Water on the Moon??

[Thor]

NASA finds water on the moon

This image provided Friday, Nov. 13, 2009 by NASA shows the ejecta plume AP – This image provided Friday, Nov. 13, 2009 by NASA shows the ejecta plume created by the LCROSS Centaur …


by Jean-Louis Santini Jean-louis Santini – Fri Nov 13, 2:39 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A "significant amount" of frozen water has been found on the moon, the US space agency said Friday heralding a giant leap forward in space exploration and boosting hopes of a permanent lunar base.

Preliminary data from a dramatic experiment on the moon "indicates the mission successfully uncovered water in a permanently shadowed lunar crater," NASA said in a statement.

"The discovery opens a new chapter in our understanding of the moon," it added, as ecstatic scientists celebrated the landmark discovery.

"Yes indeed we found water and we did not find only a little bit but a significant amount," said Anthony Colaprete, project scientist and principal investigator for the 79-million-dollar LCROSS mission.

The data was found after NASA sent two spacecraft crashing into the lunar surface last month in a dramatic experiment to probe Earth's nearest neighbor for water.

One rocket slammed into the Cabeus crater, near the lunar southern pole, at around 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers) per hour.

Moon holds key to solar system's secrets

The rocket was followed four minutes later by a spacecraft equipped with cameras to record the impact which sent a huge plume of material billowing up from the bottom of the crater, untouched by sunlight for billions of years.

"In the 20 to 30 meter crater we found maybe about a dozen, at least, two-gallon buckets of water. This is an initial result," Colaprete told reporters.

"We are ecstatic," he added in a statement.

"Multiple lines of evidence show water was present in both the high angle vapor plume and the ejecta curtain created by the LCROSS Centaur impact.

"The concentration and distribution of water and other substances requires further analysis, but it is safe to say Cabeus holds water," Colaprete said.

Scientists had previously theorized that, except for the possibility of ice at the bottom of craters, the moon was totally dry.

Finding water on Earth's natural satellite is a major breakthrough in space exploration.

"It's very exciting, it is painting a new image of the moon," said Gregory Deloy, from the University of California hailing it as "an extraordinary discovery."

He theorized that "one of the possible source of water is a comet."

"We're unlocking the mysteries of our nearest neighbor and, by extension, the solar system," said Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington.

"The full understanding of the LCROSS data may take some time. The data is that rich," Colaprete cautioned.

"Along with the water in Cabeus, there are hints of other intriguing substances. The permanently shadowed regions of the moon are truly cold traps, collecting and preserving material over billions of years."

Only 12 men, all Americans, have ever walked on the moon, and the last to set foot there were in 1972, at the end of the Apollo missions.

But NASA's ambitious plans to put US astronauts back on the moon by 2020 to establish manned lunar bases for further exploration to Mars under the Constellation project are increasingly in doubt.

NASA's budget is currently too small to pay for Constellation's Orion capsule, a more advanced and spacious version of the Apollo lunar module, as well as the Ares I and Ares V launchers needed to put the craft in orbit.

A key review panel appointed by President Barack Obama said existing budgets are not large enough to fund a return mission before 2020.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091113/ts_afp/sciencespaceusmoon

So.......... does this mean that there's life on the moon?? I kind of doubt it.....

[Mustang]

wtf...

it's probably just some plasma goo from some comet. Dumbass scientist makes a big conclusion based off of some crappy pixelized  uncolored photo       

[JohnnyReb]

Enquiring DUmmies want to know..."Does that mean pot can be grown there?"

[tarock]

SO WHAT????
tarock

[bkg]

SO WHAT????
tarock

/thread

[Chris_]

SO WHAT????
tarock

Well....since NASA's long term goal is to establish a permanent base there as a platform to launch further exploration, the question has been proffered that the moon might contain some resources that could be used to support that base, and therefore free up resources that would have otherwise been expended to import those things to supply the base......

Water being one of those resources......if it is already there, then it won't have to be hauled all the way from earth to supply the base......simple really......

doc

[Lord Undies]

So, it must be a sign that God wanted us to go to the moon.  And if Ray Kroc had wanted us to got to the moon, there would be a McDonald's there.  I wonder why God wanted us to go to the moon but Ray Kroc didn't?

[Thor]

SO WHAT????
tarock

Odd that some Wing Nut can't grasp the concept of this discovery.

Go back and read what TV Doc said.

[rich_t]

Send up an Apollo series type rocket and have a Neil Armstrong type get a sample.

If we could land a man on the moon in the 1960s, surely we can do in again 50 years later.

[Doc]

Send up an Apollo series type rocket and have a Neil Armstrong type get a sample.

If we could land a man on the moon in the 1960s, surely we can do in again 50 years later.

We could except for two little problems:

.....No boosters (the remaining Saturn V parts are in museums)

.....No budget

Otherwise we'd be there already......GWB restarted the project, and expanded the budget......Obama has cancelled the budget.......it is not as important in his mind as his "social" agenda.....

On edit:  It could theoretically be done utilizing one of the more recent series of Russian "heavy lift" boosters, but all of the modifications and redesign of the post-orbital vehicles would be so extensive (and expensive), that it would be cheaper to start from scratch.....

doc

[Gratiot]

Dumbass scientist makes a big conclusion based off of some crappy pixelized  uncolored photo

Most astronomical viewing essentially is uncolored. 

[thundley4]

Most astronomical viewing essentially is uncolored. 

And also done in the spectrum of light invisible to the human eye.

[ironhorsedriver]

By viewing the light through a spectragraph, they can break individual elements down. If water is present it gives off a specific color. That's how they determine the elements present in individual stars far, far away. My understanding is it's infallible.