POLL: Importance of Water on the Moon?

[doublehelix]

A trio of spacecraft that flew by or around the moon found what scientists are calling "unambiguous evidence" that water on the lunar surface. The studies include data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft – which flew by the moon en route to Saturn – as well as the repurposed Deep Impact probe and India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter. The research is detailed in the Sept. 25 issue of the journal Science.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/0 ... overy.html

 

[Bugs99]

I would have to say that this may be the game changer for NASA. We all have heard for years of the possibility, but in politics possibilities don't get you budget increases. You need facts!

 

[bbfreakDude]

I'm sorry but it annoys me when people mention India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter without also mentioning NASA's involvement with the Moon Mineralogy Mapper payload, not that the scientific data isn't shared between the partner countries but props need to fully go to the folks at NASA.

Sure there were hints of water, but before you go to the moon to live there you need more than just hints and this finally gives us confirmation of sorts. That it comes just 14 days from LCROSS's impact with the moon, only highlights the importance of LCROSS's mission.

 

[Geoduck2]

It MAY be. It MIGHT be. It COULD be.

Until we know the quantities, purity, and where it's all speculation. At this point it's an interesting bit of information but thatis all.

 

[Booban]

Ok, so it's significant because it will be cheaper to produce oxygen and fuel in space compared to launching it from Earth.

Will it really be cheaper? Is it a simple process or do you need some kind of factory to produce significant quantities?

There are costs for gathering, processing, maintenance of machinery, personnel, storage and safety costs of handling such explosive substances in space. Maybe it is cheaper to have all these costs on Earth rather than constantly shipping up workers and spare machine parts?

What is it's significance as a fuel source? I thought we were divided between using Solar or nuclear energy. Now hydrogen is better? Is this specific space ship fuel? Do we have 'hydrogen engines' now already? Someone please explain.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Yes we have hydrogen engines. Ever hear of the Space Shuttle? It's main engines use hydrogen and oxygen as propellant which are combined to create water and release energy.

 

[kc5tja]

And what, pray tell, do we intend on doing with this water when we get there? Drink it? Hardly -- there's not enough in any single location to satisfy even one human being's daily intake. You literally have to mine it out of the regolith. Not a profitable use of resources if you ask me.

So, OK, there's water there. Big deal. It will neither affect our ability nor desirability to establish a permanent presence on the moon -- we were going there with or without water anyway.

Knowing that water in large, easily accessible quantities is necessary for human sustenance, trace findings of water will have zero impact on the need for water recycling systems. And, if you're going to live on the moon permanently, it's probably a good idea to set up a farm or two there as well, so the astronauts actually have real vegetables to eat and all. If that's the case, it'll almost certainly be hydroponic or aeroponic, and THAT means lots more water to be consumed and recycled. Again, the moon just isn't going to have that kind of resource readily available.

I think people are ascribing entirely too much importance to this find.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Perhaps you should wait and see how much water is actually there?

 

[Booban]

Yes we have hydrogen engines. Ever hear of the Space Shuttle? It's main engines use hydrogen and oxygen as propellant which are combined to create water and release energy.

Oh.

That sounds exactly like futuristic hydrogen fuel cars that Bush was trying to help research. I did not know the technology was the same as the shuttle's.

 

[MeteorWayne]

That's a little different. That's using hydrogen and oxygen in a Fuel cell to create water, but the energy is released a slower in the form of electricity, not heat. The Space Shuttle also has fuel cells to provide electricity....in fact that goes way back. The Apollo capsules used the same general type of fuel cells.

 

[Sour]

It's very cool to find proof and all.... but until someone comes up with a plan and funding to actually DO something with it then it's just more useless trivia

 

[GarthBock]

The news media is making a big leap here. With water on the moon that means we can have a moon base because we can extract oxygen and hydrogen and that means we can make rocket fuel making the moon a jumping off point to the planets. .....Whoa. First of all we dont know the quantity or quality. Second, if it is good and there is some that is easily obtainable then water will end up like oil on Earth. Exploiting a limited resource like that will end up depleting it. We have not learned anything.

 

[JROYB]

The water may be present, but developing practical methods of extracting useful quantities of it are still a ways off. Production of useful quantities of liquid hydrogen and LOX on Luna is still science fiction.

 

[Eddie_42]

Where is the "This doesn't mean a thing" option.

As the prior poster noted, its highly limited. It's only at a concentration of 32oz per Ton of rock, I don't know about you folks..but moving and processing 1 ton of rock for 4 glasses of water seems like a poor option. There is no current processing facility to make this happen, and it will be 20yrs or more before a human stays on the moon for more then 1 week.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Anyone interested about the actual data about moon water, should probably watch the NASA News Conference at 2 PM EDT today. I started a thread on it in this forum.

 

[HollyCow]

The levels of water are so low it is going to be a long time before we will have the infrastructure on the moon to take advantage of it. By then we probably will have other ways to supply our water needs on the moon.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Holly Cow, Welcome to Space.com

Like what?

 

[charlesw6954]

Anyone remember of the Urine recycle thing on ISS???? We can recycle the urine aka drinking water on our lunar base. We also can recycle the CO2 on our lunar base. We will not need tons and tons of oxygen to breathe or drinking water. What we have on ISS makes it very efficient. The only wasted water would be the hydrogen and oxygen that is used in the rockets.

 

[TC_sc]

From the article it also seems there are larger concentrations of water at the poles, just as had been suspected. It's only there it seems we will have enough to make any effort worthwhile. We still need to know those levels before any real debate can take place about building an outpost on the moon.

Just a little more water on the moon and we can rekindle the war...err... debate about nuclear vs solar on the moon

 

[BinaryNuts]

Maybe this poll should be restated as "Importance of Quantity of Water on the Moon". There is water everywhere in the universe just not all in one place like our oceans.

 

[jerrycobbs]

Let's think about some things before jumping to too many conclusions either way here. We have verification of a water signature, or what we think is a water signature, from at least a couple of instruments. Is this a big deal? Yes. Why? Because they didn't rule out the presence of water. If they had, it would have been a major blow to our lunar exploration plans. How much water is there? The reality is, we don't know. All we know is an extrapolation based on what the sensors could read. There could be chunks of ice in dark craters. Or not. It could be so widely distributed it will never be practical to mine it. Or not. But what we DO know is that there is something there, and the possibilities that entails gives us a definite reason for further exploration, by remote sensing, by unmanned probes, and by human explorers. THAT is why this is a big deal.

 

[Rado]

This is aimed to all the naysayer. Couple of decades back we were not sure of whether Mars had water and how much. We were not even sure of the polar cups, suspecting that it was just dry ice (CO2). Further exploration eventually proved there was a lot water ice on Mars, which made happy all the proponents of the Mars colonization.

I think it's about time to apply analogy here. We first thought there was no water on the Moon. After we started seriously looking, we found some signs of water there. With further exploration we found more, including new ways how water can be formed on the spot, not only the water deposited eons ago by the comet bombardment. If we continue to search, and that is exactly what we should continue to do, there is a great likelihood that we will eventually find large deposits of water on the Moon. Intuitively, I think this is exactly what is going to happen.

I agree that first colonists will not benefit from that water but it's very reasuring to know that one day moon habitats will be able to tap their own water from say, Moon Alps. What it is going to be called, perhaps Moonshine Evian?

 

[aaron38]

From the way the water is distributed in the regolith, it sounds like this will be most benneficial to any He3 mining operation. As they bake the soil, they'll get the He3 and H2O at the same time. With propper recycling, maybe that equals a sustainable base?

 

[kert]

IMHO its important enough that there should be a lander that figures the composition out for good.

Wait, NASA already HAD a lander planned, it was called RLEP-2, part of a robotic precursor program of which LRO was the first. The story of its demise is .. sad.

 

[StarRider1701]

From the article it also seems there are larger concentrations of water at the poles, just as had been suspected. It's only there it seems we will have enough to make any effort worthwhile. We still need to know those levels before any real debate can take place about building an outpost on the moon.

Just a little more water on the moon and we can rekindle the war...err... debate about nuclear vs solar on the moon

No need for a debate, solar only makes sense at the poles, which is where it seems the most water is. Great news for the polar bases that can be set up to mine the water and make the fuel and other necessities out of the water found there.

I'm so glad that we've finally stopped wasting time pining away at Mars. The moon is in our back yard and we've never even explored it yet. Ok so we've thrown a few rocks into our neighbors back yards, that doesn't make us able to go there yet! Putting colonies and mining industries on the moon will go a long way towards giving us the capability to continue on out of our back yard and into our strange little (1/5th of a LY across) neighborhood.
The human race's space capability is still in its infancy. With each step we take we learn more and are able to do more and go farther. But, as I've said all along, we need to do it one step at a time, starting with a base containing industry and off Earth mining on the moon or in orbit. Water is a great find, but not the only one we will make on the moon.