NASA Strikes Gold and Water On the Moon

tcd004 writes "The PBS NewsHour reports: there is water on the moon — along with a long list of other compounds, including mercury, gold and silver. That's according to a more detailed analysis of the cold lunar soil near the moon's South Pole. The results were released as six papers by a large team of scientists in the journal, Science Thursday. [Note: Nature's papers are behind a paywall; for a few more details, reader coondoggie points out a a story at Network World.] The data comes from the October 2009 mission, when NASA slammed a booster rocket traveling nearly 6,000 miles per hour into the moon and blasted out a hole. Trailing close behind it was a second spacecraft, rigged with a spectrometer to study the lunar plume released by the blast. The mission is called LCROSS, for Lunar Crater Observer and Sensing Satellite."

Comments

Gold?

[fyngyrz]

I have to wonder how much of that gold was debris from the spacecraft - plating for connections, etc. Once the thing hit, I would imagine (and I am just guessing) that the plume that resulted was pretty well mixed with well-blended spacecraft.

Oh well, with the article behind a paywall, I'm not about to find out. Nice to pay for the science - NASA - out of the taxpayers pocket, then charge us again for the results, eh?

Re:Gold?

[fyngyrz]

The word "gold" does not appear on that page. Nor did I see anything about accounting for the metals in the spacecraft in the general sense. So I'm still in the dark. Unless there's something indirect there you expected me to follow?

Re:Gold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Scientists are humans too - they have an interest in publishing positive results, so they might ignored some inconvenient facts - worth checking.

Cue the "Get Off This Rock" crew

[Un pobre guey]

Now the "Get Off This Rock" gang will start shouting to the four winds that we can now have cheap, self-sustaining moon bases and then go to Mars right away. The real loonies will start wondering if it can pay its own way through gold mining.

Re:Well, that sure will change the song

[PopeRatzo]

If gold ever becomes so expensive that mining it from the moon becomes economical

I just find it amusing that humans gazing up at the moon think, "Gee, I bet there's some shit up there I could strip mine and sell".

If there are advanced races in the universe, it would be completely understandable if they decided to just go ahead and destroy Earth.