Do you know what rocket fuel is? Well Hydrogen and Oxygen is one of the most common ones. Now where do you think you get that from? You aren't going to find a rocket fuel mine on the moon.
Brace Yourself...It's Official: Water Found on the Moon
- Thread starter Aleenik
- Start date
Do you know what rocket fuel is? Well Hydrogen and Oxygen is one of the most common ones. Now where do you think you get that from? You aren't going to find a rocket fuel mine on the moon.
Nah, the moon water data came from an Indian spacecraft (name escapes me, but it's Indian sounding).
It was also confirmed by 2 other NASA spacecraft - One of them was the cassini probe, which is heading to Saturn (I think).
I'm not sure what the other one was, but NASA has the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter around the moon right now - it is studying potential future human landing sites. I t is mapping the lunar surface like never before.
The other spacecraft NASA has around the moon is the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (yeah, I read a bit about this instead of cleaning my kitchen). Its mission is focused entirely on finding water on the moon, so that's probably the other probe that verified the results.
the LRO thing is exciting though - we know there is water on the moon now, and we are mapping the whole moon in very high detail. Not only that, we are looking for potential future landing sites - and probably also potential base sites. It's good information to have, and it's also promising to see that space agencies are thinking about future human moon exploration.
Chandrayaan-1!
warpus
In pork I trust
Something from a related article that readers of this thread might find interesting. It is about the 2 NASA spacecraft currently orbiting the moon. I've bolded the important bits.
Sending stuff to the moon is a lot of work. We use the term rocket scientist for a gifted person for good reason. Space agencies only have so many resources. There's a lot to study out in the solar system and space that merely wanting to head over to the moon and test dust isn't sufficient enough reason to justify the hundreds of millions of dollars that would take.
Other missions have detected the likely presence of water on the moon but lacked the equipment to prove one way or another.
warpus
In pork I trust
Just seems like an obvious first thing to look for *shrug*
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
Because there really isn't any potential for the moon. Mars on the other hand.
If we go to Mars, we have to conquer the Moon first. We don't have the energy to go Earth --> Mars in a single shot, the amount of fuel it takes to blast off from Earth is enormous.
warpus
In pork I trust
That's not true at all (although the last part of what you said is)
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
Well yes, we do have the energy to go there straight from Earth, but it makes almost no sense to do so, unless for some weird reason the Moon loses all viability of use.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
In a video on Fox News I watched about this. It talked about Astronauts could break down the water and... because its H20 could use it as Oxygen or Rocket fuel...along with drinking water.
I'm not that educated on this stuff I suppose, so I didn't know that.
Hydrogen and oxygen are the main fuel for such rockets. Since they are out of our atmosphere, they need to bring oxygen with them to burn the hydrogen fuel. You could break down water into elemental hydrogen and oxygen to use as fuel, but that would require as much energy as burning the fuel would provide, assuming perfect efficiency which is not possible. There is no way water could be used as the real power source, but it could be used to store solar power. It does not sound very feasible to try this on the moon though, considering how little water their is and how long it would take to make enough fuel to power the ship.
Ecofarm
Deity
Any chance of life in the water?
warpus
In pork I trust
A spaceship used for a mission to mars will have to be put together in orbit - and individual pieces are going to have to be constructed on earth and blasted into orbit on giant rockets.
there's no way we're anywhere near being able to construct spaceships on the moon and launching mars missions from there. We're gonna be on Mars decades (centuries?) before there's manned missions being launched from the moon. It is not a stepping stone in that sense.
Ecofarm said:
Like what.. tiny frozen bacteria?
You do realize that these are tiny pellets of water, mixed in with the sand, right?
Gustave5436
Emperor
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I really don't understand people who don't want us out there, there's so much potential, why all the hate?
Because our immediate destination should be Mars, not the Moon.
Or by space elevator.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
There is probably a little bacterial life on the moon, at least in the form of endospores on and near things we sent there. Some of the probes we recovered from the moon were found to have bacteria on their surfaces which had apparently survived the trip there and back.
Ecofarm
Deity
No, like mermaids that poop gold or leviathans.
You know, you could not be so condescending and just explain it, as MagisterCultuum did. Thanks by the way MC. I obviously had my knowledge of rocket fuel reversed, thinking that water was a by-product and not a source.Do you know what rocket fuel is? Well Hydrogen and Oxygen is one of the most common ones. Now where do you think you get that from? You aren't going to find a rocket fuel mine on the moon.
EDIT: I've remembered why I was thinking water was a by-product. I was thinking of Hydrogen-3 - not exactly a correct formula, but it's the best I can do on here - which is what we'd use in a fusion engine for long-distance flights. At least, so an old book of mine said.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
Water is the byproduct of burning hydrogen fuel with oxygen, but it can also be the source. On Earth we might prefer to use other sources (like reactions with certain acids) for the hydrogen and just use atmospheric oxygen to burn it, but out there we'll need the oxygen too (and other sources of either chemical may be hard to come by) so we might as well use water to get both elements in the proper proportion. Of course, we won't get any more energy than we put into it that way, so it would pretty much be limited in usefulness to being a way to store solar energy.
Thanks for the info. Sounds like it wouldn't produce much energy if that's the case, but I guess you use what's available.
There's a difference between theorising something and finding out that it's true.
It's one-sixth of Earth's gravity, so you're corrected.
This simply confirms what Ben Bova has been writing about in his Grand Tour series for the last ~20 years.
