

Why the Evidence of Water on the Moon is Bad News - pieceofpeace
http://spectrum.ieee.org/blog/semiconductors/devices/tech-talk/why-water-found-on-moon-is-bad-news

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mechanical_fish
Apparently apropos of _human_ , rather than robot, exploration, this article
says:

 _Frankly, the chance of finding evidence of life on Mars will always make it
a more attractive destination than our close, but definitely dead, satellite._

So it looks like everyone has conveniently forgotten all about Arthur C.
Clarke's 1961 short story _Before Eden_.

[http://books.google.com/books?id=iL2-iRGDjScC&pg=PA60...](http://books.google.com/books?id=iL2-iRGDjScC&pg=PA60&lpg=PA60&dq=summary+on,+before+eden+by+arthur+c+clarke+&source=web&ots=ItlNCQIJk_&sig=t8dQ_GzRVLXILtspyX6iyLpJuh8&hl=en#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

That's the one where the humans visit Venus, discover life, high-five each
other, and leave.

The next trip discovers that all the Venusian life is extinct, having been
contaminated by the humans that had discovered it.

Back in the 1960s people remembered this story. Probes to Mars and Venus were
deliberately sterilized before they landed. So far as I know that practice
continues today.

The last thing you want to do to a planet that might contain life is to send
living things from Earth to visit it. Their residue will screw up every
experiment forever after. Even now, when all we send are sterilized robot
probes, avoiding contamination by Earth-derived biomolecules is a major
struggle.

~~~
chrischen
Do you really need to sterilize something before sending it to Venus?

~~~
jerf
In real life, no, but _before_ it was discovered that under the clouds of
Venus lies a surface where tin is a liquid, Venus was home to tropical jungles
full of large, dangerous critters, and enormous swamp-based civilizations.
Venus was also strangely prone to generating aliens with telepathy.

Just as science cost us Edgar Rice Burrough's Mars, science cost us fantastic
Venusian civilizations.

Blasted science.

~~~
euccastro
Well, if we accidentally exterminated a race of telepathic tin wave surfing
aliens, _that_ would be a shame!

Is it already established that life needs water, carbon, and earth-like
conditions?

~~~
ori_b
Certainly not. In theory, any self-replicating molecule that can operate with
random errors in the replication can support evolution, and therefore
eventually lead to something vaguely like life.

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idlewords
This is only bad news if you think that manned missions to the moon are a
desirable goal. If you think of manned space flight as sucking resources away
from much more interesting autonomous robotic exploration of the solar system,
then you want the moon as inconvenient as possible to build a base on.

~~~
Flankk
To make manned space flight seem so undesirable is disingenuous to the
breathtaking reality of the first manned moon landing. It disheartens me to
see that the accomplishment that once inspired a nation is widely and
apathetically looked upon as a waste of resources.

Stephen Hawking puts it better than I do:

 _Robotic missions are much cheaper and may provide more scientific
information, but they don't catch the public imagination in the same way, and
they don't spread the human race into space, which I'm arguing should be our
long-term strategy. If the human race is to continue for another million
years, we will have to boldly go where no one has gone before._

~~~
borism
Manned missions don't catch people's imagination anymore either. "Space-
optimism" of 60-70s is long gone. Now is the time to do real work in outer
space.

~~~
rbanffy
It depends. We can't say for sure manned spaceflight doesn't catch people's
imagination because since the early 70's we really don't send people anywhere
interesting.

Er can't blame people: the ISS is as exciting as camping on your backyard. It
may solve some problems and help develop some technologies important for
future space travelers, but it's difficult to call it space exploration when
you don't explore anything.

The state of science education also doesn't help either. Most people cannot
appreciate how devilishly hard is to keep a presence in LEO.

As for keeping a presence on the Moon, it is important because we have to
perfect a lot of protocols before we can pretend to be ready for a trip to
Mars and, if anything goes wrong, rescue is a week away.

Even if you have to process a couple tons of rocks to get a liter of water, it
would be cheaper than to send it from Earth and by landing a couple automated
water factories before any humans venture there could also reduce the risks
(and costs) further as they wouldn't have to carry a lot of water.

~~~
borism
But that's why we shouldn't do manned missions first!

~~~
rbanffy
You can't perfect the manned spaceflight protocols with unmanned probes. The
Moon is a stepping stone towards Mars and, if we can mine lunar regolith for
metals, water and propellant (LOX, LH2), we are golden: the lunar base can
become the best spot for building and launching spacecraft.

I wonder if there is carbon and nitrogen there too. That would make
colonization much simpler.

------
senthilnayagam
US/USSR(Russia now) had sent probes to venus, mars and moon for last 30-40
years. but only now we have info on widespread water availability.

maybe sensors have improved, computing power has increased, but ISRO did it
indegeniously and using a low cost model, but needed 2 decades to achieve
something great.

if humans can share space technology, we could have been couple of decades
ahead in space technology

it would be great if we could atleast have a "2020 a space odyssey"

I dont want to die a earthling

~~~
euccastro
Maybe if humans could share space technology we would be decades _behind_ in
space technology.

US and USSR couldn't share technology because they were racing vs each other.
If it weren't for that race, maybe they wouldn't have put the huge effort
necessary to send people to space in the 20th century.

