In early October 2009, scientists sent a piece of a spacecraft – about the mass of an SUV – at over 6,000 miles per hour to crash into the moon.
Anthony Colaprete: The moon is a time capsule, a fossilized time capsule or imprint of Earth, how Earth was 3.8 billion years ago, or so.
Anthony Colaprete is principle investigator of Lunar Crater Observing and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission. He said the mission’s goal was to explore a source of hydrogen at a crater at the moon’s south pole, where scientists suspected the presence of water ice. To confirm, he said, his team analyzed the plume of debris from the impact.
Anthony Colaprete: And by being able to understand the nature of this hydrogen, we’re actually looking into the past of the entire inner solar system. Is there really water ice there? Or is it just captured protons from the sun that have accumulated, what does that mean with respect to the accumulation of water in the oceans on Earth, or the delivery of water to Mars and Venus and so on?
A mission to find water on the moon could have lasting impact on the future of space exploration.
Anthony Colaprete: It will actually be the first step in a series of steps that further our understanding and appreciation of how the solar system, the inner solar system in particular, and planet Earth, has evolved from its inception, its birth.
He said water on the moon could might help quench the thirst of future moon explorers – and also that the hydrogen and oxygen of water can be used to make rocket fuel.
Anthony Colaprete: Water’s an incredibly important resource. And if we want to go to places for extended periods, like the moon, or even to Mars, we want to be able to take advantage of resources that are available there. It’s called in-situ resource utilization. It takes a lot of fuel to fly anywhere. The fuel we use on most of our rockets is liquid oxygen and hydrogen. And those are the components of water. So if we can actually find water on the moon, we could potentially utilize these to manufacture fuel in situ.
Dr. Colaprete told EarthSky what he thought was the most important thing people should know about exploring the moon.
Anthony Colaprete: The moon is our closest celestial neighbor, yet I think it is less understood than Mars. The Apollo program 40 years ago was marvelous, and it returned a vast amount of information, and very importantly, it returned samples. Being able to actually go someplace where you have samples from, and study it even further in detail like we are now, is just a fantastic combination that turns the moon from a foreign object to a celestial laboratory, from which we can understand the processes that affect and evolve the planets and the entire solar system. So when you go outside, and you look up, and you see the moon, it is a wilderness, it is an unexplored world that really holds a number of secrets about our own origins and the origins of the entire solar system.
“It takes a lot of fuel to fly anywhere. The fuel we use on most of our rockets is liquid oxygen and hydrogen. And those are the components of water. So if we can actually find water on the moon, we could potentially utilize these to manufacture fuel in situ.”
Why does this not work with cars?
Maybe it costs a lot to produce liquid oxygen and hydrogen.So,it’s hard to use it at a large scale,such as car.
Trisha, using water to fuel a car would work, but it is cheaper to use gasoline. For a spacecraft, or a moon base, it is extremely expensive to carry that fuel from the Earth to the Moon. The increased cost of splitting the water into Hydrogen and Oxygen on the Moon would be much less than the cost to send the fuel there from Earth. Thats why it makes sense to use the water on the Moon for fuel, but not in your car.
Just think (this is out of the box) but, if if they can make some kind of fuel on the Moon,taking off from there to Mars with less gravity would be ecominical and cost saving. You guys do excellent work. I have a strong feeling there is water on the Moon.
If the people who are saying they appreciate the moon etc REALLY appreciated it..they wouldn’t be BOMBING IT for More resources to exploit. It would take today’s humans NO time at all to trash the much smaller Earth. When our tides and other rhythms are thrown off because of this selfish exploration to help us out because we’ve already been wasteful, what then? Try to find ANOTHER bandaid?? It’s horrible and tax payer funded which also isn’t fair. How about just creating new technology to just work with what we haven’t already destroyed? Can we set our exploitation mindset aside? This country is even invading OTHER countries for control and exploitation. MORE MORE MORE MORE. Well we do NOT need more. I hope we NEVER find the life that lives elsewhere in this universe because we’d destroy it too..in the name of “appreciation and understanding”. Build something that runs on what we already have. Don’t ruin my appreciation by destroying if for yours.
I think that understanding what is under the surface of the moon will offer steps to returning with greater purpose. Afterall Rome wasn’t built in a single day. How may more similar tests will follow most likely? Great job!
I’ve noticed that since the LCROSS happened, I haven’t seen the moon since. Did it change course? What were the effects on the moon?
Is it possible that this bombardment of the Moon’s suface to affect the Earth’s atmosphere?
I insist on the concept of transforming the Oxygen and Hydrogen into fuel for the car industry. It will be more economic if we keep on researching more effective developing methods and will definitely be worthwhile and in the end producing in great volume will create affordability for the consumer. I think that the entire car business has a personal interest to block this type of research. That’s why it’s not a priority.
Amanda,
In the next couple of days, get up just before sunrise and look outside, and you’ll see the moon. There’s not much left of it, we blew a huge chunk out of it, so you’ll only see a sliver, but it’s there. JUST KIDDING!
You haven’t seen the moon because it’s orbit has been between us and the sun, but you will be able to see it in the mornings soon.
I think that the more useful and powerful fuel on the moon that we should be talking about is the clean-nuclear fuel, Helium3. We already know that it’s there and there is enough of it to make a significant difference in EARTH’S energy problems. These kinds of Eathward benefits to space exploration and coloization are the kinds of things we need to propel our space program.
Oh I get it. This liquid oxygen that will be used to fly up to the moon X- amount of times for more exploration, then more trips to the moon to transport all the manufacturing equipment of water and oxygen should pretty much help deplete what oxygen we have here on earth. I think that should help the people that are cutting down our forest. Unless NASA has been hiding pictures of large lakes of water on the moon that we could be using for fish farms I think the money wasted on this type of exploration is a complete waste of resources and money not to mention the chance of loss of life.
Where is our moon? Since the bombing on October 9, 2009 it seems to have disappeared!
I was really with Mr. Colaprete as to the merits of the LCROSS mission to bombard the moon to investigate the possibilities of water but he somewhat lost me when he brought up that the water would be a asset for future moon explorers. First of all, one must ask ones self why would we need manned missions to the moon? The rovers on Mars have been roaming around for five years, along with other landers and satellites, so that we know a great deal about Mars and though these missions cost a great deal it is but a pittance to the cost of a manned mission. I have always thought that knowledge is priceless but there should be a limit on how much we spend as well as a cost verses benefit analysis and should be made public. I have no problem with sending unmanned mission to anywhere for the sake of knowledge but to spend ten times as much just for the sake of rewarding contractors the hundreds of billions of dollars for all the equipment, supplies to support a manned mission is downright ludicrous. I have never seen a estimation of the cost of transporting water to space, or the moon, as compared to the cost of transporting all the equipment to process the lunar soil to extract and process the water and I suspect that I never will.
I do know that the water or hydroxyl molecules on the moon are bound to other molecules and exist in trace amounts over the entire lunar surface and that it would take the processing of a cubic yard of lunar soil to yield about a quart of water and/or hydroxyl.
I am of the opinion that the only people to benefit from any sort of a manned mission to the moon or Mars are the contractors. We, as the people that would be paying for it all, should differentiate between science, exploration and a just outright swindling..
In my opinion, The previous administration was out to spend as much money as possible with as little reward to us, the tax paying public, as possible while maximizing the benefit to the capitalist in order to minimise the resources that could be spent for the greater good of the public, like a war in the mid east, a base on the moon and a manned mission to Mars, all of which has no benefit to the tax paying public what so ever, not to mention a deregulated and run amok capitalist system that generated a world wide recession and then handing it all off to the next administration, which was thought would probably be a democrat, so that the next administration would be able to do nothing but deal with the mess that he would inherit.
I believe that the capitalist that control the government, mostly for their own benefit, will start treating the public as intelligent when we start acting like were intelligent.
oh my god.we dont even leave the moon alon ey? first it was rain forest and africa and middle east ,,now we take a greater step,,we bombed the moon..our beautiful moon,,the one that we are all connected to ,,the liquid in our body which is 70% is all the time under the effect of the moon at night time ,,now we change the effect with bombing,,rediciolouse ,,what have we done to this planet,,before we explore the other places in the space we have to find a solution to africa ,,poeple like me and you dying over there for pieace of bread and they bombing moon,,pfffff
Hi..I am also working on various kinds of fuel and their resources..so it was really great to have this kind of information..thanks for sharing it…and I am looking forward for some more like this.
http://www.earthfriendly-fuel.com.
The lack of even elementary scientific understanding in some of these comments is scary. The content of this site is tailored for those who find an appreciation and wonder in science. Instead, many of these comments are regurgitating (badly) sound bites from mainstream media.
\”Omg, don\’t bomb the moon!\”
People… Seriously… Less commenting, more reading. Use this wonderful site to educate yourselves, and stop swallowing the hype.
I can’t believe what I am reading! “I’ve noticed that since the LCROSS happened, I haven’t seen the moon since. Did it change course? What were the effects on the moon?”. I am still rolling with laughter! And another one: “Is it possible that this bombardment of the Moon’s suface to affect the Earth’s atmosphere?”. This is ridiculous! They did NOT bombard the moon! They sent a piece of spacecraft the size of a SUV in the moon, which is meant to analyze the crater it left behind, just like archeologist dig up the soil to see the many layers of soil from different periods of time. I stronly AGREE with Justin, more reading, less commenting. And may I also add; PLEASE, before posting SENSELESS comments, grab the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Pocket Visual Dictionary and INFORM yourself from this garangutan network/database (Internet.. Duuh!). Thank you :)
Regarding the actual topic of this individual page, I believe this is a really good step which will further boost exploration of nearby planets, if not of the whole Universe.
I could not agree LESS with those that say we will waste the resources of the Moon. The government is managing such things like Industrialization, but it’s also the government that will NOT give enough funds, because they have garangutan costs, and they are already wasting their money on stuff we don’t need, like a new fighter airplane, (think F33 XD) so we won’t start industrializing space too soon, which isn’t NASA’s goal anyway, but we are surely going to see an expansion of the area to which we can get to (wheter with manned or unmanned vessels, is not up to me XD). So I think this is great :D
Best Regards,
Alex
P.S.: Maybe I was also too un-scientific? :-/
Hey, I know! Maaaybe the Government put some sort of huge wallpaper on the sky to make us think that there is a Moon.. Duuuh, I am DUM lol
I think that’s so cool. Nice Work!:) Good photo
Im having a little issue. I cant get my reader to pick up your feed, Im using yahoo reader by the way.