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Moon
Moon Colonies
The U.S. space agency, NASA, plans to crash a rocket into a crater on the south pole of the moon
on Friday in hopes of detecting water in the debris produced by the impact. An empty rocket will
slam into the lunar surface followed by an inspection by the Lunar Crater Observation and
Sensing Satellite or LCROSS, which will later also slam into the moon. If the probe shows the
presence of water, it could boost U.S. plans to establish a lunar base. But finding water on the
moon is only the first step.

The LCROSS mission is being watched with great interest by manned exploration planners at
the Johnson Space Center here in Houston. The probe's mission is to find out whether there is
water in deep, dark craters near the moon's poles that could be used by astronauts at a lunar
base.

Such a plan is part of NASA's Constellation program, whereby bases on the moon would be
used for launching more ambitious manned missions to Mars.

Wendell Mendell, Chief of Lunar and Planetary Exploration for the program says LCROSS is an
essential first step.

The theory being tested is that water, in the form of ice, has collected in deep craters in polar
regions of the moon, where the sun's rays never reach. Water that might have come to the moon
from comets, for example, would have been turned to vapor by the intense sunlight hitting most
of the lunar surface. But Mendell says there is a good chance that there is some form of water in
the craters.

Paul Spudis of the Houston-based Lunar and Planetary Institute works with NASA on exploration
plans and says there might be water in a purer form. If sufficient quantities can be extracted for
use at a base near the top of the crater, Spudis says it could provide drinking water for humans
and be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen.

"You can take water and pass an electric current through it that might be generated by a solar
panel and then turn it back into its gaseous form as well," he said. "Now when it is in its gaseous
form, it can be condensed into an extremely cold version, the cryogenic version, of liquid oxygen
and liquid hydrogen, which is also a rocket propellant," he added.

Water also can be used in other ways to create energy. Fuel cells on the Apollo missions
provided astronauts with energy and drinking water.

Spudis says there is yet another use for water on the moon. "The other thing you can use it for is
for radiation shielding. Water is a very good shielding material. It stops a lot of high-energy
particles and you can jack your inflatable habitat with a water bladder that would effectively act as
a radiation shield," he said.

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Facts

Moon has water or hyroxyl.
When Apollo astronauts returned from the moon 40 years ago, they brought back several
samples of lunar rocks. The moon rocks were analyzed for signs of water bound to minerals
present in the rocks; while trace amounts of water were detected, these were assumed to be
contamination from Earth, because the containers the rocks came back in had leaked. [2]

For decades, the Moon has been regarded as a completely dry place. The dark side is more than
ice cold, but when it passes into sunlight, any ice should have long ago been baked away.
However, data from three spacecraft indicate the widespread presence of water or hydroxyl, a
molecule consisting of one hydrogen atom and one oxygen atom as opposed to the two
hydrogen and one oxygen atoms that make up a water molecule. [1]

Moon Mineralogy Mapper can only penetrate the top few millimeters of lunar regolith, the newly
observed water seems to be at or near the lunar surface. [2]

One explanation for that phenomenon is that a stream of charged hydrogen atoms in the solar
wind could react with oxygen-bearing lunar minerals to produce water at the surface. That
process would explain the steady, fast-acting replenishment seen in the data after sunlight has
dissociated the water molecules.  [3]

Anyway, Lunar and Planetary Institute senior scientist Paul Spudis sums up there are three
possibilities: It came from comets or asteroids that crashed into the moon, those crashes freed
up trapped water from below the surface, or the solar wind carries hydrogen atoms that binds
with oxygen in the dirt. [4]

Temperature
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), an unmanned mission to comprehensively map
the entire moon, has returned its first data. Science team member Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. said, "Diviner has given us the first confirmation
that these strange, permanently dark and extremely cold places actually exist on our moon," [5]

David Paige, Diviner's principal investigator and a UCLA professor of planetary science said, "It
is safe to conclude that the temperatures in these super-cold regions are definitely low enough
to cold-trap water ice, as well as other more volatile compounds, for extended periods." [5]

The orbiter swooped down above the moon’s mysterious south pole, and measured
temperatures in the permanently shadowed craters that are the lowest ever detected in our solar
system. [6]

Reference
[1] Signs of Water Are Found on the Moon  The New York Times September 23, 2009
[2] It's Official: Water Found on the Moon Space.com 23 September 2009
[3] Stream of Evidence from 3 Spacecraft Indicates That the Moon Has Water Scientific American
September 23, 2009
[4] It's not lunacy, probes find water in moon dirt AP September 23, 2009
[5] New NASA Temperature Maps Provide 'Whole New Way Of Seeing The Moon' ScienceDaily
(Sep. 19, 2009)
[6] Close-Up of the Moon Reveals Coldest Place in the Solar System & Possible Ice Discover
Magazine Sep 21, 2009‎
[7] Greg Flakus NASA's Rocket Crash Might Boost Plans for Moon Colonies 08 Voice of America
VOANEWS. October 2009
Image Credit NASA