Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Earth’s moon – a watering hole to enable long-term human exploration?
Image credit: NASA

A hot topic for moon researchers is whether or not water ice is an available, ripe for the picking resource at the lunar south pole.

The search for exploitable water ice is high on NASA’s Artemis agenda to blueprint a “sustainable” human presence pathway on the Moon, with water ice being the elixir for longevity of future expeditions there.

Lunar water ice is believed to reside within permanently-shadowed regions, or PSRs, contained within super-chilly “cold traps.”

Intuitive Machines mini-hopper is scheduled to dive into the permanently shadowed floor of Marston crater at the moon’s south pole.
Image credit: Intuitive Machines

A Space Resources Roundtable was held June 4-7 on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines. Experts brought attention to the scant data now in hand to shore up the prospect of utilizing water ice on the moon.

For more details on the prognosis for finding water ice on the Moon, go to my new SpaceNews story – “Moon ice in the Artemis era: what we still don’t know” – at:

https://spacenews.com/moon-ice-in-the-artemis-era-what-we-still-dont-know/

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