Moon water on the rocks
Published 2:52 pm Monday, November 15, 2010
Not to be cynical, or spin conspiracy theories, but Jumpin’ Jupiter, how totally perfect is it that NASA discovered water on the moon just months after the Obama administration said plans to return there in 2020 are unworkable because there just isn’t the money?
Just in time, NASA struck gold. In the form of water. (Which is more life-sustaining than discovering a cheese-filled orb. But less fun. What wines go best with some yummy lunar Gouda?)
The stars aligned and voila, evidence of H20 on the moon gives NASA a pretty compelling reason to return, if only to lay claim to the bottled-water rights.
To find the water, NASA did not use an astro-dowser with a divining rod. Instead, the $79-million mission crashed a satellite into a crater near the moon’s south pole a month ago. The 5,600-miles-per-hour impact carved out a hole 60 to 100 feet wide and kicked up at least 26 gallons of water, the New York Times reported.
That sounds like a good show, but space enthusiasts who tuned in on Oct. 9 to see promised plumes of explosion debris were disappointed.
(It wasn’t enough to find water, it was supposed to be exciting TV. Did no one learn from the 1986 Geraldo Rivera/Al Capone empty vault debacle? What did they find? Exactly. Some debris. Even if from the moon, you can’t make debris exciting. Unless you implode the Kingdome or something. But we’re pretty sure NASA wants to keep the moon intact at this point, because you can’t colonize a debris plume.)
“What’s really exciting is we’ve only hit one spot,” Peter Schultz, a geology professor at Brown University and a co-investigator on the mission, told the Los Angeles Times.
“It’s kind of like when you’re drilling for oil. Once you find it in one place, there’s a greater chance you’ll find more nearby.”
Drill, baby, drill.
A new space race is suddenly on, the moon vogue and in demand.
“This is painting a surprising new picture of the moon. This is not your father’s moon,” said Greg Delory, a space scientist at UC Berkeley.
Ah, not your father’s moon. (They also found a crater full of cliches up there). Not the cold, rocky outcrop good only for smacking some golf balls around. This moon is alive with possibility, scientists say. Such as constructing a lunar base in which astronauts could live and work for months at a time.
Until then, we like the moon’s mysteriousness — perhaps it quietly retains water for its own reasons and cycles.
Would all the celestial wonders still be heavenly bodies if they had earthly plumbing?
