Water on the Moon?

[Ian Pearse]

I find this tremendously exciting:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8272144.stm

It looks as though one of the major difficulties concerning a permanent outpost on the Moon has been removed, or at least mitigated to an extent. I would guess a bit more work is needed to confirm quantities and how best to extract it, but this is a huge step forward.

[archer17]

Agreed. I was also pleasantly surprised by this finding.

This discovery also helped the Indians get over their Chandrayaan-1 loss.

[shashankx17]

What did the US conclude after blowing a crater on the moon ?

[gwiz]

Nov 5, 2009 0:28:23 GMT -4 shashankx17 said:

What did the US conclude after blowing a crater on the moon ?

Apparently good data, though the plume was not nearly as bright as expected. No doubt there will be a press conference when the results are all in.

[Apollo Gnomon]

preliminary analysis of ultraviolet spectra taken by the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph showed no obvious sign of hydroxyl (OH), a fragment of water that might be expected to be produced if frozen water were vaporized by the impacts, said Alex Storrs of Towson University in Baltimore.

www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/48219/title/Moon_crash_delivers_no_obvious_plume

[gwiz]

Nov 5, 2009 0:28:23 GMT -4 shashankx17 said:

What did the US conclude after blowing a crater on the moon ?

Press conference to report initial results:
spaceflightnow.com/lcross/091113results/index.html

[Grand Lunar]

So far, I've read (and heard) that the amount of water blasted out is equal to about 24 gallons of water.

I wonder if this finding gives NASA more of a reason to go back to the moon, rather than going by the "flexible plan" proposed by the Augustine Comission.