oxide.

Re:Can we just clarify something?

[Abcd1234]

If they can use solar energy on the moon to create liquid H and O to refuel spacecraft it could provide a much needed boost into the outer solar system.

Or they could just use the solar energy directly as part of an ion drive, end up with less energy loss, and probably get to the destination in the same amount of time (factoring in the time it takes to actually produce the fuel in the first place).

Re:Can we just clarify something?

[jhfry]

Acceleration with ION drive is really really slow. having a large solar farm on the moon producing liquid H and O for use in an early stage booster for deep space missions could save a lot of time on such missions.

Obligatory Futurama

[Jason Levine]

Sing to the tune of "We're Whalers on the Moon":

There's water on the Moon
We found it with big boom
For the probe crashed down
Impacted the ground
There's water in the plume!

Sailor Moon

[jameskojiro]

Now she has water to sail on....

Next up, Whalers on the Moon.

Re:Alright...

[rhyder128k]

If nothing else this will provide continued employment for that Adam Sandler fellow. "Water Boy II: Over The Moon!".

Obligatory NASA link

[kvap]

They already found water on Mars a few years ago and posted on their website:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0504/WaterOnMars2_gcc_big.jpg

Re:Obligatory NASA link

[natehoy]

Someone at NASA has an actual sense of humor. Who knew?

Oh, right, it's probably the same one who came up with naming a treadmill the "C.O.L.B.E.R.T."

Re:Wait?

[Bemopolis]

Nor has it publicly denied that it raped and murdered a young girl in 1990.

Because I Said So, That's Why!

[mindbrane]

I've no background and little education in this area but I do have an off the wall question. I have some understanding of the theory describing the initial impact from which the moon is thought to have come, and, the attendant theory that the formation of the moon may have been one of the first, big contingent happenings that drove the development of life on earth. My question centres on the material that made up the body that smashed into the early earth, added much to the earth's "girth" and gave us the present moon. Is it possible the impacting body was composed of a lot of water? There's questions surrounding how earth came to have so much water. If the impacting body that gave us the moon contained a great amount of water, the impact, formation of the moon, water on earth and the early evolution of life comes into focus as a "just so" story.

just my loose change

 

Re:Because I Said So, That's Why!

[vekrander]

It's possible that, for the sake of the earth impact moon creation theory, that the object contained water. On the other hand, it's very likely that the earth already had some, if not most of the water that it has in it's current state. Water is not hard to come by in our solar system by any means (see: Mars, Europa, Charon). Being that there is little we can conclude about the formation of the moon, I believe there's little reason to think that the Earth's present amount of water came from outside sources. Occam's razor would suggest that Earth's water formed from the large amount of hydrogen and oxygen present during the early stages of its formation.

Re:Because I Said So, That's Why!

[smoker2]

The moons creation may have added some more elements to the mix, but as oxygen is the 3rd most plentiful gas in the universe (after hydrogen and helium), there's pretty likely to be lots of water everywhere. Having an atmosphere and a magnetic field make it easier for it to stick around in puddles on earth.

Or are you a creationist troll ?

Re:Because I Said So, That's Why!

[mindbrane]

Or are you a creationist troll ?

I'm a deeply confirmed atheist, so much so that I can't imagine trolls at all, other than as pejorative labels for creationists. This linked article was the first handy bit I could find that speaks directly to my post. /. has run a few stories about the problems with the earth's amount of water and it's origins. If you want a more lore based recounting, Captain Jean Luc Picard narrated a pbs special, titled, IIRC, "Moon's Origins". Picard's aka Patrick Stewart's pronunciation of a French name in a truculent, anglo-saxon accent is worth the time to hunt up a copy at your local library.

Re:Because I Said So, That's Why!

[mindbrane]

Sorry for the 2nd reply, "Moon's Origins" speaks to the moon's formation; again, IIRC, (I watch stuff like this for fun and without strict attention) it's the first episode of "The Miracle Planet" (4 parts) that talks about problems with the quantity and constitution of the earth's water.

Re:Further Analysis

[Again]

"The concentration and distribution of water and other substances requires further analysis..."

Translation: More Explosions.

This time let's make them bigger explosions. Maybe give the man a mustache or make his left eye more pronounced.

Model Predicts Lots More Water

[GreenPhreak]

The dominant paradigm since the Apollo Missions was that the Moon was as dry as a bone.

However, a paper was put out recently (before the discovery of water a month ago) proposing a model for water and other volatiles venting out of the interior of the Moon. One of the predictions of this model is that there should be significant subsurface water primarily near the poles. The results from Chandrayaan-1 and LCROSS today confirms that this is true--there is significant subsurface water near the poles. The claims that the water is solely on the surface and due to cometary deposition or solar wind interactions are now blown "out of the water".

This model predicts a lot more water under the surface for potential use in human exploration. w00t!

Check out the paper here: http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0909.3832

Re:Alright...

[BlackSnake112]

I, for one, welcome our new drunken Moon landing alien overlords. :)?

From someone who slashdot nick is Alcohol Fueled. Should have been modded insightful or interesting.

Mod me offtopic

Re:Wait?

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh. It probably just means we know its momentum really well.

Outgassing

[Ritorix]

Interesting paper. After seeing page 39 I now have an image of moon farts locked in my mind. "Transient
Lunar Phenomena" indeed.

It seems like they are saying 'find the largest sources of outgassing and you will find the highest concentrations of water' (at the poles), caused by vapor phase changing to subsurface ice.

"other intriguing substances"? I'm intrigued.

[jeffb (2.718)]

FTFA: "Along with the water in Cabeus, there are hints of other intriguing substances."

Hydrocarbons?

Amino acids?

Radium?

Re:Oblig

[grcumb]

My humor tastes are too dry for your water puns.

Agreed. Lunatics, all of them.

Re:Alright...

[Tetsujin]

cue the aliens on the Moon, landing there and using the water to mix with the scotch and other lame ass jokes.

The aliens have set themselves up with a nice little night-club on the moon...

...no atmosphere, though.

Joseph Javorski? Is that you?

[Tetsujin]

Base on the moon!

How did it get there? Secret data. Pictures of the Moon. Secret Data, never before outside the Kremlin. Man’s first base on the Moon.

Painful lessons? -sign me up for that-!

[Tetsujin]

The value of experience and exploration is not judged from the present, holmes. We build the first one on the moon so we learn as many of the painful lessons up front as we can, in a location that's relatively easy to access.

I'm sure there would be no shortage of painful lessons for us if we tried establishing a permanent presence on the Moon. The point is, we don't actually need to relearn those lessons, despite the alluring glow of the promise of pain that would be involved.

At present, with the monumental cost and low yield, it would be foolish to try to establish a semi-permanent presence on the Moon.

what's the purpose of a church?

[circletimessquare]

how much has been spent building religious monuments and buildings? what is gained fom the expenditure?

not everything in life is an actuarial table that decides what to do with your time. some goals promise upfront 0% capital return, yet are perfectly acceptable. because the return on the investment is abstract

why spend your weekend mountain climbing? all that time, money, and risk.. for a renewed sense of self

so why go to the moon?

maybe because there's something in us yearning to get off earth? worth quadrillions of dollars? sure, why not. what else is there to spend all the money on? mansions and nice cars get boring after awhile

Re:Wait?

[Tetsujin]

Glenn Beck admits it all

Jason Beck strikes back!

Is the water signal due to the LOX/LH2 rocket

[Yergle143]

I don't want to disparage the NASA scientists, I think they know what they're doing. Well then how do they distinguish between the plume from resident ices and possible unburned LOX/LH2 (which makes water by good old fashioned chemistry)? Also ice build up on vessel.

Re:Is the water signal due to the LOX/LH2 rocket

[drinkypoo]

I don't want to disparage the NASA scientists, I think they know what they're doing

But then I will make it clear that I actually think they are a bunch of fucking morons, and that I am smarter than all of them put together.

English, motherfucker, DO YOU SPEAK IT?

Re:Painful lessons? -sign me up for that-!

[Snarkalicious]

This is manned space exploration and colonization we're talking about here...brand new territory. In the early stages, it's going to be expensive, and it's prolly gonna REALLY suck for somebody. But the money exists, and so do those willing to take the risks. Or perhaps we should limit the human race by keeping it Earthbound because the economic gains aren't immediate and the people who signed up knowing the danger might die. Life might be 99% safe bets and cheap thrills, but that ain't the shit that makes history a good read.

Re:Alright...

[Seedy2]

Ok now I'm going to have to drink myself into unconsciousness to get that pun out of my head...
Thanks a lot
oh wait, I was going to do that anyway.

Re:"other intriguing substances"? I'm intrigued.

[Paradyme]

I hear there's vast supplies of Unobtainium, Neverfindium and Nanananaimgettingpaidforthissium to be found on the moon.

Herge was right after all.

[hebertrich]

Herge , author of Tintin wrote a pair of books called " Objectif Lune " and " On a marche sur la Lune
about 50 years ago.In the second book there is a fantastic scene where in orger to get his dog Milou
back from a cave , Tintin and the Captain go in and Tintin slides down a slope made out of ice simply
declaring that it was proof that at some point the Moon had water.
More recently we had theories abounding that the moon could have had water before it hit Earth.
All the same .. this is a great experiment and a great success

BTW in the first book , they show blueprints for their rocket to the moon.
Details are quite fantastic , but for one .. there's no toilets :)

Oh well ..
 

Re:Painful lessons? -sign me up for that-!

[Tetsujin]

This is manned space exploration and colonization we're talking about here...brand new territory. In the early stages, it's going to be expensive, and it's prolly gonna REALLY suck for somebody. But the money exists, and so do those willing to take the risks. Or perhaps we should limit the human race by keeping it Earthbound because the economic gains aren't immediate and the people who signed up knowing the danger might die. Life might be 99% safe bets and cheap thrills, but that ain't the shit that makes history a good read.

Seems like a false dichotomy: either we stick our heads in the sand and negate any possibility of exploring the universe, or we charge ahead madly into the unknown, pushing ourselves to feats for which we're not actually ready... The thing is, technology is moving forward regardless of whether we go on this mad crusade of yours or not. Material science advances, computer technology advances, every thing we've ever learned to do, we're on a regular basis learning to do it better. And meanwhile, as we're doing all this "boring" stuff like launching satellites into orbit, we're learning to do that better, too. Taking on a massive undertaking like a permanent lunar station would be a lot more sensible when the requisite technology is ready.

It would be a massive feat to get a lunar station established. To go a step further and make that station largely self-sustaining may not even be possible at present. We could spend trillions of dollars to get the place up and running and then trillions more sending rockets up every few days to resupply anyone fool enough to go there... And, for what? To build a base whose yield will never match the investment? To build a base which will be embarassingly obsolete in 20 years' time? What if, instead of investing all that money into trying to rush ahead and build that junk now, we invested that money into developing the technology that would get us a really good moon base in 100 years or so? That may not sound like a cool way to proceed at present - but 100 years from now, or whenever the technology is truly ready to exploit the moon - it's going to be the folks to prepared for that time who benefit. Those who got there first will have nothing but bragging rights.

Whopeee!

[dgr73]

What this means is my Lunar Real Estate (http://www.lunarregistry.com) is worth loads of money!! Eat your hearts out earthlings, I'll be moving to my big hacienda in the sky!

The moon is the door to the solar system

[Dollyknot]

The high cost to the human race's colonisation of space, is caused by the
complexity and danger of reaching escape velocity within the atmosphere,
whilst lifting the fuel with which this is achieved from the surface of the
earth.

There is another route - we can reach the edge of space safely and relatively
cheaply no problem, Burt Rutan proved this with 'Space Ship One' when he won
the 'X' prize by reaching over 100 km high, twice in one week.

My idea is, to create rocket fuel on the moon by splitting the water
discovered there, into oxygen and hydrogen using solar energy, then use that
rocket fuel to fuel a space tug, place the space tug in orbit around the
earth, slow down the space tug using moon fuel, attach the space tug to 'Space
Ship One' then using the space tug, accelerate the whole kit and caboodle from
the edge of space, to escape velocity and orbit, safely in the vacuum of
space.

If we can control robots millions of miles away on mars, I'm fairly sure we
could control water extraction plants on the moon.

Another potential source of rocket fuel on the moon, is the large amounts of
aluminium present in moon rock, aluminium burns in the presence of oxygen,
moon rock is around 40% oxygen.