The question of lunar colonization has long been debated in scientific (and sci-fi) circles for decades, and has always rested on one conclusion - man cannot sustain life on the moon without water. World governments have spent billions of dollars trying to determine if there can exist some slight amount of water... in polar craters, in the regolith. Even the Apollo missions returned lunar rocks with the intent of searching for embedded water - the results were inconclusive.The world has changed today... and the moon will never again look the same.
When early civilizations looked to the moon, they saw vast oceans on a nearby celestial body... and named them rightly.
It turns out that the entire surface of the moon contains, in some small amount, WATER. There may be more water hidden in the shadows of the polar craters, but the new discovery reveals, at least in some small amounts, that water exists on the entire surface of the moon.
The moon remains drier than any desert on Earth, but the water is said to exist on the moon in very small quantities. One ton of the top layer of the lunar surface would hold about 32 ounces of water, researchers said.Water, as we all know, is the sustaining force for life as we know it. To consider a lunar colony, permanent settlement of the moon, one would have to plan a supply of water. With the discovery of any amount of water on the lunar surface our ability to simplify a self sustaining colony has just exponentially increased.
The simplest form of colonization considers "In-Situ" resources a necessary - that is, the ability to collect your resources for survival at your destination. To not have to bring water, even the short distance to the moon, could save us decades of slow growth due to required transportation.
I am a Mars Colony advocate, but taking advantage of lunar resources is a required step if human kind should ever decide to fight for a prolonged existence in the cosmos.
The next time you look up at the moon, think about a future where the half moon will play host to a night time display of distant city lights... Humans, en masse, living on other worlds. That reality just got a little closer today.
That's exciting news! Although I understand the moon is a harsh mis... well, you know.
ReplyDeleteIndian mission had received such an achivement in discovering that there is water on the moon. london Escorts
ReplyDeleteOne ton per 32 ounces, on average. I bet there are places besides the poles where there's more, like at the bottom of deep craters, in the lee of the sun, where watery meteors struck and chunks of ice embedded deep, with no reason to melt. Too bad all we've done for going on 40 years is circle the Earth over and over again killing mice and taking measurements. We should have never left the moon, gone to marse, done the rest. But we gave government too much power - no cryogenic fuel in space....no nuclear propulsion in space...nothing that would have made it cheap for private enterprise to do something up there. Oh and guess what? Obama's going to cut Bush's vision to go back to the moon via government ride. So "more of the same" for us - circles around the Earth, more mice to kill, more measurements to take.
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