Lunar Ice?
There is unconfirmed evidence of water ice in a crater near the southern
pole of the Moon. Earlier results from Clementine indicated a 150 km
wide
crater near the south pole was in permanent darkness, fuelling hopes
that
water might one day be discovered there. At a Pentagon news conference
on
December 3 it was announced that radar evidence suggesting the existence
of
water ice.
One report said that this might be a prelude to discovering microbes on
the
Moon. Rubbish.
Several reports referred to this as a source of feedstock for rocket
fuel
production. Since this is only a "small pond's" worth of water, it would
not
last long if used for fuel. Lunar water is much too valuable for closed
life
support systems to turn into rocket fuel. Besides, the ubiquitous lunar
aluminum makes a quite passable rocket fuel.
"Clementine" (actually the first in a series of missions with that name)
was
a remarkable mission, "the little space probe that could". Launched in
1994,
its primary mission was to test systems for Ballistic Missile Defense
Organization (BMDO). By international treaty that's a no-no in earth
orbit,
so the probe was sent to the moon. The study of the moon (during 70 days
of
orbit) was incidental secondary mission -- 1.8 million pictures were
taken.
A computer problem made it impossible to complete a planned flyby of the
asteroid Geographos (a follow-up Clementine mission will attempt another
asteroid fly-by).
This hugely successful mission cost just $75 million, extraordinarily
inexpensive for a space mission. In the wake of the failure of the Mars
Observer, Clementine's legacy is the "better, faster, cheaper" approach
evident in NASA's recent deep space exploration.
* http://cnn.com/TECH/9612/03/moon.ice/index.html
*
http://www.sciencemag.org/science/scripts/display/full/274/5292/1495.html
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