Liquid Moon
Christine November 29th, 2009
There’s water up there. That is what I think about these days when I look up in the sky on our night walks as the moon waxes towards full. The recent discovery of water on the moon has some scientists very animated and the scuttle is that this is one of the most exciting finds for a long while. The implications are far-reaching. Not only is there some water on the moon but a”significant amount”. Read about it all here.
“…members of the NASA team concluded that they had found unmistakable signs of water — 220 pounds of it, the equivalent of about 26 gallons had it been in liquid form.”
I do think this is very cool from a purely scientific view, but I am concerned that we’ll start messing things up on the moon just like we have here on earth, with some variations on a theme since the moon does not have an atmosphere. We humans obviously don’t have a very good track record. There is enough space junk out there spinning around in orbit to prove this point. What an epic mess. Most of this orbiting trash – no one really knows exactly from which countries all the satellites originate. Now we have to send up satellites to spy on other satellites. It seems rather like the Who’s Who of satellite intelligence. At least these do have a limited life span.
And so, whose territory is the moon anyway? We are not exactly a unified earth yet. Who gets to start digging first? So far only a dozen men have walked on the moon, but not since 1972; thus the moon is relatively as it has been for a very, very long while. This is a fact which I ponder when looking up at the night sky. When does the gold rush begin? Actually, I should call it the Helium 3 rush. He3 is apparently ideal for fusion reactors and is the subject of this article about mining the moon. But this sounds like a long shot at present riddled with huge complications.
Well, until the answers from wiser people than myself start flooding in, I will find comfort with the fact that it’s going to cost an awful lot to rocket a bull dozer up there. Ha. A bull dozer that can operate without air… Oh dear, I suppose they are working on that too.
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The Man on the Moon will not be smiling for long at this rate, Christine! I am smiling at the wonderful half moon though…
Oh Lord, let’s not screw up the moon too. Hopefully we’ll have it together better by the time someone figures out how to build a bulldozer that needs no air and how to ship it there.
I agree with your concerns. How do they even know the Moon is the best place to start for exploration just because you can see it from here.? This is my question.
I hope the beautiful liquid serenity of the moon in that photo never changes. I hope we don’t mine and dig away her lovely mountains and craters, don’t leave junk hardward lying around (may be too late for that) and don’t dirty her waters in whatever form…
It is going to take a while to mess it up, I think. I do wonder if there is a Walmart bag blowing around up there.
Great thinking there
Hey Christine, I wanna share that coming from a Chinese family, when we were young we were told not to point our finger at the moon otherwise the next day after we get up, we’ll get a cut behind our ears
Beats me I don’t where this comes from though heheheheh….now I still don’t point my fingers at the moon 
Hi Christine, Nice Post! I was just outside looking at the moon, trying to determine if it was full yet or not. In regards to your post, one thing the moon does have on it’s side is that it is so far away, it will be real hard to get manmade machinery up there. I can only imagine that it would be used as a stopping point to somewhere else. Although I did read recently that there would be a “space hotel” available before 2020. The changes our children are going to see will be immense.
Stay warm,
Shannon
A beautiful picture. My verification word is silence. Can you imagine the silence up there on the moon? Long may it last!!!