Comments about ‘Water on moon? So what?’

It's feelings like this that, if they had persisted centuries ago would have us still in Europe huddling around fires in our hovels; or better yet, still in caves.

Humans are explorers. Thousands of technologies have been developed from the space program that you use everyday (Velcro anyone?) From hydrogen fuel cells, to mylar, and others.

The unfortunate fact of life is the poor are still going to remain poor no matter how many millions of dollars are spent on them. But even the poor use those technologies that came from dreamers and wonderers in the space program.

It would be a disservice to all of humanity to not to spent a fraction of what this nation spends on war, bailouts, etc to widen our understanding of the universe and maybe...just maybe, inspire another generation. I say go for the Moon, Mars and anywhere else!

No, there are plans underway to bring water from the moon to serve our booming earthly population. The world is expected to grow another 3 billion people by 2050, but there are no plans to increase water on earth. Thus, harvesting water from the moon will become a viable source for serving all the new people destined to arrive on earth.

As a people, we need to think ahead about our limited resources and how we'll divide up those resources for the population explosure that our kids and grandkids will face.

Another entrepreneurial opportunity is harvesting coal from the moon when Utah's supplies dwindle by 2050. As the fastest-growing state in the union, Utah needs to be on the forefront of resource development to serve its booming population.

Your mind hasn't ever expanded much beyond your backyard, has it bob?

First, the money spent discovering that there is water on the moon was not bundled onto pallets and hurled into space. Those dollars provided good jobs for hundreds of scientists, engineers, technicians, accountants, secretaries, janitors, truck drivers, etc.

Second, the day we as a nation decide we can't afford to explore what's beyond the next horizon and inspire a new generation of scientists and engineers to increase our knowledge of how we fit in the universe is the day we may as well cash in our chips and announce to the world that America is a nation of dullards.

And finally, the money spent on this mission was trivial in the extreme - it's a tiny fraction of even the Pentagon's "accounting errors" in Iraq.

Water harvesting the moon | 6:13 a.m.
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This has got to be someone's idea of a joke.

This attitude is what caused the shutdown of the particle collider that was being built in the 80s and 90s. We spent 12 billion and Maxine Waters and other midget minds thought the money was better spent putting Nikes on poor kids in the LA ghettos.

Those shoes have rotted away and so has our chances in the particles science, which is the path to global energy of the future.

I heard there is "universal" healthcare on the moon as well as water. Or is that just another rumor spread by Al Gore and the global warming cabal?

Sometimes I need to be reminded that there are people out there who think the world revolves around them. This letter is from one of those people.

grind that ax grover

And people wonder why American innovation is becoming a thing of the past. Its because of people like Bob.

and i'm sure people will still be saying space research is a waste when some cataclycism strikes our planet and humans go extinct because we don't have any colonies elsewhere. ensuring the survival of our species?! what a waste.

Me no like rocketships! Me no care 'bout moon water! Me only like wooly mammoth and TeeVee. Back to cave now.

Satellite Communications
Smoke Detectors in your home
Cordless power tools and appliances
MRIs at the hospital
Infrared Thermometers
L.E.D. lights
Digital Mammography
Cameras in your Cellphone
Jaws of Life

Water is the building block of life. Where there is no water there can be no life. Don't know what the future holds, but that makes this at least interesting, and potentially life changing.

If we want to build a base on the moon, one of the things we will need is water. The more materials we can collect on the moon, the less we have to ship from earth, making it much cheaper if we can harvest the resources in place on the moon.

@grover: Ever notice that you have a habit of not offering anything on your own, but only commenting on others posts? You don't even sign in when you do.

And the best part is, there will be no politicians objecting to the development of the moon's natural resources.

NASA wastes more money than any other gov agency. I understand the latest shuttle lunch was to bring some spare parts up to the international space station. Let's see, we spend 50 million to send about 50 bucks worth of parts which will perform some lame experiment to see how long tuna fish lasts in zero gravity. What a joke. Yes there is a small amount of water on the moon. So what. Not enough to sustain life and not enough to supply a lunar space bubble with water for drinking and making oxygen. Besides, even if there were more water who wants to live up there. There is no atmosphere so life is not meant to be there. We could build a small town on top of Mt Everest ... but why? Just because we can? Who wants to live there and why? The earth is unique among all known planets and was created to sustain life. The moon and all other planets are not meant for life. Could we put man on Mars ? Yes. But why??? History book trivia isn't a good enough reason. Just send un-manned rockets into space and call it good.

Don't make me laugh. The department of defense wastes more on paperwork each year than NASA gets for it's entire budget. NASA, as a percentage of Federal Spending, is so minuscule it disappears into the noise of the federal budget.

And yet, every time NASA accomplishes something, out come the trolls who think we should shut down one of the last remaining sources of scientific endeavor in the US...

I weep for our children

I can not understand the ignorance of the original poster and those who agree with him.

Fact: One day our Sun will grow large and consume the Earth.
Fact: Long before that happens we will run out of natural resources and the Earth will be over populated.
Fact: If humanity wants to survive another 10,000 years we had better figure out how to get off this rock before we either destroy our selves or a meteor/nature/God does it for us.

The fact that ice water exists on the Moon means it will be that much easier to build a habitat and start learning the things we need to learn to go to Mars and beyond.