India’s Vikram lunar lander: Data suggests there could be more water impregnated in more places on the Moon
According to scientists analyzing the data sent back from India’s Vikram lunar lander, it appears that water could be impregnated in the upper lunar soil in more places than previously predicted.
You can read their paper here [pdf]. One instrument on the lander measured the temperature of the soil down about four inches, and found the temperature to be 25 degrees Celsius warmer than expected. That location was on a sunward-facing slope, so it was expected to be warmer but not by that amount. From the paper’s abstract:
This demonstrates that local topography at metre scales can alter temperature at high latitudes, unlike equatorial regions. Numerical model calculations using ChaSTE measurements, suggest that larger poleward facing slopes(>14°) at high latitudes can harbour water-ice, making them promising and technically less challenging sites for future lunar exploration and habitation.
In other words, slopes that get much less sunlight near the poles but are not permanently shadowed could still be cold enough only a few inches below the surface to harbor water molecules.
Sounds good, but I am beginning to sense a bit of blarney in these stories, over-pushing the possible existence of water to encourage more government space funding. It might be true that there is more water molecules in more places than predicted, but rarely do these reports say how much, which I expect will be very very little, in the parts per billion range. Nor do these stories ever consider the processing necessary to extract that water. Based on other data obtained from the Shadowcam instrument on South Korea’s Danuri lunar orbiter, it increasingly seems to me that any water found in polar regions of the Moon could be very slight, or even if in large amounts much more difficult to access than anyone ever mentions.
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According to scientists analyzing the data sent back from India’s Vikram lunar lander, it appears that water could be impregnated in the upper lunar soil in more places than previously predicted.
You can read their paper here [pdf]. One instrument on the lander measured the temperature of the soil down about four inches, and found the temperature to be 25 degrees Celsius warmer than expected. That location was on a sunward-facing slope, so it was expected to be warmer but not by that amount. From the paper’s abstract:
This demonstrates that local topography at metre scales can alter temperature at high latitudes, unlike equatorial regions. Numerical model calculations using ChaSTE measurements, suggest that larger poleward facing slopes(>14°) at high latitudes can harbour water-ice, making them promising and technically less challenging sites for future lunar exploration and habitation.
In other words, slopes that get much less sunlight near the poles but are not permanently shadowed could still be cold enough only a few inches below the surface to harbor water molecules.
Sounds good, but I am beginning to sense a bit of blarney in these stories, over-pushing the possible existence of water to encourage more government space funding. It might be true that there is more water molecules in more places than predicted, but rarely do these reports say how much, which I expect will be very very little, in the parts per billion range. Nor do these stories ever consider the processing necessary to extract that water. Based on other data obtained from the Shadowcam instrument on South Korea’s Danuri lunar orbiter, it increasingly seems to me that any water found in polar regions of the Moon could be very slight, or even if in large amounts much more difficult to access than anyone ever mentions.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
And if that is true, we must face the prospect that, all things being equal, it will make it considerably harder for companies to build business cases for activity on or around the Moon.
Richarm M wrote, “And if that is true, we must face the prospect that, all things being equal, it will make it considerably harder for companies to build business cases for activity on or around the Moon.”
First, I think it essential that all the private space companies deal with reality honestly. This is why I raise this point (especially since no one else in the space community seems willing to say it).
Second, these facts underline the recommendations I made in part 2 of my two part essay about what NASA should do under the Trump administration, suggesting that NASA’s goals should de-emphasize, even drop, the Moon as a goal, and instead focus on building up an orbital industry near the Earth. There are solid business cases for numerous Earth-orbiting operations, all of which would help solidify America’s aerospace industry, which in turn will eventually make getting to the Moon and Mars much easier, much cheaper, and with more options for profit.
Everyone is hoping for accessible and usable amounts of water to be on the moon.
But if you think about it they want at least half the water to be converted into rocket fuel. In my opinion a waste of water.
Finding it at the poles is also a waste. You need to find it closer to the mining sites. Otherwise your just wasting most of it getting the rest of it to the mining sites. Or at least to the places you need it like the colony.
If you plan on tunneling into the moon you will need most of the water to make a cement like sealer to keep the air inside and to re-enforce the tunnel.
We will always be sending water in one way or another for some reason.
Everything found on the Moon will be used on the Moon for the next 50 years or more.
The key to it all is energy.
With plentiful nuclear power, melting the “silicon dioxide” surface will give you oxygen for breathing and making water… and thick durable silica glass to substitute for construction cement for the ore tunnels/and landing pads. Glass for self darkening domes for living quarters. Glass tunnel segments can be laid on the surface between buildings for pressurized walkways.
They also can be launched with rail guns/magnetic rail trains into the low lunar gravity for the building of habitats/Space stations there, and in high earth orbit. (Orders of magnitude cheaper with less safety concerns then launching from earth)
Without the weight concerns of originating from earth, giant glass connecting spheres are safer and more reliable, without toxic by products, easy to clean and sterilize, heat and radiation resistant, naturally non conductive material resisting static charge causing corrosion/welding.
The moon is mostly made of the stuff. The byproducts from heating the regolith will produce hydrogen, helium (3), methane (ch4), ammonia (deposited by the solar wind) sulfur and iron and a multitude of other elements we already know exist there.
As pzatchok said; “Everything found on the Moon will be used on the Moon” so true, earth has abundant resources. The only thing to be sent back to the earth are products that cannot be made or found on the earth. Probably pharmaceuticals. Earth is a drug addict.
Moon is not far away, earth orbit, lunar orbit, and lunar surface can be developed simultaneously with mutual benefits. Why spend millions to send into orbit that you can collect from the moon so much cheaply?
yes, we’re not there yet, but I can dream.
Then with the same nuclear power we can develop continuous thrust rockets for simulated gravity and quicker travel. Health issues/bone loss and getting old coasting is no longer a problem.
By using water as a reaction mass in a closed system you can capture the condensation to be reused over and over again. The entire solar system will be open to explore within the next generation. The mining of ice from Europa for space travel, in the astroids, Jupiter, Mars and lunar colonies would come next. The future looks exciting!!!
(I still believe mercury, with it’s heavy metal assets, will be the “system ship manufacturing center” in a 100 years from now)