Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

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Be it on Earth’s Moon or distant Mars, the elixir for long-term space exploration is the critical role of water.

That topic is captured in a new issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

“The inclination to explore across vast expanses has been a continual part of human history. In voyages across the Atlantic, or North America, one of the greatest obstacles was the availability of water. It was a life or death struggle,” explains an introduction to the PNAS volume, led by Mark Thiemens, a scientist at the division of physical sciences at the University of California San Diego in La Jolla, California.

Image credit: PNAS/NASA/Ben Smegelsky

“As terrestrial inhabitants make the first expansions to non-Earth habitations, water remains a major obstacle. As in the past, knowledge of where water resources are and how much remains is a fundamental question,” Thiemens and colleagues write.

Collection of papers

The PNAS journal focuses on NASA’s Artemis program, which plans to “reboot” the Moon in coming years.

The collection of PNAS papers highlight water’s significance for sustainability in future Moon and Mars habitats, and also addresses the scientific aspects such as water origins, mining, and its physical and chemical properties in extreme environments.

Artistic depiction of NASA astronauts at the lunar south pole carrying out early work to establish an Artemis Base Camp.
Image credit: NASA

The PNAS special feature includes research from international experts and early-career scientists, emphasizing the importance of water for extended human presence in space, astrobiology and planetary geology.

Finding water: elusive

The collection titles are:

• Finding water on the Moon and Mars: Humanity’s extraterrestrial future
• A mining code for regulating lunar water ice mining activities
• Exploring the lunar water cycle
• The elusive nature of Martian liquid brines
• Triple oxygen isotopes of lunar water unveil indigenous and cometary heritage
• Oxygen isotope identity of the Earth and Moon with implications for the formation of the Moon and source of volatiles
• Exploring, sampling, and interpreting lunar volatiles in polar cold traps
• The present epoch may not be representative in determining the history of water on Mars

To access the collection of papers, go to:

https://www.pnas.org/toc/pnas/121/52

Artist’s concept depicts astronauts and human habitats on Mars.
Image credit: NASA