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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."
Twas a Miner 2049'er, and his daughter, Clementine!
She tripped and fell out an airlock.
I've heard loads of these "there is water" "there isn't water" on such and such place over the ages, and I'm starting to be a bit of a doubting Thomas. They have yet to examine any of this stuff in-hand, or even in-robot-hand. We can send multiple robots to mars... where's the one picking up the gold on the moon? What are we waiting for? Bah humbug.
Miners trapped in mine collapse on the moon...
And I thought the miners in South America had it rough waiting for rescue.
Last I checked, none of mercury, gold or silver was a compound...
...I'm looking forward to the best episode of Man vs Wild ever.
From TFA: "Roughly 5 percent of water ice - that's combined water vapor and ice - was found buried in the crater. This water ice could provide a valuable resource for human space travel, generating drinking water, but also possibly hydrogen and oxygen for breathing and rocket fuel."
Not to mention the profit from gold mining, my dream of living in space may not be too far off..
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If you don't have to worry about the environment on the moon, how much gold (or rare earth metals or whatever) do you need to make a robotic lunar mining mission viable?
Call Yukon Cornelius!
Since NASA has no chance of ever establishing any more manned missions outside Earth's atmosphere, thanks to the weak political will in Washington, the continual myopic budget cuts for NASA, and the idiotic use of NASA as a jobs program for certain states by certain politicians (who I will not name, to avoid the obvious trolling that will ensue), this discovery may actually lead to future lunar missions in space. The Moon is just close enough to Earth to be nearly practical for the private space companies, and may be rich enough to be worth the haul. Especially with reports of China embargoing Rare Earth Elements.
If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
The moon men announced that they are diplomatically officially in a "huff" with the Earth, and that no rare Earth metals would be shipped from the Moon to the Earth.
Off the record, sources close to the moon men said, "Get your own damn rare metals from your own planet!"
Sources to close for comfort to NASA officials have commented, "Do we have to bomb the Moon again, until they get it?"
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
This is a great discovery, but what are we going to do with it? The obvious thing is to mine it out, but wouldn't lightening the mass of the moon have a (probably quite bad) effect on it's tidal effects to the earth?
Water? Gold? Silver? Why have we not brought democracy to the moon yet?
"You know how volatile mercury is on earth," said Randy Gladstone of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, in a press conference on Thursday. "It's probably more volatile than other metals on the moon."
Must be because the Moon shows more oil and interest rate shocks
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Are there whalers on the moon? Do they carry a harpoon?
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
It seems to me that everything that you can find on the moon (or in asteroids for that matter) can be found here on earth in similar quantities and accessed more inexpensively, probably by a factor of 1/1,000,000 or so.
Sure, building your starship construction facility on the moon has advantages, ok, one advantage, that of 1/10 the gravity of earth, but honestly is it really cheaper to build something there rather than just do it on earth? Sure it would cost a lot more to launch stuff out of Earth's gravity well, but is it so much more expensive that it justifies the cost of learning how to do all this stuff on the moon?
You tell me what you want to do on the moon and I'll tell you how to do it faster and cheaper here on Earth.
There are lots of fun reasons to explore space (and maybe even the moon) but not for silver mining (and spaceport construction).
I know people get all romantic about human space flight, but personally I'd say send the robots until we find something worth visiting in person. They're better at the job.
G.
Now we need to launch a nuke at the moon to make said gold radioactive for years. Almost worked for Goldfinger.
The game.
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?
Thanks to google, I can find it all by myself.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/oct_21_media_telecon.html
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
Who has the mine rights? The us? USSR? China? NASA it self? Neil Armstrong?
Thats pretty awesome!
Spectrum-gaming.net|teamsketchball.net
Kind of strange that I saw this story whilst watching "First Men in The Moon" where they also happen to find gold on the moon.
Is there any amount of materials on the moon that would make it profitable for a company to build the capability to mine it and ship material back to earth? I'm not sure there is. Lets say you found a boulder of gold that weighed three tons. A solid nugget. What are the costs associated with recovering that nugget? Now, realizing that they won't find that, but instead ore and other materials that need processing, there are additional considerations: Do you pay for the shipping weight of ore, or do you pay to process the ore on the moon and ship the material? If you process it on the moon, how do you handle the additional maintenance and engineering requirements?
I didn't RTFA, but just seeing that valuable materials on the moon made me question how valuable ANYTHING is when you have to pay so much per unit of weight to retrieve it. Maybe Chuck Norris' cancer-curing tears, if they were found on the moon. But I can't think of much else.
Backyard spacecraft is the new stagecoach.
Are the Canadians going to build them?
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Selling rockets and LEMs for the gold rush...
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
What, no Unobtainium?
If they had found that you could bet some nation would be there by next summer, at the latest.
We better get on this. We must not allow a mineshaft gap!
If anything gets our species back into space, it'll be greed. Sad but true.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
There's gold in them thar craters!
...are we scared yet?
Who has the mine rights? The us? USSR? China? NASA it self? Neil Armstrong?
Actually, I own thousands of acres on that particular site...I bought it for $20 here: http://www.lunarregistry.com/
100 acres per human landing, I believe.
I nominate Buzz Aldrin.
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Terrorists members from Al-Qaeda are hiding in the moon! We must go there and defeat them!
gold being discovered there is just plain coincidence
that was my first question. all the materials listed in the summary could logically be found in a basic space probe.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
Liberate Titan!
Help stamp out iliturcy.
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?
Jesus christ you're lazy!
I don't know, poke around. They even list a number to call to get a rebroadcast version of the press conference:
"Media Telecon: LCROSS and LRO Science Science Results of Lunar Impact10.21.10
Date: Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010
Time: 11 a.m. PDT / 2 p.m. EDT
A replay of the teleconference will be available until Nov. 4, 2010 by dialing 888-566-0674 from within the United States, or 203-369-3084 internationally. Passcode is 6267."
You complained about not being able to access the information that we have a legal right to access freely (everything NASA does is public domain, or something like that).
I guess i figured my point went without saying, but i must have been wrong. My point was: If you look around, the information *is* available. It just might not be in the format you want. Some reporter for a newspaper sat around and listened to that press conference though, and made the data easier to get to. That paywall pays for that man's time. If you don't want to pay, NASA provides the number to call and listen yourself. Or, the other point I was trying to make, is that you could just google around. A quick search for "nasa lcross gold" brought up:
http://www.universetoday.com/76329/water-on-the-moon-and-much-much-more-latest-lcross-results/
I'm sure NASA will put the data online at some point, but people have to write reports and all that. Until then, your options are pretty clear, and I don't see any cause to complain, except to be annoying.
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
If someone is smart enough, he/she can make it an independent entity. Strangely enough, a lot of the complexities were covered in Heinlein's story "The Man Who Sold The Moon".
For example, the problem of the moon being theoretically owned by all the countries it orbited directly over. This was determined by what most folks consider as universal property sovereignty rights: a country owned a wedge of Earth in the cross-sectional shape of that country, starting as a pin-point at the Earth's core, and spreading out through the surface, then onward to infinity. In the book, Harriman (the protagonist) set up dummy companies in all countries the moon passed over, then bought the "rights" to the Moon from each of those governments (for a relative pittance, since most governments in the book bet against anyone actually making it to the moon). This gave his corporation full ownership of the beastie.
Eventually, Heinlein had his guy (Harriman) fund and establish a permanent colony on the Moon, then had that colony apply for recognition by the UN as an independent nation. Once recognized, that new 'government' owned the whole damned thing as an independent entity.
The reasoning was pretty solid, since whichever country parks a self-sustaining colony on the Moon could theoretically own it out here in Real Life. Otherwise, it'd turn out like Antarctica, which is pretty worthless - nobody owns it via treaty, so nobody can do anything with it. Nice sentiment and all, but pretty worthless when it comes to the long-term prospect of accommodating an expanding human population (and/or dwindling resources).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Mercury, gold, silver, ..
No diamonds?
why not? We need some sort of initiative to get off this rock, as you put it.
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
moon treaty. In theory, all of space is preserved for research. In practice, who knows?
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
How much do moon rocks cost?
Moon rocks collected during the course of lunar exploration are currently considered priceless. In 1993, three small fragments from Luna 16, weighing 0.2 g, were sold for US$ 442,500. In 2002, a safe, containing minute samples of lunar and Martian material, was stolen from the Lunar Sample Building. The samples were recovered; in 2003, during the court case, NASA estimated the value of these samples at about $1 million for 285 g (10 oz) of material. Moon rocks in the form of lunar meteorites, although expensive, are widely sold and traded among private collectors.
- Wiki
...and the moon is MADE of that shit.
I think it's gonna be awhile.
Hmm...unless basalt is a rare-earth element and that's why China is going there....
I always think of that book whenever this subject comes up. Maybe we can send all the folks who want less government to the moon and they can lob rocks back at us...
Ask Me About... The 80's!
With no atmosphere to conduct heat, any Stirling engine would be massively more efficient. Solar collector concentrator at the hot end, black finned heat sink facing away into shadow, near-perfect vacuum for thermal insulation -- that sucker would spin.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Ahh, you scared me!
Jesus christ you're lazy!
That's OK; he's a lot smarter than the science team who are clearly morons for not once taking into account their own spacecraft parts during the years it took to put the program together.
Whoever can manage to profitably extract it first, would be my guess.
Enough to make further manned moon missions profitable? That would certainly revitalize lunar space flight... :P
(And yeah, probably not enough for even a tiny fraction of the fuel cost.)
Obviously the moon contains (actially, consists of) minerals. It wouldn't be there otherwise. Especially seeing as it was a large chunk broken off from Earth a few billion years ago. And sure, earth has been supplemented by asteroids since then, but so has the moon. So the question is not really "Does the moon have minerals?" but more a matter of "How much can we expect to find on the surface?".
Gold and silver are somewhat financially valuable to us now. But from what I understand, they are also relatively common. I suspect the reports highlight gold and silver because that's language that beancounters who pay for the space programs understand. But there are far more valuable resources that we'll desparately need in 25-75 years time.
So, more importantly... because lacking in rare earth minerals could stymie advancements in technology...
What "rare earth" minerals might be "common moon" minerals?
Those rights will belong to the first and only citizens of Moon of course: Mr. Man-in-the-Moon and Mrs Chang'e Moon
Why do you think NASA has not been able to make any plans to mine any of that? China has blocked export of Rare-moon materials with US too.
See, it's all nice to go misty eyed, chest out, with the Federation flag flapping in the wind behind you about space colonisation but think of it this way. We are living at the bottom of a deep and steep (gravitational) cliff, though generally, it is pleasant here and we (still) have what we need. The Moon/Mars/Alpha Centauri, with all its riches, gold and hot green women is on top of this cliff. Why should we have to expend money and energy to climb this cliff, to get stuff that we can easier get down here? Factor in the cost of going to the moon, mining it and transporting it back to Earth, it is probably more economical to extract gold from sea water. I'm not saying space colonisation will never happen. It could happen. But then again, I have a dim view of our chances. Also, there is no soil on the moon. In fact, moon dust is very abrasive and would be very hazardous to humans and our machinery.
Perhaps, some elements like water and carbon dioxide.
Lazy, huh? The link you provided says nothing about gold.
If there is water, then there must be whales. Neato!
Get your harpoons, lads!
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Damn, now what will astronauts eat when they get there?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
my moon-donkey? I needs to do me some Moon prospecin'
There are three LRVs waiting for new batteries.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Is this news a hoax?
Historically people have been investing in Gold during economic recession.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
I hope they took into account the effect on the orbit of the moon when they were smashing rockets into it at such speeds.... otherwise it will be Space 1999 time.
So you did read the entire GP message either, did you?
I guess you're lazy after all.
(\__/) This is Lapinator
(='.'=) copy it in your sig
(")_(") so it can take over the world
Humans... now we are blasting holes .. soon, there's gonna be a mining camp up there along with the usual junk that we always manage to carry with us everywhere we touch.. :(
No Vespane gas?
---
In space, it becomes just yet another metal, and not a particularly useful one at that (as opposed to things like silver, platinum, palladium, etc). And transporting the stuff back to Earth would be more expensive than its value, and hence quite uneconomical.
Pfft. Fucking great. Now people who have absolutely no valid interest in the moon as a scientific and archaeological object being the Earth's oldest possible artifact and hugest object in our neighborhood are going to go there and start fighting over it. We will see a face or shattered moon and/or moonless sky in our lifetimes.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
And when someone else determines that the "positive results" are hogwash, they are shown to be a bunch of fools and lose their valuable reputation.
Funny how this whole "peer review" thing works.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Did they also find large amounts of calcium, fat, and vitamin D?
You are telling me that we know what is on the moon, by smashing something into it, and then analyzing the dust cloud it leaves behind, I thought there was no such thing as dust clouds in space because of the lack of gravity...?
I call BS on this story.....just more misdirection...are there some elections coming soon or something?
I for one am not looking forward to the riots of 2076.
Free Luna!
Like everything else in life, the resources on the moon will belong to whoever gets a mining operation there first. The rest is all paperwork. There is so much stuff out in space and we are so far from getting it, that trying to make it a political football now is just completely counter productive.
Whoever does get a mining opertation setup on the moon is not going to sit on it, they are going to sell it to other people willing to spend currency. The money from the sale of the gold will be spent, probably to make another mine. Even the people who aren't involved directly will eventually benefit from the increase in resources, not to mention the technological advances that would have to proceed said mining operations.
"Haliburton and Exxon", hmm, maybe time to up your meds?
This news could set off a modern day gold rush on the moon. The think of how the first did wonders for developing California and Alaska. Greed has a way of motivating progress.
Well it would follow that the composition of the moon soil would be similar to the composition of the earth's crust since the moon was formed out of the earths's crust from an asteroid impact. This shouldn't be a surprise but is further proof of the asteroid impact theory.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
The first to say, "Mine!"
Wow - looks like someone with mod points bought some too.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The object that collided with the Earth was Mars sized. I think that's a little large to be calling an asteroid. More like two worlds colliding.
Free Martian Whores!
Yeah, a sibling shot you down, but I'd like to explain that space isn't that "cold". Sure, it's absolutely cold, but with no atmosphere there is no convection, so you only lose heat at the rate you radiate it, which isn't that bad. So astronauts on the moon or in deep space freezing to death isn't that big of a concern.
See space activity suit for more learnitude.
Also, it's not free energy. That's solar heat. Perhaps I'm being nitpicky here, but the term "free energy" was placed next to Unobtanium.
There are ressources aside from useless dirt on the moon. It could be conceivable to start mining, separating and refining it's ressources to stockpile them for future colonies. I think the point is to expand humanity and this will be the first step.
Tomorrow is another day...
Who has the mine rights? The us? USSR? China? NASA it self? Neil Armstrong?
Delos David Harriman
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
Heinlein's story was pre-Outer Space Treaty, which essentially removed ownership of the moon as possibility, ever, from the countries that signed it. 'Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means'.
Technically, you can't even have 'private property' on the moon. Same treaty: 'Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be free for exploration and use by all States without discrimination of any kind, on a basis of equality and in accordance with international law, and there shall be free access to all areas of celestial bodies.'
Read that carefully, and realize that legally stops the US from building a shack with a locked door on it on the moon. No one can bar other nations from any area of 'celestial bodies', at all. You cannot say 'This area of the moon is the US's.'. Russians can wander in and hang out in your living room. (Nations can, however, bar people from space stations and areas on them.)
Of course, that wouldn't apply to a colony that claimed self-governance and, obviously, had signed no such treaty. OTOH, just 'claiming' to be a nation, and have no one recognize you, is pretty useless.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Even better, just go to NASA's site: www.nasa.gov, search LCROSS, and the first hit you get is a link to a page which gave you the option to dial into a telecon discussing the LCROSS results:
So to the parent bitching about non-free, tax funded results, perhaps you should just try finding the information for yourself if you are really all that interested. Rather than complaining because Slashdot, a news aggregator, linked you to the wrong source.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
No! Anyone who watches the Colbert Report must realize by now that scientists are evil conniving bunches conspiring to take over the world! I bet this whole report was concocted by them in secret to drive a gold rush to the moon, securing their funding for the next few decades! And like fools, we're believing them! By the time we figure it out, it will be too late, and they will leave for the stars on the expensive mining equipment our tax dollars paid for! And we'll be stuck here with nothing but national debt and the same old moon made out of green cheese.
Well I for one am not going to listen to them!!!1!
Ever since everything here became a car analogy, I get my information from wiseGeek: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-largest-asteroid-ever-to-hit-earth.htm
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Because it would not be even remotely profitable, therefore it wouldn't work. Therein lies the "joke": the "Get Off This Rock" crowd is generally unable to grasp the practical realities of their emotional goals and beliefs, so they would instantly believe that gold mining on the moon would be just as profitable as on earth if not more so. I guess it was too opaque...
Rocking moon gold in da club
Whoever can effectively land and start taking minerals first.
Eschew Obfuscation
It says: "The largest asteroid ever to hit Earth was probably Theia, a Mars-sized body".
Perhaps you should find another site, preferable one that isn't full of shit. If it's the size of Mars, it isn't an asteroid. Heck, even poor old Pluto hasn't been demoted that far.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Size has nothing to do with being called an asteroid. If it's not in a planetary orbit, and its not orbiting a planet (moon), then its an asteroid or a comet.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
"it has increasingly come to particularly refer to the small rocky and metallic bodies of the inner Solar System and out to the orbit of Jupiter [...] Like most other small Solar System bodies the asteroids are thought to be remnants of planetesimals [...] Traditionally, small bodies orbiting the Sun were classified as asteroids, comets or meteoroids, "
Also called minor planet. Astronomy . any of the thousands of small bodies of from 480 miles (775 km) to less than one mile (1.6 km) in diameter that revolve about the sun in orbits lying mostly between those of Mars and Jupiter.
I've emphasised the bits where it says they can be any goddam size.
Not quite sure what definition of a "planetary orbit" you're using, but Theia's collision is thought to have occurred because it was sharing Earth's orbit. Sounds pretty planetary to me.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I've emphasised the bits where it says they can be any goddam size.
Right. So if they can be any size, then size has nothing to do with being called an asteroid. Than you for agreeing with me.
Besides, if something the size of Mars came hurtling towards Earth from an out of plane trajectory, what exactly would you call it? Asteroid or comet are your only two real choices. No one would call it a planet.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.