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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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: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:Wait?

[Chris Burke]

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

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.

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!

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.

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: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:Wait?

[Bemopolis]

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

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: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: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.