NASA's LCROSS approaches the Moon in October.
Credit: NASA
Imagine a dramatic vision of the future: huge processing plants at the Moon's south pole, mining the pristine lunar regolith, piping fresh water to colonies nestling in the lunar landscape. This is a vision often touted by aerospace professionals.
In order to reach out and colonise the Solar System, they argue, we will have to learn new techniques of mineral and water extraction, firstly on our nearest celestial neighbour, the Moon, and then on Mars.
Lunar scientists have just reawakened this vision with the confirmation that the Moon's otherwise dead soils contain significant quantities of water. On 9 October, NASA dropped a two-tonne Centaur rocket into the 100km-wide Cabeus Crater, a permanently shadowed depression near the Moon's South Pole. The impact caused a 1.6-kilometre-high dust plume to form.
Minutes before its own impact, the LCROSS probe's near-infrared spectrometer saw tell-tale signs of water ice and water vapour in the cloud of lunar material. NASA scientists estimate there may have been 100 kg of water detected, from an impact crater no more than 20 to 30 m across.
At the heart of NASA's plans for Solar System exploration is a sustainable human presence on the Moon, to be achieved, ambitiously, by 2020. The LCROSS results were announced in November. At first glance, they imply the Moon has a readily available supply of water. If extraction technology could be developed, it could alleviate the US$20,000 per kg price tag on transporting water to the Moon from Earth.
Unfortunately, the LCROSS results actually don't imply that lunar water is a convenient resource. The data showed that about 100kg of water were contained in the estimated 10 million kg of regolith ejected by the rocket impact. That is actually drier than the driest desert on Earth. By most standards the Moon is totally parched.
But it gets worse. Many leading researchers say it just isn't economical to extract water on the Moon. At least during the first few decades of a permanent Moon base, the cost of producing water there will be much higher than importing it from Earth.
Even so, other scientists suggest that it's the realisation of these technologies that are important, not the timeframe for (or the cost of) their development. We'll need to do this on Mars, they say, so let's get it right on the Moon first.
But that presents us with another conundrum. Mars is very different to the Moon. Only a few months ago, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) found huge quantities of very pure water ice just below the surface of several mid-latitude craters. It seems that water is much more readily available on Mars than on the Moon.
Mining these huge reserves will be vastly more efficient and economical than squeezing the tiniest bit of moisture out of the lunar regolith. That technology can't be developed on the Moon. So, ultimately, the confirmation of lunar water doesn't justify the belief that humans should return there.
Why we should not return to the Moon.
I couldn't agree more.
Mars is the obvious next destination for manned space exploration. With Phobos the first stop-off on the way.
Coincidentally I have only just finished reading a report in today's Daily Telegraph, indicating that UK scientists have seen what could have been colonies of bacteria in a piece of the Nahkla meteorite, backing up the results of the NASA Goddard study of ALH84001, recently announced.
So 'evidence' of possible life on Mars, and conditions suitable for its existence is continuing to mount. (Fossils, Water and Methane)
Confirmation of extraterrestrial life would have a profound effect and influence on our whole way of life, including how and why we want to explore the Solar System and the rest of the universe.
Let Commercial interests exploit the Moon's resources as necessary, but NASA, ESA et al must continue to push the boundaries of exploration outwards.
Stuart Hurst (ex-Beagle 2 Engineer)
An amazingly uninformed piece
As long as we must launch everything that we need from the bottom of the very deep gravity well that we live in, spaceflight will always be mass- and power-limited and therefore, capability-limited.
The amount of lunar water is less important than its location. It simply doesn’t matter that Mars has more water than the Moon – it’s on Mars, tens of millions of kilometers away. Not only is that destination several months of travel time away, but it is also at the bottom of an even deeper gravity well than the Moon. A study by the Colorado School of Mines in 2003 concluded that lunar water present in quantities of 1 wt. % or more are commercially viable. Terrestrial mining works deposits of much lower grade. The utilization of lunar water enables the production of rocket propellant to routinely access not only the lunar surface, but all of cislunar space, where all of our space assets reside.
Building a true, long-lasting space faring infrastructure that changes the paradigm of spaceflight is much more important than a flags-and-footprints PR stunt mission to Mars. By breaking the tyranny of the rocket equation, we are able to go anywhere in space, at any time to accomplish whatever task we want. This biased, misleading and uninformed piece does not help the cause of spaceflight.
Paul Spudis
Senior Staff Scientist, Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, Texas.
Moon First Mars Second
We need to get to the moon than relaunch to get to Mars.
This is ture.
Fuel costs is one of the main things we need to overcome to get to Mars. Launching off the moon would cut our fuel costs nearly in half.
Uninformed and incorrect!
Paul is of course perfectly correct. Further, there is little better location than the moon for voyaging on to any of the Planets or Asteroids for that matter. We don't avoid LEO for manned spaceflight just for "...been there, done that...etc, etc...." "reasons. Because we abandoned Lunar Exploration just as it got started, we're virtually stuck in going back again because there is so much to take advantage of, and we foolishly scrapped the means to get there...
A perfect place for testing advanced and dangerous propulsion technology, living on a planetary body with sparse eco-resources:Hydroponic farming etc, fuel creation/generation, impact analysis, "clear" Astronomy, the list is almost endless - and it is within striking distance of Earth as Apollo 13 amply proved. We will however still need the rocket equation but one with less extreme criteria and FAR less expensive DeltaV wise.
The window for a direct Mars flight passed with the initiation of STS in '72 and so now we need to REALLY start exploring the moon in a proper Lewis and Clark manner, and not just as daytrippers, as with Apollo. Mars will require A LOT more space resources than we have right now. Without Nuclear propulsion we put future astronauts at unneccessary risk in numerous ways. We don't need it for lunar flights, but it is there that we can safely test Nuclear power generation & propulsion, and spare the Earth...
No Future in Space
The moon, with or without water, isn't an ideal place for humans to either inhabit, industrialize or use as a launching pad for deep space exploration. The moon isn't a human-friendly environment at all and no one should imagine that Apollo astronauts walking on the moon prove that humans could ever live there and exploit its resources.
Industrial scale mining projects, such as would be necessary in the darkness of the water-rich lunar craters, is dangerous enough on the Earth to kill miners. On the moon, where a single slip or tear could injure or kill an astronaut, such operations would be impossible.
Construction projects on the moon, such as would be necessary to build the lunar base before industrial water mining could begin, would involve just as much danger. Plenty of construction workers are injured and killed on the Earth. In the extreme environment of the moon astronaut construction workers would gamble their own lives away at an astonishing rate.
The International Space Station should provide some clue as to the absurdity of dreams of building a base on the moon, a spaceship to travel to Mars and Mars colonization. How many decades and billions of dollars were spent to place astronauts, tenuously, in low Earth orbit? How then can anyone imagine that performing a similat task on the moon would be either fiscally or physically possible?
Deep-space astronauts wouldn't have recourse to a sudden return to the Earth as is available to ISS astronauts. If some vital piece of machinery were to break down on the moon or on the way to Mars there would be dead astronauts and a dead space program, too.
Dreams of humans leaving the Earth -- insane dreams, by the way, since there isn't any place in the Universe more beautiful than the living Earth -- are all science fiction fantasies not grounded in reality. From an economic standpoint, there is no way that a planet of 9+ billion humans post-Peak Oil to engage in space exploration of any sort, much less certain to fail colonization attempts.
Instead of worrying so much about humans leaving the Earth, humans should devote their attention to trying to survive on the Earth because in a world suffering radical changes in response to climate change and also depriving from resource depletion and water shortages ... there isn't any guarantee that humankind will avoid extinction, nor (considering what humankind has done) any reason to believe that Nature is obligated to preserve humankind from extinction.
There's no future for humankind on the moon, Mars or the Earth. Humankind is a failed evolutionary experiment. In reaching for the skies humans have destroyed their only home, their future, and millions of addiction species.
Environmental Protection vs Interplanetary Travel.
We do indeed need to protect and look after our "own backyard". We must also remember that much of the damage we do is caused from the extraction and processing of energy sources. Surely it must, in the long run, be better to try and source these materials, or their alternatives, from places less likely to be impacted negatively i.e. the moon or other planetary bodies. The human race will strive to survive no matter what, we are hard wired for it, so if we can reduce the strain on our own glorious blue world by using other places to live then that has to be a good thing.
People get caugt up with an "it has to be one or the other" approach. We need to do both to survive and grow as a species or we will become extinct and the planet will go on, as she has always done.
I could not agree with Paul Spudis more
The author makes an erroneous assumption that the water was uniformly distributed in the lunar regolith ejected by the impact. This is not what the LCROSS finding implies at all. Until further analysis is available, the water molecules were most likely on or close to the lunar surface protected from the Sun by crater walls. However, the author makes a considerable leap from the scarcity of water on the Moon to argue that humanity should focus on Mars.
While the technology to reach the Moon already exist today, the technology to travel to Mars does not. Even the Augustine panel report noted that. The Moon contains a wide variety of metals that could be processed to manufacture necessary structures and equipment to build a space infrastructure that could facilitate human space travel.
Gary Miles
Why we should not return to the Moon-The Tunnel Vision Approach
So much to say, so little space to say it. Any one who has followed the human population of the earth will realize that our resources will only last for so long. Some will run out before others. We can remain Earth-bound and end up like bacteria in a petrie dish, or expand our living environment and sphere of influence.
Recent reports of minerals such as uranium, long-known about platinum, deuterium, etc. make the moon an attractive source of more than just water. Water, when separated by electrolysis can be breathed or used for fuel. Almost every object we need or use required water at some point in its making.
No matter how cheap space access becomes (barring the actual building of a space elevator which is near impossible on the moon), lunar sourced resources will be more than cost-competitive in a well established industrial infrastructure. It will enable us to not only go to Mars, but to go repeatedly and cheaply until we settle permanently there. It will also allow us to start harvesting those menacing asteroids (think gold mines) to help advance the human presence, not wipe it out.
Aside from resources, there is a very radio-dark region on the other side of the moon, perfectly suited for the best possible radio telescope we could imagine. Space-based and lunar-based solar energy can provide limitless power 24/7 for everything from terrestrial needs to power-beaming energy to spacecraft, stations and satellites in Earth-Moon space. A ring of solar panels around the entire lunar equator would provide a continuous supply except during total eclipses with earth.
The experiences we gain from self contained environments in space and on the moon will be invaluable for those same needs on Mars. This is something the ISS is already providing some of. Operating craft regularly in a space environment away from Earth is just the experience we need before the long journey to Mars. Even propulsion advances allowing for a 12 hour trip to the moon (not unthinkable) would provide reduced enough travel times to Mars to make them many times safer for space travelers.
Then there is the tourism industry. How many years had passed after the ISS construction was started, before the first tourist arrived? This happened years before the station was even completed. Heck, who wouldn't want to take a retirement trip to a lunar hotel to spend a week or two in the low gravity to feel young again? That is as long as the cost was not out of this world!
I've read many articles and opinions focusing on very specific aspects of Mars vs the Moon. But there are many reasons for going to the moon, some of which will may well become needs in the near future with our current population trends (e.g. power systems and/or resources). Only some are mentioned here, and many more are available with a bit of searching.
In closing, I feel we should all take heed of the many things ex-Nasa Administrator Mike Griffin had to say on his way out of office. The Moon is the best path to Mars, not a diversion.
Michael (Hamilton)
P.S. Expendable equipment is not the way to go either. It would be quite a while before we can build rockets on Mars to be able to travel back home to Earth...(a little rocket humour for those serious minded folk).
A crime against science
The author is incorrect about the economic recoverability of lunar water, but there is a more important point which he doesn't address at all: humans are biologically dirty creatures, and will contaminate any location they spend any amount of time at. Mars very likely has some form of indigenous life on it, and to put humans there before these forms of life can be scientifically studied and preserved will be a crime against science.
Terran life is opportunistic and invasive, and may likely overwhelm whatever life is present on Mars. Once humans have contaminated Mars, important questions like Martian life cycles, ecosystems and the very structure of the organisms themselves will be lost forever.
Mars most likely represents the first living planet we've ever explored, and we only get one chance to investigate it in its pristine state. The Moon does not present these same problems, offers us a location accessible every single day instead of every two years, and presents an environment where space meets the ground; such an environment will prove very useful for a variety of manufacturing processes once we get the basics of colonization done and behind us.
Mars represents a useful, long term goal for mankind, but science must be given its chance first. The Moon awaits us today. It is short-sighted not to answer her call.