SPACE EXPLORATION JUST GOT EASIER, WITH DISCOVERY OF WATER IN TINY GLASS BEADS ON THE MOON
As we run out of fresh water here on Earth, there’s some major space news I didn’t expect to hear. In what will surely speed up the plans for space exploration for some major nations, scientists have figured out that there is as much as 270 million kilograms of water in glass beads on the Moon. Space exploration never seemed so possible as this before. Why? Because if humans are ever going to make any major foothold in space, starting with the Moon, we are going to need water and plenty of it. Water is heavy, and insanely heavy when you have to haul it up the gravity well off earth with a rocket boost.
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GLASS BEADS WATER SOURCE ON THE MOON MEANS WE DON’T HAVE TO TAKE WATER WITH US
The cost of fuel for a rocket into space costs major money by the ounce. And water would eat up the necessary payload in heaps and bounds. So one small step for man is nearly an unreachable one for mankind. So where else can you get water in space? Comets, perhaps, or asteroids. But you then have to go and get that water, and haul its mass to wherever you need it to go. That’s complicated, and also costly with plenty of risks in the doing. But if there’s already 270 million kilos of water on the Moon, we’re off to a great start before we’ve even begun.
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GLASS BEADS ARE TINY, AND WE STILL NEED TO FINAGLE HOW TO EXTRACT IT, EN MASSE
But there’s a catch, of course. The water on the Moon is trapped in tiny glass beads that were formed millions of years ago from asteroid and other objects’ impact on the lunar surface. Each glass bead is maybe the width of a few strands of hair. But they are all over the Moon’s surface. And if 270 million kilograms doesn’t make sense to you, that’s enough to fill 100 million Olympic sized swimming pools. That’s a veritable small ocean right there. Now, all we have to do is figure out how to extract that water from the tiny glass beads.
And then we’re well on our way to the first human colonization of space.
