what a life changing discovery! a few droplets of water have been discovered on that otherwise lifeless planetoid called the Moon or Luna, if your view is more poetic. These few droplets will undoubtedly power many spacefaring expeditions and allow the establishment of vast colonies in the airless void. What they will do is be used as justification for flights of fancy and much money wasting, avoidance of more important issues such as wide spread poverty and pestilence

now Trump will want a space Navy .


What they will do is be used as justification for flights of fancy and much money wasting, avoidance of more important issues such as wide spread poverty and pestilence
or maybe ;just maybe answers will be found in space .

Answers to what? we will have to look farther afield to get the answers that are already under our nose

Answers to what? You said avoidance of more important issues such as wide spread poverty and pestilence"

say there may be answers in space . Let's talk medicine .
So far because of space exploration we have digital imaging breast biopsy system, developed from Hubble Telescope technology ;micro-transmitters to monitor the fetus inside the womb; ;laser angioplasty, using fiber-optic catheters, forceps with fiber optics that let doctors measure the pressure applied to a baby's head during delivery; cool suits to lower body temperature in treatment ,voice-controlled wheelchairs; programable pace makers ,space robotics became prosthetics .Millions of cancer patients depend on the digital imaging techniques developed by the space program to enhance MRI and computerized tomography (CT) scans . Studying astronauts in space help science study degenerative diseases and human psychology . And that is just some of what humans have achieved so far directly related to our space exploration

Satellites monitor a number of things related to living on earth including poverty .Part of the way to help end poverty is to get universal access to the net . And the internet needs hooking into a global satellite system .
https://www.one.org/international/blog/why-connecting-everyone-to-the-internet-could-help-end-extreme-poverty/

less monitoring and high end tech and more direct action on things us lesser mortals find useful every day, such as food, attention to homelessness, mental health. you can't eat the net, it doesn't grow food or nourish anything but more tech. i think you must be an investor in all those thing that Tesla and Space X love like putting cars in orbit to see if they can fly

I never pictured you to be a Luddite . No you don't 'eat' the net . But the net can help farmers grow better crops . It's the classic 'give a man a fish he eats for a day .Teach a man to fish and he eats a lifetime'. . The net allows the poor to get access to the information that may just help lift them out of poverty . Expanding internet access would turbocharge economic growth world wide. The future of the workforce is one in which workers can ply their trades from anywhere with an internet connection. Those without will be left behind . As more satellites are deployed there are more opportunities to get net access to impoverished areas of the planet .Thanks to space exploration that is possible .


i think you must be an investor in all those thing that Tesla and Space X love like putting cars in orbit to see if they can fly I have some investment in space related companies. My father was an engineer on the lunar program for Grumman . So I have had an interest in space since a child and am very familiar with things developed in space and for the space programs that most people take for granted .

I have some investment in space related companies. My father was an engineer on the lunar program for Grumman . So I have had an interest in space since a child and am very familiar with things developed in space and for the space programs that most people take for granted .

Not a luddite but the ancient wisdom of not putting or your eggs in one basket (net) seems appropriate. The net is not too big to fail as smaller networks have done before. The chaos caused by such failures is legendary as is that caused by failure of the grid on which the net depends. In living memory the grid failed because of solar activity so if you want to research space, research something closer than 100 light years like our own Sol. I just don't think habitation of the Moon and Mars ultimately has practicable applications in the next few centuries

Despite our "progress" we forgot the Moon for 50 years and basically had to start again, now we think that because molecular water exists there we can get all warm and fuzzy about exploration and colonisation for exploitation

no it will not fail because the technology is here permanently at least until something better comes around ..... and that will be developed with space age technology too .

As for human habitation ..... that is in the future, We can take our time because robotics does the exploration for us . You do know that eventually for humans to survive as a species we will need to find new habitation .Something cosmic will have a collision course or the sun will run out of juice. But those events are not in the near future . Who knows ? Maybe the technology we develop will allow us to intercept that planet killer and steer it safely away.

no it will not fail because the technology is here permanently at least until something better comes around ..... and that will be developed with space age technology too .

As for human habitation ..... that is in the future, We can take our time because robotics does the exploration for us . You do know that eventually for humans to survive as a species we will need to find new habitation .Something cosmic will have a collision course or the sun will run out of juice. But those events are not in the near future . Who knows ? Maybe the technology we develop will allow us to intercept that planet killer and steer it safely away.

Now there is something worth of research, honking great space cannon or some such. Problem is you get one and someone wants to turn it on Earth. You cannot know that a killer asteroid is not in the near future or planet 9 won't swing by to disturb all those bodies in the Keiper belt and we will suffer a bombardment. One is predicted in the Book of Revelation. Finding a "new home" means a few escape to start again, not something I would invest in since I don't think we have proven our worth on a cosmic scale

God was going to spare Sodom if 10 people were found worth saving . God flooded the world and spared Noah's family . So yeah if only a few survive the species is saved .

Again space exploration is clearly worth it because the technology becomes usable in ways no one thought of. Miniaturization of computer components for the lunar project led to the computers we are using for this discussion. DARPA became the net .

God was going to spare Sodom if 10 people were found worth saving . God flooded the world and spared Noah's family . So yeah if only a few survive the species is saved .

Again space exploration is clearly worth it because the technology becomes usable in ways no one thought of. Miniaturization of computer components for the lunar project led to the computers we are using for this discussion. DARPA became the net .

The logic that we need the space race to drive innovation is flawed. On the principle of God, he has warned us he will not contend with man forever, so good luck with getting him to save us anyway other than the way he told us he would and only the righteous will be saved and there are not as many of those as you may think

You know God's will as much as I do.
You are constructing a strawman by claiming that I said we NEED space travel to drive innovation . What I did say is that space travel has spawned innovation that has applications not related to space travel .It has undeniable made human life better .

What I did say is that space travel has spawned innovation that has applications not related to space travel .It has undeniable made human life better .That's an accurate statement. The same thing is true of military spending. For instance, we'd be a couple of decades behind where we are now in aircraft development if not for military innovations. However, it can also be questioned as to whether or not that money could have been better spent in other ways related to technology, and especially by the private sector.

The great thing about the space program is that the private sector was always involved . But now private industry dominates space in low earth orbit and agencies like NASA are freed up for exploration ;which has throughout history been the purview of government .Some useful and needful activities can not be measured in market value. In the 19th century, the United States government funded hundreds of exploring expeditions throughout America and around the world. It is no different today.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/A-New-Era-for-Space-Exploration-and-Development-07-23-2020.pdf

Helps if humans can walk and chew bubble gum and multitask as we learn and grow. Can't explore space because we're poor? Absurd and self defeating. Maybe we still have problems and obstacles to overcome. So what? Keep working at it and we will get better. We certainly should take advantages of our opportunities to do so and learn from past failures.

Fly me to the moon! I'm broke and sick, but ready. 8D

Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
And let me see what spring is like
On a-Jupiter and Mars (https://genius.com/Frank-sinatra-fly-me-to-the-moon-lyrics#note-1512683)

It is all a dream

been doing more reading on this
the big deal about this discovery is that it was confirmed water molecules ;and that it was NOT in the polar regions where there is a high probability of significant amounts of water . It is in the mid-latitudes where you don't have permanently shadowed areas . This is water that is surviving on the sunny side of the moon. Yes it is tiny amounts and it confirms findings from India exploration a decade ago . But if water can survive on the sunny side of the moon ,then there is a greater possibility that there is significant amounts on the poles and dark side. Nations eyeing colonization are focusing on the southern pole area ;and don't kid yourself ,there will be a race to colonize and dominate that part of the moon.

What is this sunny side of the Moon B/S? all of the Moon receives sunlight, you are confusing popular fiction with fact. As I said before this will be an excuse to waste more money setting up bases on a lifeless planetoid. There are bigger problems to solve and we should turn our attention to them

I am right .Much of the poles have shadow and areas that never see sunlight

.


How could water exist on the Moon?The Moon’s axis tilts only 1.5 degrees from the ecliptic plane (theplane containing the path of the Earth and the Moon around the Sun).Because of this unique geometry, sunlight never shines on the floors ofsome craters near the Moon’s poles (figure 1). These areas are knownas Permanently Shadowed Regions, or PSRs. Water that happensto find its way into PSRs may remain there for long periods of time.Data from the Diviner instrument on board LRO, which measurestemperatures across the Moon, including PSRs, indicate that somesurfaces are cold enough so that water is stable at the surface.


https://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/lithos/LRO%20litho5-shadowedFinal.pdf

all of the Moon receives sunlight,Half of the moon permanently faces the earth. The other side does get sunlight, but is never visible to us.


There are bigger problems to solve and we should turn our attention to themI've noticed that the "we" you are referring to seems to always come down to the U.S. spending money. There is no "we".

http://factmyth.com/factoids/the-dark-side-of-the-moon-is-always-dark/

Spent last few nights gazing at Jupiter and Saturn dancing with the moon and couldn't help but wonder what secrets they held for man, so obviously I dream of the moon as a start of a great journey with limitless possibilities, as a great escape from man just wallowing in his own crap.

Sorry to hear you have no dreams Clete, but I do appreciate greatly the practical reality of pointing out the work we should be doing a better job of right here in our own yard. I hear your wake up call, but at the end of the day, I look forward to my dreams.

Half of the moon permanently faces the earth. The other side does get sunlight, but is never visible to us.

I've noticed that the "we" you are referring to seems to always come down to the U.S. spending money. There is no "we".

http://factmyth.com/factoids/the-dark-side-of-the-moon-is-always-dark/

OZ has a space program, it doesn't have the reach yours does

Sorry to hear you have no dreams Clete, but I do appreciate greatly the practical reality of pointing out the work we should be doing a better job of right here in our own yard. I hear your wake up call, but at the end of the day, I look forward to my dreams.

I have a great view of Orion and the Southern Cross but light pollution blocks out the rest so no dreams of Mars. I'm practical Tal pursue the important and let the dreamers dream alone

this month Mars was next to the moon . You could not miss it . One of my plans when I retire is to go on vacation in the southern hemisphere . I would love to see the southern cross on a clear night at sea .

Keep an eye out for Venus it is spectacular in the early morning sky

I see it all the time . My daily commute starts 3:30 AM

Venus is a beautiful sight. My son used to have a pretty good telescope and we could see the rings of Saturn with it. I might get one myself in my old age.

Tom, just out of curiosity, how long is your commute?