NASA has revealed that their fancy Synthetic Aperture Radar has found what appears to be 1.3 trillion pounds of frozen water on the moon. The Indian Chandrayaan-1 mission slammed part of it’s rocket into a crater to analyze the impact’s ejected matter for signs of H2O, and they found lots – around 600 million cubic metres. This turns the possibility of a permanent moon base into a tangible reality.
The moon is rich with helium-3, which is valuable for fusion power production. It’s possible that we’ll be able to make power plants that run off the stuff that will be cheap to set up and easy to maintain because they’ll be simpler technologically, which also means they’ll have a higher conversion efficiency which means more bang for your buck, way less waste and almost no air or water pollution. How exciting in a time of doom and gloom and chilly winters in Europe!
Helium 3 comes from solar winds, and is incredibly rare on earth. It can’t get through the atmosphere in any quantity, and the stuff that got here during Earth’s formation is too decayed now. The moon’s surface is rich with helium-3 and there have been many plans to set up a moon base to harvest the stuff.
A major obstacle for a human-operated moon base has been the humanly requirement for water. Most other needs can be met with occasional trips from earth, but there is a lot of weight associated with water. A human needs nom noms and hence plant watering, and their hydration (drinkies) requirements require water, and that had put the moon mine idea on hold.
Ice reserves now bring us one massive step closer to building a permanent moon base, which I find rather exciting. Next we need a space elevator and we’ll be well on our way to becoming a Type 2 Civilization.
So be excited, damn it! We might just get off this rock after all…
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