POLL: Importance of Water on the Moon?

[donnyhoff01]

ok

 

[kelvinzero]

My question is this: Has there been any consideration to the possibility of drilling a cave-like structure...

The notion does come up a fair bit.
This probably isnt the right thread to discuss using caves as habitats, but you might not have to drill them.

There are probably natural lava caves, ie rivers of lava where the surface has cooled but the larva beneath keeps flowing, forming a tunnel. I dont personally favor relying on natural larva caves but it would still be cool to discover some. Maybe we will with all this new high resolution mapping that is going on.

 

[ApexOfExistence]

My question is this: Has there been any consideration to the possibility of drilling a cave-like structure...

The notion does come up a fair bit.
This probably isn't the right thread to discuss using caves as habitats, but you might not have to drill them.

There are probably natural lava caves, ie rivers of lava where the surface has cooled but the larva beneath keeps flowing, forming a tunnel. I don't personally favor relying on natural larva caves but it would still be cool to discover some. Maybe we will with all this new high resolution mapping that is going on.

That would be pretty spectacular if they did find subterranean caves or cave networks on the moon, but call me a noob if you wish, but isn't the rock that makes up the mega-regolith too fractured for something along those lines to even come into formation :?:

 

[kelvinzero]

I found this light-weight link on the subject of lunar lava tunnels. For some reason all the links seem to be about people wondering if you can live on them, rather than scientific interest or actual candidates.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9 ... -moon.html

 

[EarthlingX]

We will need bots on the ground to find out more about caves on the moon. Same for the more detailed ground composition that would determine excavation methods for potential underground structures.
Cracks, that are seen near the south lunar pole, could be used in such a manner, if covered by the roof.
There are plenty of cracks on the Moon, if you check it a bit with the GoogleEarth.

 

[Lancelot_64]

So they found trace amounts of water on the Moon...so what?
Mars has (literally) frozen oceans of the stuff a few feet below the surface.
Oh yeah, and a 24 hour day so you can grow stuff like say, I don't know...food?
And an atmosphere to shield you on the surface from pesky micrometeorites.

Folks, living on the Moon is going to always, always, always, ALWAYS be like living in a basement.
For all intents and purposes you'd be better off living on top of an asteroid, seriously.

NASA's plans to build a base on the Moon is nothing more than ISS 2.0
Fifty years later you'll all be scratching your heads wondering when NASA will get to Mars.

I agree with this fellow..
And I would hope Nasa or whom ever, sets a tight time limit to the moon 'test bed' stage or I fear we will get stuck there. Bush's vision (which may be dated) was to use the moon as a brief stepping stone to Mars. He is correct the moon is a dead and hostile world and it always will be. I am a manager by profession so naturally none of this happens as fast as I would like to see it lol.. Personally, the slow dev of the Ares 5 heavy lifter is puzzling to me, why 9+ years for development (from today to test flight) ? Come on people thats a very long time for configuring existing technology.. Speed means efficiency and less cost so it should be a higher priority. Also, the longer a project takes the more susceptible it is to becoming a cancellation target. Constellation/Ares will have had to withstand 3.25 presidential terms to make completion (from the inception); it will be a miracle if it makes it.. Dont know about anyone else but I wont vote for a president who doesnt support Constellation. Anyway Im getting off thread subject and enough complaint from me sitting in my arm chair = )

 

[mithridates]

So they found trace amounts of water on the Moon...so what?
Mars has (literally) frozen oceans of the stuff a few feet below the surface.
Oh yeah, and a 24 hour day so you can grow stuff like say, I don't know...food?
And an atmosphere to shield you on the surface from pesky micrometeorites.

Folks, living on the Moon is going to always, always, always, ALWAYS be like living in a basement.
For all intents and purposes you'd be better off living on top of an asteroid, seriously.

NASA's plans to build a base on the Moon is nothing more than ISS 2.0
Fifty years later you'll all be scratching your heads wondering when NASA will get to Mars.

I agree with this fellow..
And I would hope Nasa or whom ever, sets a tight time limit to the moon 'test bed' stage or I fear we will get stuck there. Bush's vision (which may be dated) was to use the moon as a brief stepping stone to Mars. He is correct the moon is a dead and hostile world and it always will be. I am a manager by profession so naturally none of this happens as fast as I would like to see it lol.. Personally, the slow dev of the Ares 5 heavy lifter is puzzling to me, why 9+ years for development (from today to test flight) ? Come on people thats a very long time for configuring existing technology.. Speed means efficiency and less cost so it should be a higher priority. Also, the longer a project takes the more susceptible it is to becoming a cancellation target. Constellation/Ares will have had to withstand 3.25 presidential terms to make completion (from the inception); it will be a miracle if it makes it.. Dont know about anyone else but I wont vote for a president who doesnt support Constellation. Anyway Im getting off thread subject and enough complaint from me sitting in my arm chair = )

I don't agree with that fellow. A base on the Moon will be nothing like the ISS. Leave the ISS alone for long enough and it'll re-enter the atmosphere. Leave a base on the Moon alone and nothing will happen to it at all. Construct a landing area and it'll be there forever. Habitats built will be there forever. Construct a solar-powered automated telescope on the surface and that'll be there forever too. Even if for some reason funding dries up the base will be there for when we decide to go back. The US could even sell the base to another country if it felt like it.

 

[nimbus]

Isn't the moon sparsely but continually peppered by space particles? That would mean some maintenance required for any unarmored structure on the moon's surface.

 

[HopDavid]

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.

Hydrogen maybe. But oxygen is abundant in lunar minerals. It can be extracted with pyrolysis.