Cheese debate still rages
Late last month data from three different spacecraft confirmed scientists’ long-held suspicions that there is water on the moon.
India’s moon-probe Chandrayaan-1, and NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and Deep Impact probe all reported spectral signals indicative of water or hydroxyl (OH).
US moon researcher Larry Taylor is quoted on the BBC News website as estimating the amount to be a litre per cubic metre of lunar dirt; however, Carle Pieters of Brown University in Providence told the New Scientist magazine that the amount is probably just a “nice glass of water” per baseball-field of dirt (obviously more scientific measures).
Scientist and astronauts all over the world are totally excited, because the water could be utilised in a human flight to Mars.
In addition to being used in the usual way by the astronauts, the water could be split into oxygen and hydrogen to be used as fuel.
This is significant because the moon’s gravitational pull is much lower than that of the Earth. This means that it takes much less energy for a spacecraft to lift off from the moon than it does from Earth, making water and fuel obtained from the moon relatively ‘cheaper’ than water and fuel from the Earth.
Students asked by Salient for their comments on the moon-water stamped their feet and screamed “can’t you see I’ve got an essay due in two hours?! I don’t have time to answer your inane questions!”