Comments on: Life Will be Hard for Colonists – Kaguya Can't Find Water on the Moon

By: Heartburn Home Remedy

Heartburn Home Remedy — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:21:25 +0000

If you want to see a reader's feedback , I rate this post for 4/5. Detailed info, but I have to go to that damn google to find the missed pieces. Thank you, anyway!

By: Astrofiend

Astrofiend — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:08:09 +0000

@TD Says:
October 25th, 2008 at 2:17 pm

On topic – time to start recycling wee…

By: TD

TD — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 21:17:01 +0000

Frank G. – you're right, leave the space station where it is in low earth orbit. The experiment it's involved in now – to try to bore earth's population to death – is much too important.

By: Frank Glover

Frank Glover — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:00:11 +0000

"Put some big engines on the space station and orbit the moon for a while…"

That's much easier said than done.

ISS is not built to take high thrusts, you'd break modules and solar panels off in the first two minutes. Low thrust engine (ion or the like)? That means slowly spiraling up to escape velocity, spending WAY too much time in the VanAllen belts. (Apollo and most other craft cut across them pretty quickly).

And neither living things, nor most solid state electronics like ionizing radiation very much.

But let's say you get there in spite of that. How do you conduct re-supply and crew rotation? The shuttle obviously can't get to Lunar orbit. Neither can Soyuz, Progress or ATV.

And then there's the small matter of getting the kind of instrumentation onto ISS that might confirm Lunar ice, before you try to leave…

By: G.Greitl

G.Greitl — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 06:39:40 +0000

There's all sorts of water on the moon. You just have to drill for it. Any permanent moon facilities should be subterreanean anyway. Surface structures are too dangerous to live in due to gamma rays, micro meteorites, micro dust particles and extreme temperature fluctuations. But yes, there's alot of water on the moon. It might be combined with sulfer and other compounds. We would be better off searching for deep natural caverns and chasms with some deep scanning radar. We've built small cities and military installations underground here on Earth. The Moon underground would provide a stable temperature and comfortable environment to live in. There's water on the moon, we'll just have to filter it, but then, maybe we'll get lucky. Of course, if we don't get along with each other here on Earth, it may be another couple thousand years before we go back again. It's already been three generations since we were there last. Or so we've been told.

By: DCTECHGUY

DCTECHGUY — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 06:11:12 +0000

TD is not too far off the mark. There was a fascinating proposal in the Washington Post to do just that — http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/11/AR2008071102394.html. It would be way cool!

By: TD

TD — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 03:03:37 +0000

Put some big engines on the space station and orbit the moon for a while to collect some good data. It's embarassing that 40 years after we've been to the moon, we still don't know the lunar polar regions contain water ice.

I also hope Lacrosse doesn't get cancelled – it's still worth a shot.

By: DrNecropolis

DrNecropolis — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 19:58:47 +0000

Sweet! Finally an excuse to start working on my Comet Catcher satellite. Basically it a giant catchers mitt with an ion engine attached (note to self: don't post your Nobel Prize caliber ideas until after you patent them)

By: Mars Man

Mars Man — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:13:44 +0000

Heck you earthlings have to drill for a large percentage of your fresh water, and you live on a plant flush with oceans. I hardly see this as a downer, you may just have to do a little digging to find what you are looking for.

By: Jorge

Jorge — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:04:13 +0000

Honestly?

I've never understood how would the water reach the surface to start with. And not be lost to space. For one, impacts generate large amounts of heat in the surface, which kinda prevents water from staying where they happen. So any water that might exist inside a crater would have to get there after the crater was formed. But how? Where would it come from?

Then there's the permanent shade thing. It makes sense, but only if the Moon's axis of rotation never wobbles. Wouldn't it wobble after major impacts, though? Wouldn't that kinda make permanent shade areas non-permanent in the long run?

Unless someone can show me actual moon ice of explain to me a viable way to put these doubts aside, I'm remaining skeptic. In my view, we may find underground ice deposits one day. But superficial? Don't think so.

By: dollhopf

dollhopf — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:23:43 +0000

Heinlein once phrased that The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

And I do wonder how an ambitious society has to be constituted. Question: How could deprivation hinder us? – Depriviation is the most familiar phrase prescribing those with the most successful progeny of mankind. "No water ice found yet?", this is not an insurmountable obstacle.

No matter how, whether through the supply chain of a communist version of human kind or by the also unrelenting embossing of individuals: a fraction of mankind is able to reach out for and to take over parts of outer space.

This is a beginnig!

By: LLDIAZ

LLDIAZ — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:08:48 +0000

I agree with Maugrim no counter evidence made public. Why?

By: wh

wh — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:42:46 +0000

Although the evidence has been disappointing, there is still a good chance that abundant ice does exist on the moon. The reason for this optimism is the fact that our solar system as we know it has plenty of ice, and much of it being carried by asteroids. It is inconceivable that, over the time span of billions of years, the moon has never been hit by some of the icy rocks.

So I'm not cancelling my reservations just yet

By: Bill

Bill — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:24:22 +0000

typo- "electrolysis"

By: Bill

Bill — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:23:06 +0000

The source of the optimism is the scattering of neutrons from hydrogen. The assumption is that the presence of hydrogen atoms (or protons, which are the basis of the common hydrogen isotope nucleus, which is what the neutron scatters off of), equates to the presence of water. This is one source of the optimism with regard to the anticipation of large quantities of water on Mars, though that optimism is bolstered by the assumption that the features on Mars are water-created or modified and the direct detection of relatively small quantities of water ice. We should note, however, that the widespread existence of the mineral olivine on Mars directly contradicts the notion of widespread water since water dissolves olivine. The moon is teaching us a lesson if we are paying attention. The silver lining is that if the moon harbors hydrogen at the poles in some compound form, or if there is an enhanced solar wind flux at the poles, it may be possible that plentiful oxygen in the regolith (45%) can be extracted (solar energy as a power source) and combined with the hydrogen to make water in a reverse electolysis.

By: Sci-Fi Si

Sci-Fi Si — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:05:36 +0000

This is harsh news indeed. Think I'll just join WETI sit on my sofa and wait for an alien to bring me in a nice cup of tea. (Could be a long wait)

By: Maugrim

Maugrim — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:41:48 +0000

That is something of a blow to lunar colonisation hopes – I'd had the impression people considered the existence of water ice on the moon very likely, and I hadn't heard about the counter evidence. Guess this means we will be hauling a lot more fluids across. Roll on the space elevator…