Lunar Water Discovery Announced

[JoeXIII'007]

Just in case you missed the news today: NASA's LCROSS mission produced some results (officially) today, with the announcement 'that a "significant" amount of water has been found on the moon.' (Huffington Post)

Bonus commentary w/ other links to the news (careful: ethanol reference and isolated use of choice language).

And: a congratulations to NASA. Google even made a celebratory banner. Keep the great space news coming!

[J93Wagner]

I'm thinking that that a moon base now is even more feasible...

Now I'm looking forward to it!

[GaryVoshol]

Does that mean Lunacy was really a water game?

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

Does that mean Lunacy was really a water game?

No no no, we didn't blow any craters in it. You're thinking of the 2010 game. That's why we're supposed to keep all of our FRP "regolith."

In all seriousness though, I was very excited to hear about the "significant" amount that was found. As someone who's wanted to work at NASA since I was little, I'm looking forward to what the future will bring for NASA. Hopefully I can soon be a part of it all.

[Chris is me]

I'm very excited. Partly because there's a significant amount of water on the moon which might pave the way for space exploration, extended scientific ventures to the moon, and other stuff like that...

and partly so I have something to taunt some of my ill-informed friends with, who protested this "blow up the moon!" mission. (No, not really "taunting")

In all seriousness, this sounds like a huge discovery.

[DonRotolo]

It also sounds like a business opportunity: Bottled Moon Water!

[Ian Curtis]

First of all, congratulations and thanks are due to all on the LRO/LCROSS team who made this spacecraft a reality.

Secondly, I hate to be a downer, but why is there such a huge emphasis on lunar water?

After the last Shuttle flies, we'll be paying another nation in the range of $50 million dollars to fly our astronauts to the ISS. To get to the moon will require huge sums of money to build/man-rate a new rocket or two, finish a capsule and build a new lunar module! Sure water can be decomposed to rocket fuel or used for drinking, but I'd imagine we'll be bringing our own fuel (and water) for the ride home for a long time before we risk filling up on the moon, even if it is prevalent enough to support such a mission.

I mean, if ice is all it takes to convince Congress and the President that the moon is a worthy deal, then of course it's great news. But why does it make the Moon more appealing for manned exploration? Is it just the romanticism of it?

Don't get me wrong, space is awesome. I want to build rockets when I grow up, and occasionally read textbooks in my spare time (Yep, I'm a dork). I find it fascinating for the technical challenges, but worry about the long term effects of selling programs on empty promises.

Originally Posted by ...Why choose this as our goal?

...because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills...

Originally Posted by Don Rotolo

It also sounds like a business opportunity: Bottled Moon Water!

I could see Elon Musk and Peter Diamandis with a bottle of this on their desks...

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by iCurtis

I mean, if ice is all it takes to convince Congress and the President that the moon is a worthy deal, then of course it's great news. But why does it make the Moon more appealing for manned exploration? Is it just the romanticism of it?

If enough water is locally accessible, the logistics of supporting permanent lunar bases becomes easier. With water, one can readily produce oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for fuel. With enough water, lunar regolith could become a building material (i.e. moon concrete). Delivering water from earth to the moon is very expensive ($M/gallon?), having it in the crater next door opens many more possibilities for colonization.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by iCurtis

I could see Elon Musk and Peter Diamandis with a bottle of this on their desks...

Actually, Elon Musk might have a solution already being built. The Dragon capsule is being built with crew in mind, despite being primarily a cargo vehicle. (Now the question is, how to get it and a lander of choice to the moon and back...)

Why do it with government money when a solution is being built in the private sector?

(And, if you want to build rockets, you might want to take a look at the rest of the linked site. Definitely interesting.)

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by David Brinza

If enough water is locally accessible, the logistics of supporting permanent lunar bases becomes easier. With water, one can readily produce oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for fuel. With enough water, lunar regolith could become a building material (i.e. moon concrete). Delivering water from earth to the moon is very expensive ($M/gallon?), having it in the crater next door opens many more possibilities for colonization.

I gotcha. So, essentially it makes spending the billions to get to that point more worthwhile if it's easier to maintain the eventual *fingers crossed!* base?

@EricH
I'm already a SpaceX junkie. I sincerely hope they get the chance to fly a crewed Dragon, but I'm a cautious optimist. There's a lot of work and uncertainty between next year's inaugural launch (currently looks like Feb 2nd) and an eventual crewed launch.

[Don Wright]

I'm sure it's just from Dean spraying it with water to reduce the static electricity...

[oddjob]

In the 60s/70s it made sense to go to the moon because it hadn't been done before and we weren't sure what we'd find. Besides, we couldn't let the Soviets do it first.

A great next step would be to establish a moon base, but it still needs to have a purpose more than "hey, it's there, let's do it". Perhaps it becomes the launching pad for a Mars mission, but the scale of that effort would seem to be just too massive to move it to the moon. At a minimum, we need to solve the extended exposure to radiation problem on long space travel, and where to get the fuel to launch off of Mars surface which has 38% of earths surface gravity. A lunar module isn't going to get astronauts off of Mars, it's going to take a lot more thrust than that. Darn it, I really want to see a real effort to get to and from Mars surface. The moon is a dud by comparison.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by oddjob

In the 60s/70s it made sense to go to the moon because it hadn't been done before and we weren't sure what we'd find. Besides, we couldn't let the Soviets do it first.

A great next step would be to establish a moon base, but it still needs to have a purpose more than "hey, it's there, let's do it". Perhaps it becomes the launching pad for a Mars mission, but the scale of that effort would seem to be just too massive to move it to the moon. At a minimum, we need to solve the extended exposure to radiation problem on long space travel, and where to get the fuel to launch off of Mars surface which has 38% of earths surface gravity. A lunar module isn't going to get astronauts off of Mars, it's going to take a lot more thrust than that. Darn it, I really want to see a real effort to get to and from Mars surface. The moon is a dud by comparison.

Have you read Zubrin's "The Case for Mars"? It's obviously pretty biased for Martian exploration, but it does a fantastic job of including lots of technical goodies while maintaining readability. Notably, at least according to Zubrin, as long as there is no solar flare while in transit, the radiation is not a huge problem for a 1.5 year expedition (time between leaving and returning to Earth).

Also, in-situ propellant manufacturing is really neat. Essentially, Mars has lots of CO2. O2 and CH4 make pretty good rocket fuel. If you bring the LH2 with you (which is nice and light) and "mine" the heavy stuff from the Martian atmosphere, it becomes significantly cheaper to launch/land. I'd love to see a lander just to test the concept, but I doubt Congress would be willing to lay down the cash for a proof of concept rover.

[Molten]

Originally Posted by oddjob

The moon is a dud by comparison.

Just curious, what makes Mars any better then the moon? I personally think they are both rather wasteful of resources, but if we must go for one...let's go for the closest.

[oddjob]

Originally Posted by iCurtis

Have you read Zubrin's "The Case for Mars"?

No, but I'll seek it out.

There is a new silicon-germanium circuit manufacturing process that looks like it can solve the microcircuit radiation hardening problem. Manufacturing fuel is a level of complexity we never had with the moon missions, but higher thrust also requires more complex landers and the whole project is really massive. It seems to me to be as massive a challenge today as the original Apollo missions with 1950's/1960's technology.

Originally Posted by Molten

Just curious, what makes Mars any better then the moon?

Been there, done that. To secure funding, the new mission has to be something very new and exciting. What was the US reaction when China announced it is going to the moon? That's great, but 40+ years too late. I think we have to set a higher target, and even a hint of "we'll choose the moon because Mars is too difficult" is not acceptable. Aim high!