One Wet Step for Mankind

International News Story

As if a headline out of a postwar comic book, the United States announced in 1996 that the possibility of colonizing the moon could one day be a reality. Well, not exactly. During the first week of December, the Department of Defense satellite Clementine spotted large reflections on the south pole of the moon thought strongly to be water. Because the satellite was not purposed for surface exploration, the best it could do was give radar signatures of the surface, hoping to match them to signatures of other common surfaces. If the finding proved true, the large deposits of water could in fact provide a source of subsistence for an observation colony.

During 1998, the Lunar Prospector probe was sent to the moon to further explore the findings. Using a neutron spectrometer, the craft measured emittance of atoms from the suspected locations. Although not 100 percent confirmed, the results gave strong confidence in the presence of water. With dwindling fuel, the probe was intentionally impacted at the same areas where water was suspected in hopes it would send a space cloud of water into the nothingness, confirming the conjectures. Although no further landing crafts have obtained physical proof of water, the two probes increased popularity in moon exploration that had faded since the moon race of the 70s. The possibility of man existing in this desolate abyss, a permanently dark crater where temperatures reach in the negative hundreds of degrees where the water resides, remains in question though.