The LCROSS mission that crased a spacecraft on the Moon has confirmed there isn't just water on the Moon but significant amounts of it. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33912611/ns/technology_and_science-space/?GT1=43001 ‘Significant amount’ of water found on moon NASA's LCROSS probe discovered beds of water ice at the lunar south pole It's official: There's water on the moon. NASA's LCROSS probe discovered beds of water ice at the lunar south pole when it impacted the moon last month, mission scientists announced Friday. "Indeed, yes, we found water. And we didn't find just a little bit, we found a significant amount," Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist and principal investigator from NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. The LCROSS probe impacted the lunar south pole at a crater called Cabeus on Oct. 9. The $79 million spacecraft, preceded by its Centaur rocket stage, hit the lunar surface in an effort to create a debris plume that could be analyzed by scientists for signs of water ice. Scientists have long suspected that permanently shadowed craters at the south pole of the moon could be cold enough to sustain water frozen at the surface. Water has already been detected on the moon by a NASA-built instrument on board India's now defunct Chandrayaan-1 probe and other spacecraft, though it was in very small amounts and bound to the dirt and dust of the lunar surface. NASA plans to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 for extended missions on the lunar surface. Finding usable amounts of ice on the moon would be a boon for that effort since it could be a vital local resource to support a lunar base. The impact was observed by LCROSS's sister spacecraft, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, as well as other space and ground-based telescopes. The debris plume from the impacts was not seen right away and was only revealed a week after the impact, when mission scientists had had time to comb through the probe's data. NASA launched LCROSS — short for Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite — and LRO in June.
Probably enough to "mine" or process, and supply a lunar base, as well as producing fuel for spacecraft. It's a big deal.
Why does it take so long to do something thats already been done? They should get going in 2011...because by 2012...well, you know...
Back on the Moon by 2020? Under JFK we did it for the FIRST TIME EVER within the decade? We're going to go Back, for what the 20th time, and it's going to take us a 79 million dollar test mission plus another 11 years to get there? kinda lame maybe. Impressive still, I know, "we choose to do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard", but come on. Below, Pretty inspiring speech at Rice U. oh so long ago. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ouRbkBAOGEw&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ouRbkBAOGEw&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
Irratating that it took this long to find this out. Rocket RIver Should have been up there all this time
Before, it was about getting there more than anything else. Now, it's going to be about establishing life on the surface, which I'm just guessing will require much more detailed planning and far more resources. On top of that, NASA has more irons in the fire and don't have all their efforts focused on a space race. What's interesting to me is that even if it takes 200 or 300 years to get to the point where people are actually living the majority of their life on the moon, or Mars, or some other planet, then that's pretty spectacular. Experts estimate that homo sapiens first appeared on Earth about 200,000 years ago. So for us to go from never having been in space before to actually living on another planet in a window of just 300 years is astonishing if you can look at it in context.
