Thread: The Wet Side of the Moon

We can finally begin to think seriously about establishing a self-sufficient settlement on the Moon because of NASA?s discovery of large quantities of water there.

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I think it is a real breakthrough that we have found water on the moon. But to really think about having a permanent base on the moon would require a significant quantity of water as well as a considerable source of power. Wate would be necessary for drinking, washing, cooking, watering greenhouse vegetables and most importantly for producing oxygen. Maybe I've missed other uses. I don't think solar energy alone would be enough to support a permanent settlement. There would probably need to be fission reactors as well. If we ever could harness fusion energy we could use the hydrogen from the water as well as the oxygen. Regardless, I think the amount of water would need to be more in the size of a frozen lake than the trace amounts we have found so far.

The water is mostly very close to the North and/or South pole which may be less than an ideal location for most other things. The Sun is always very close to the horizon, so shadows are very long and colder than dry ice. A few polar peaks have sunlight perhaps 99% of the time, but the collection area is small and inconvenient, and perhaps 100 kilometers from the craters with water ice at the bottom. Nuclear power plants are possible, except there is no completely safe way to get the enriched power plant fuel rods from Earth to the Moon. Neil