Category Archives: Moon Colonization

Feature Article of Tuesday, 4 July 2017

Columnist: King David Dzirasah

It cannot be said that Christianity is a colonial relic or symbolism of slavery

Jerusalem long lost or not, Christianity is Afro-orient, not European. Christianity was thriving in the horn of Africa in the 1st century before this religion had really taken root anywhere in Europe. Akinyi Princess of KOrinda Yimbo.

Most often both academic and non-intellectuals based on historical understanding conclude that Europeans brought or introduced Christianity to Africa. It is often said that missionaries from Europe during the colonial days came down from Europe to Africa in their quest of spreading Christianity on a dark continent that is heading towards hell. However, there is ample evidence suggesting that Christianity was already on the continent before the advent of colonization and the coming of European missionaries.

The Coptic orthodox church of Alexandria is an oriental orthodox Christian church in Egypt, northeast Africa and Middle East. The Egyptian church is traditionally believed to be founded by Saint Mark at around AD 42. Christianity spread throughout Egypt within half a century of Saint Marks arrival. Christianity being introduced to the horn of Africa clearly is not as a result of missionary work of Europeans. Even though Christianity was able to spread from the northern part of Africa to the eastern part (Ethiopia), the complete spread of the religion to all part of the continent was made impossible due to the advancement of Islam in the northern part of the continent.

It is recognizable that historically Christianity came to Sub-Sahara Africa in the 15th century but that cannot over shadow the fact that Christianity was already on the continent before the coming of colonial imperialist. As of the 7th to 8th century, African warriors were fighting in Europe under the banner of the lion and the half-moon in order to bring the truth faith, Christianity or Islam, to Europe.

Europeans at the time were in the majority heathen and did everything in their power to remain heathen. Because Christ came from their corner of the world, Africans had embraced Christianity at a time when the religion was struggling to take root in Greece and Rome. Princess of Korinda-Yimbo. Historically Jesus was actually taken to the northern part of Africa (Egypt) as a child. With that link to that part of the continent, the people were accommodating to the missionary work of Saint Mark.

The biblical Ark of the Covenant is now believed to be kept in St Mary of Zions Church in Axum, Ethiopia. With the knowledge in mind that Africans actually play a crucial role in the expansion of the religion in Europe, one cannot make the assertion that Europeans actually introduced Africans to the religion. It cannot be said that Christianity is a colonial relic or symbolism of slavery since evidentially the existence of the religion precede colonization.

Go here to read the rest:
Startling revelation of how Christianity was in already in Africa before colonization - GhanaWeb

NASA assured the public on Thursday that there was no child slave colony on the planet Mars, refuting a claim recently made by a guest on the popular The Alex Jones Show.

There are no humans on Mars, NASA spokesperson Guy Webster told The Daily Beastin a statement. There are active rovers on Mars. There was a rumor going around last week that there werent. There are.

But there are no humans, he added.

According toRobert David Steele, a former CIA officer who appeared on Alex Jones show this week, NASA had been shuttling children to the distant red planet for their blood, bone marrow and sexual exploitation.

We actually believe that there is a colony on Mars that is populated by children who were kidnapped and sent into space on a 20-year ride, Steele said this week on Infowars. So that once they get to Mars they have no alternative but to be slaves on the Mars colony.

Look, I know that 90 percent of the NASA missions are secret and Ive been told by high level NASA engineers that you have no idea, Jones said in response to the outlandish allegation. There is so much stuff going on.

Accustomed to dealing with conspiracy theories (and the bunk claims of certain websites owned by certain Oscar Award-winning actors), NASA provided a statement Thursday clearly explaining to the American people that no human, let alone no child, had ever touched foot on the planet Mars.

Infowars listeners will likely disregard the denial. A child slave colony on Mars might not even be the most absurd conspiracy theory floated on The Alex Jones Show.

Follow this link:
NASA denies Infowars claim that the agency runs a child slave colony on Mars - Salon

'Alien Megastructure' Star Subject of 'Space...

New Experimental Space Plane Design Released...

Neutron Stars - What are They? How will NICER...

NASA NICER Mission - Neutron Stars and 'GPS'...

Powerful NASA SLS Rocket Engine Test-Fired in...

NASAs Future Plans Simply Put in 2018 Budget...

Harmonious Universe on Display Again in TRAPP...

Storytelling Platform 'Makers Men' Profiles A...

Watch an Extremely Large Telescope Mirror Bak...

Unplanned Spacewalk Given Green Light to Repl...

Bricks 3D Printed Using Simulated Moondust |...

Moving Black Hole Possibly Spotted in Far Awa...

Fomalhaut Star's Huge Ring of Dusty Debris Ca...

Stealth Supermoon: The New Moon Supermoon Exp...

Benefits of Cancer Research on Space Station...

How to Make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwic...

'WeDon'tPlanet'Episode 4: What's the Evide...

Moon, Venus and Sun Rise in New Space Station...

'Alien: Covenant' Crew Parties Ahead of Cryos...

Should We Search for E.T.? 'Alien: Covenant'...

Human-Made Radio Bubble Shields Earth from Ra...

Cold-War Era Blasts Impacted Space Weather |...

Why Does NASA Use Sounding Rockets? | Video

Spacecraft Exactly Between Dwarf Planet Ceres...

NASA Launches Black Brant IX Suborbital Sound...

Would the Cast of 'Alien: Covenant' Go to Spa...

Blastoff! SpaceX Launches Inmarsat-5 F4 Satel...

'Star Wars' Names Race Up Popular Baby Name C...

Glints of Light on Earth Captured from Millio...

Talking Dangers of AI - Alien: Covenants Rid...

'Awesome Sauce' - Astronaut's Excitement Brew...

First Mom in Space! Anna Fisher Tells Her Ama...

'America's Secret Space Heroes' - Saturn V Ro...

Watch Big Asteroid 2014 JO25 Tumble in New Ra...

'Archinaut Ulisses' Could Reduce On-Orbit Con...

On-Orbit Assembly Required? Made in Spaces '...

'We Dont Planet' - Episode 3: Gravitational...

Mars, Pennsylvania Celebrates Martian New Yea...

New Earth from ISS Time-Lapse - Deserts, Clou...

See the Crab Nebula in Several Different Wave...

Lava Waves Behind Jupiter Moon Ios Temperatu...

SpaceX Falcon Heavys Center Core Test-Fired...

Spacewalkers 'Action Cam' Captures Spectacul...

5,000 Days in Space! 'Astronomy Robot' Spitz...

Meteor Flash! Eta Aquarid Leaves Smoke Trail...

Air Force Space Plane Lands After 718 Days |...

Hubble Uses 'Super Vision' on Galaxy Cluster...

Martian Year - How Long is It? NASA Explains...

'Dot of Light' Documentary Tells Story of 3 F...

See Amsterdam and Its Artificial Islands from...

We Don't Planet - Episode 2: Dark Energy | Vi...

Faint Features from Far Away Galaxy Cluster R...

Ringed Asteroid 'Chariklo' Visualized by Rese...

Saturn Probes Daring Dive - Movie Sequence...

US Launches ICBM Test for Second Week in a Ro...

Small Magellanic Cloud Seen in 'Remarkable De...

Cosmic Tsunami! Galaxy Cluster Flyby Triggers...

Listen In! Saturn Probe Hit with Very Few Par...

James Webb Space Telescopes Testing at NASA...

Virgin Galactic's 'Unity' Completes First 'Fe...

See Jupiter, Saturn and More Planets in May 2...

NASA Orion Spacecrafts Abort System Motor Te...

Wow! Amazing Views of SpaceX Rocket Separatio...

Planets, Constellations and Eta Aquarid Meteo...

Touchdown! SpaceX First Stage Lands After Lau...

Blastoff! Spy Satellite Launched by SpaceX fo...

SpaceX Breaks Up US Spy Satellite Launch Mono...

NASA and Trump: What Happened in Space in the...

Cassini Survived 1st Grand Finale Dive - Miss...

We Dont Planet: What Astrophysics Video Seri...

We Dont Planet: Episode 1 The Structure of...

Watch Triton Orbit Neptune via Kepler Space T...

Tropical Storms Create Gamma-Ray Flashes | Vi...

Closest Saturn Pics Yet Snapped During Daring...

Cassini Spacecraft's Grand Finale Dives - Ris...

More here:
SpaceX to Mars: Awe-Inspiring Video Shows Vision for Red ...

Astrophysicist Stephen Hawkings recently released documentary Expedition New Earth argues that humanity needs to develop ways to colonize the moon and Mars if it has any chance of surviving.Professor Stephen Hawking thinks the human species will have to populate a new planet within 100 years if it is to survive,thesaid in a statement. With climate change, overdue asteroid strikes, epidemics and population growth, our own planet is increasingly precarious.

In the past few years, several others have voiced their opinions that humanity is doomed and technology needs to rapidly progress to come to the rescue.

Elon Musk has sounded the alarm that life on Earth is inherently finite. Therefore, he says, colonization on different planets is a necessity to ensure the human race survives. I think there are really two fundamental paths. History is going to bifurcate along two directions. One path is we stay on Earth forever, and then there will be some eventual extinction event. I do not have an immediate doomsday prophecy, but eventually, history suggests, there will be some doomsday event, writes Musk on June 1. The alternative is to become a space-bearing civilization and a multiplanetary species, which I hope you would agree is the right way to go.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezosarguedfor a slightly different approach at the Recode Conference earlier this month. Let me assure you, this is the best planet. We need to protect it, and the way we will is by going out into space. You dont want to live in a retrograde world where we have to freeze population growth, he said. Energy is limited here. In at least a few hundred yearsall of our heavy industry will be moved off-planet. Earth will be zoned residential and light industrial. You shouldnt be doing heavy energy on earth. We can build gigantic chip factories in space.

Harvard Biologist Dr. E.O. Wilson outlined in a 2016booka Half-Earth theory in that 50 percent of the planet should be set aside in conservation to save the Earths biodiversity, not just humans. Now, this proposal doesnt mean moving anybody out. It means creating something equivalent to the U.N.s World Heritage sites that could be regarded as priceless assets of humanity, said Wilson in a March 2016interview, citing that interconnected wildlife corridors could be established to preserve the biodiversity currently suffering a mass extinction due to man. Do no further harm to the rest of life. If we can agree on that, everything else will follow.

While the tendency to speculate and grow technological capabilities is important and exciting, the apocalyptic foreshadowing this thinking generates needs to take into account what can be done currently to render solutions to the biodiversity and environmental crisis facing Earth today. No space colonies or infrastructure will be able to replace our planet.

Read the rest here:
Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos Think the Earth Is ... - Observer

SEOUL South Korean President Moon Jae-in is returning from an official visit to Washington with two ancient royal seals looted during the Korean War, reports said Saturday.

The repatriation of the Joseon Dynasty antiques, dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, comes after years of campaigning by the South Korean government, which said they were stolen during the turbulent 1950-53 war.

Moon received the seals at a ceremony in Washington on Friday and was to arrive in South Korea with them on Sunday, the Yonhap news agency said.

The Joseon Dynasty, which cultivated a ruling philosophy drawn from Confucianism, governed from 1392 to 1910, when Japan colonized the country.

One of the seals was made in 1547 to honor Queen Munjeong (1501-1565), the third wife of Joseon Dynastys 11th king, Jungjong.

The other is a jade block created in 1651 to commemorate the crown prince becoming King Hyojong.

They were seized by U.S. authorities in 2013 after Seoul clarified these were stolen items.

It marked the third time that Washington has returned South Korean treasures. In 2013 the United States sent back Koreas first money-printing block, made in late 19th century; the following year, it handed back nine royal seals.

Tens of thousands of old Korean cultural items were spirited abroad during Japans colonization of Korea from 1910 to 1945 and during the Korean War.

See more here:
US returns looted royal seals to South Korea - The Japan Times

Where once the space race meant which superpower would get to the moon first, now the countries of the world are racing to build the first lunar base. Already the European Space Agency, or the ESA, have an agreement with China to build a joint moon station. When you include intentions to partner with private corporations, these agencies obviously have a clear picture of the space exploration plans.

At the same time, NASA and the Trump administration are leaning towards private corporations like Space X and investment groups focusing on building communities on the moon.

Ultimately, the goal for all the agencies and the main driving force for establishing a moon base in the first place is to send a manned mission to Mars. From the NASA Scope and Subject Category Guide indicates what parts of the moon will be built up in their plans and the Space Technology Roadmap lists the many projects it will work on to get there. The Deep Space Gateway, an orbiting spaceport, looks promising for a first start. Plus the smart robots which will build on the moon while also producing electricity send back to Earth.

With plans for an inflatable greenhouse for sustainable farming on the moon in the works too, there will have plenty of activity during our days on the moon. Published in the journal New Space, a new paper from NASA states its full lunar station plans that rely heavily on the work already done for the International Space Station, or ISS. Specifically learning from the architecture of the station, the next steps will be developed in low-earth-orbit space, also called LEO.

As previously mentioned, the lunar station will be a stepping stone on the way to Mars and therefore will be a testing ground for new technologies that will help complete the journey to Mars, and perhaps spur settlements there too.

The authors of the paper Robert Bruce Pittman, Mark E. Newfield, Daniel J. Rasky, and Lynn D. Harper addressed this in their paper: It Lunar Station can provide a testing and prove ground for a variety of important advanced technologies and capabilities, including robotics, ISRU, resource depots, deep-space crew habitats, closed-loop life support, in-space propulsion, optical communication, and space-additive manufacturing [further elaborating that] the Lunar Station will give our space program a much-needed logical next step to strengthen its relevance to the US public, its leadership in the international community, and its technical cutting edge.

Initially expected to be fully operational in five years, Lunar Station will cost about $2 billion a year. Once constructed, the Station will crew up to 10 people much in the same way as ISS and allow a much wider cooperative effort to support scientific work as well as commercial ends.

The paper further states that: The Lunar Station community would jointly develop and share infrastructure as well as separately develop and own specific capabilities [] Activities would range from scientific research and technology development to resource mining and processing and human exploration of the Moon and even tourism.

Although this latest NASA releases may disappoint those excited about the possibility or Mars colonization occurring soon stations and experiments on the moon must be the first step. As a matter of course, space exploration and development is risky, and the moon offers a perfect opportunity safely test technology before we move on to deeper space.

More News to Read

comments

More:
The Race for Space Colonization Starts with NASA's Lunar Station Plans - TrendinTech

Stephen Hawking is fed up. He thinks the world is doomed and that we should start preparing our exit strategy now. Easier said than done. Hawking recently spoke out at the Starmus Festival of arts and sciences in Norway. In his speech, the world famous physicist slammed President Donald Trump for taking the most serious, and wrong, decision on climate change this world has seen. When asked to comment further the famouscosmologist groaned:"The Earth is under threat from so many areas that it is difficult for me to be positive.

In two previous statements, Hawking has warned that wed better formulate a workable plan B in order to punch out in the next century or so, as Earth is caught in a downward spiral he believes we cant escape. As a result, the professor suggests we find a new home planet in the next two to five centuries. The only way we can do that is to start exploring space for a suitable planet sufficient to sustain life, or even perhaps more than one. Using advanced scientific instruments, weve been able to peer into the universe like never before, Hawking said.

"When we have reached similar crises in our history, there has usually been somewhere else to colonize, he said. Columbus did it in 1492 when he discovered the New World. But now there is no new world. No Utopia around the corner." The first logical places to start are the moon and Mars. According to the BBC, Hawking called on nations to colonize the moon by 2020 and Mars by 2025.

Hawking believes one of our first moves is colonizing Mars. Getty Images.

But each is subject to cosmic radiation, long-term exposure of which could cause cancer and Alzheimers. Well need to invent proper shielding. Whats more, no one knows how a child being born in such circumstances might fare. The gravity for instance, is way different in both places than on Earth. How would this affect skeletal development? Growing up on Mars might mean never being able to set foot on the Earth, as ones skeletal system wouldnt be able to withstand the gravity.

Planet Proxima b in the Proxima Centauri system, approximately 4.5 light-years from Earth, was one such candidate Hawking mentioned. Note that one light-year is around six trillion miles (10 million km). We dont even have the cryonic process down completely yet. We can freeze a person but we dont know how to revive them. Beyond that, the distances are just mind-blowing. Even with such technology tucked under our arm, is such a feat feasible?

The renowned cosmologist said, "To go faster would require a much higher exhaust speed than chemical rockets can providethat of light itself. He added, A powerful beam of light from the rear could drive the spaceship forward. Nuclear fusion could provide 1 percent of the spaceship's mass energy, which would accelerate it to a tenth of the speed of light." Such technology is theoretical. NASA has tested an EM or impossibility drive, and other types of next generation rocketsare on the horizon.

Of course, wed have to harness the power of antimatter to achieve the kind of technological feat Hawking is proposing. Antimatter particles are puzzlingly rare in the universe, even though equal parts of matter and antimatter were supposedly present at the Big Bang. Generating enough antimatter to power a rocket borders on the fantastical. Such an engine remains, for the time being, in the theoretical stages.

Model of an antimatter rocket. NASA.

Even so the moderator, taking Hawkings suggestion as granted, feared that we might become complacent or preoccupied in an era of such technology, having the ability to observe the unexplored corners of the universe and marvel at their wonders, as one watches television. But Hawking replied that the peril the Earth is in will motivate us to take action.

Hawking said in his speech:

Human colonization on other planets is no longer science fiction. It can be science fact. The human race has existed as a separate species for about 2 million years. Civilization began about 10,000 years ago, and the rate of development has been steadily increasing. If humanity is to continue for another million years, our future lies in boldly going where no one else has gone before.

Cheesy Stark Trek line aside, Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and Hawking have developed an initiative called Breakthrough Starshot, which plans to comb the universe for intelligent life and Earth-like planets. They plan on sending out hundreds or even thousands of tiny spacecraft, each weighing less than one ounce, to explore the Alpha Centauri star system and see whats out there. This will be 2,000 times farther than anything from Earth has ever traveled.

This animation depicts the Breakthrough Starshot:

These little spacecraft, called nanocrafts, will be propelled by an array of powerful lasers. The lasers will hit each nanocrafts solar sail, pushing it along. With such force behind it and at such a small size, they should travel at an unheard of velocity, one fifth the speed of light. Hawking said at the announcement, "With light beams, light sails and the lightest spacecraft ever built, we can launch a mission to Alpha Centauri within a generation." So far the project has raised $100 million to explore its viability. There will be other benefits besides saving humanitys collective skin.

At the Starmus festival, Hawking commented:

Spreading out into space will completely change the future of humanity. I hope it would unite competitive nations in a single goal, to face the common challenge for us all. A new and ambitious space program would excite (young people), and stimulate interest in other areas, such as astrophysics and cosmology.

Will the Earth really perish? To hear what physicist Michio Kaku thinks, click here:

Excerpt from:
Stephen Hawking Believes We Will Abandon Earth via Light-Based Transportation - Big Think

The court also allowed the ban to go into effect for people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen who do not already have ties to the U.S.

Here are the basics.

Mr. Trump hailed a clear victory for our national security.

_____

South Korea is offering the U.S. reassurances on North Korea ahead of President Moon Jae-ins visit to the White House on Thursday and Friday.

The countrys foreign minister indicated that Seoul would honor an agreement to deploy the American Thaad missile-defense system despite public protests, above, and economic retaliation from China.

She also said the government would not hurry to try to reopen a jointly run industrial complex in the North Korean city of Kaesong, a conduit for hard currency for the North.

_____

A New York Times correspondent, above, who has covered race in the U.S. traveled through Australias indigenous communities and encountered young people defying stereotypes and the painful legacy of colonization with outrage, resignation and courage.

A 60-minute documentary based on his travels, part of the Australian Broadcasting Corporations Foreign Correspondent series, will air today and online.

And check out The Breakdown, conversation starters and context drawn from Australia news. Catch up on David Petraeuss views on Australian might, the Great Barrier Reefs estimated value and Russell Crowes battle with gossip weeklies.

_____

Climate conundrum: The amount of carbon dioxide humans are pumping into the air seems to have stabilized but data gathered at the worlds monitoring stations, like the one above in Tasmania, show that excess carbon dioxide is still on the rise

One troubling possibility: The worlds natural sponges for the greenhouse gas, like the ocean, are no longer able to keep up.

Indias tech workers face the possibility that automation, robotics and other technologies will prompt their industry, valued at $150 billion a year, to shed jobs en masse.

A court in Shanghai sentenced three Australian and 13 other employees of Crown Resorts to prison terms for illegally promoting gambling. The case is seen as Beijings warning to foreign gambling operators.

Whats next for Takata? We look at the far-reaching consequences of the bankruptcy declaration by the airbag maker at the center of worlds largest auto safety recall.

European Union officials are expected to issue a record fine of at least $1.2 billion against Google for breaking the regions competition rules.

Best Inc, the Chinese delivery firm backed by Alibaba, filed for an initial public offering on Wall Street, with an initial target of $750 million.

Most U.S. stocks were higher. Heres a snapshot of global markets.

Liu Xiaobo, the jailed Chinese activist who won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, received a medical parole to be treated for late-stage cancer, and supporters called for his wife, Liu Xia, to be freed from house arrest and allowed to visit him. [The New York Times]

Pakistans prime minister cut short a private visit to London and promised to get to the bottom of the fuel tanker inferno in Punjab Province that killed at least 153 people. [The New York Times]

In southwest China, a month-old infant whose crying woke his parents is credited with their miraculous survival in a landslide that appears to have claimed the rest of their village. [Caixin]

Flashback: In 1973, Chan Hak-chi and his wife swam six hours through a typhoon and shark-infested waters to reach Hong Kong and escape Chinas Cultural Revolution. [Sixth Tone]

Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.

Give biking to work a try. Start with our guide.

If you find yourself nodding off at your desk today, go ahead and take a nap. Itll do wonders for your productivity.

Recipe of the day: A cucumber and yogurt salad sprinkled with dill and sour cherries is a wonderful complement to a hearty main dish.

Australian odyssey: Our reporter went out on a lonely highway on a mission to save joeys baby kangaroos whose mothers ended up as roadkill. She also found a makeshift orphanage that takes in about 100 baby roos a year.

New Zealand is celebrating after a crew of young newcomers finished off a surprisingly lopsided 7-1 victory over their U.S. rivals to reclaim the Americas Cup after a 14-year wait.

K-pops effervescent universe was on full volume at KCON, an annual concert festival in New Jersey devoted to up-close and giggly interaction with fans (( hi-touch, in the lingo of the genre).

The Times has set up a forum for our journalists to speak directly to you about our coverage. Today, they explain why some important news stories run in feature sections and discuss the challenges in making our coverage more global in perspective.

Today is Seven Sleepers Day, which both celebrates an ancient legend and supposedly predicts the weather in the German-speaking parts of Europe.

The legend, which features in both Christian and Islamic tradition, stretches back centuries. It involves a group of seven youths who escaped religious persecution by hiding in a cave, where they slept for hundreds of years before awakening.

More practically speaking, the days weather is thought to foretell conditions for the rest of the summer, similar to the way Groundhog Day predicts the arrival of spring in the U.S.

Above, a hiker on Herzogstand Mountain in southern Germany.

According to one saying, ist der Siebenschlfer nass, regnets ohne Unterlass, or if Seven Sleepers is wet, it rains unceasingly. More precisely, if it rains on June 27, it will pour for seven weeks.

The days predictive power is helped, as Germanys weather service explains, by the jet stream, which stabilizes around this time, providing, with some variation, a consistent forecast.

(Confusing matters, the days name in German is Siebenschlfertag, which is nearly identical but unrelated to Siebenschlfer, the word for a type of dormouse common in Europe that hibernates for about seven months.)

Palko Karasz contributed reporting.

_____

This briefing was prepared for the Australian morning. We also have briefings timed for the Asian, European and American mornings. You can sign up for these and other Times newsletters here.

Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings and updated online.

What would you like to see here? Contact us at asiabriefing@nytimes.com.

Excerpt from:
Narendra Modi, Travel Ban, Liu Xiaobo: Your Morning Briefing - New York Times

This story was updated at 6:39 p.m. ET.

Vast pockets of water ice numbering in the millions of tons have been discovered at the north pole of the moon, opening up another region of the lunar surface for potential exploration by astronauts and unmanned probes, NASA announced Monday.

A NASA radar instrument on an Indian moon probe found evidence of at least 600 million metric tons of water ice spread out on the bottom of craters at the lunar north pole. It is yet another supply of lunar water ice, a vital resource that could be mined to produce oxygen or rocket fuel to support a future moon base, NASA officials said.

More than 40 craters ranging from 1 mile (2 km) to 9 miles (15 km) wide were found harboring the water ice, which was detected using NASA?s Mini-SAR radar instrument on India?s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter. The instrument is also known as Mini-RF in NASA parlance.

"After analyzing the data, our science team determined a strong indication of water ice, a finding which will give future missions a new target to further explore and exploit," said Jason Crusan, program executive for the Mini-RF Program for NASA's space operations program in Washington, D.C., in a statement.

Water, water everywhere

The ice was discovered in permanently shadowed craters at the moon?s north pole. Similar conditions of perpetual night exist at the moon?s south pole as well, where water ice was also confirmed to be present last year. Because these regions never see sunlight, water can stay in its frozen form indefinitely.

Last September, NASA and other scientists confirmed without a doubt the existence of water ice at the moon?s south pole, as well as signals of water molecules across large areas of the lunar surface. Several spacecraft, including India?s Chandrayaan-1 probe that carried the radar instrument used for the new findings, found hard evidence of water on the moon.

In October, NASA crashed two impactor probes into the lunar south pole in an attempt to kick up clouds of water ice and measure it from an orbiting spacecraft and other space and ground-based observatories. The subsequent analysis turned up significant amounts of water and water vapor in the debris cloud, NASA scientists said.

"The emerging picture from the multiple measurements and resulting data of the instruments on lunar missions indicates that water creation, migration, deposition and retention are occurring on the moon," said Paul Spudis, principal investigator of the Mini-SAR experiment at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, in a statement. "The new discoveries show the moon is an even more interesting and attractive scientific, exploration and operational destination than people had previously thought."

The research will be detailed in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Will astronauts go?

Water ice is a tantalizing find anywhere on the moon because it can serve as a natural resource for astronauts on future lunar landing missions. The ice could be melted into drinking water or be separated into its component oxygen and hydrogen to provide breathing air and rocket fuel, NASA officials have said in the past.

NASA had planned to send astronauts on new lunar landing missions by 2020 as part of its Constellation program. The program was building the new Altair moon landers, as well as the Orion spacecraft and Ares rockets needed to launch ferry them to lunar surface, but experts said it was extremely underfunded and behind schedule.

Last month, President Barack Obama ordered NASA to cancel the Constellation program and focus on using commercial spacecraft to launch American astronauts to orbit instead. The move is aimed at freeing up NASA to concentrate on more lofty exploration missions, such as returning to the moon or sending astronauts to visit an asteroid, stable regions in space called Lagrange points or the moons of Mars.

NASA chief Charles Bolden told members of the U.S. Senate and Congress last week that Mars is expected to be the ultimate destination for astronauts. But the moon, he said, is still a good interim target to serve as a stepping stone for more distant space exploration goals.

Chandrayaan-1?s Mini-SAR radar was one of two instruments involving NASA on India?s Chandrayan-1 spacecraft. The probe also carried the Moon Mineralogy Mapper for NASA. A version of Mini-SAR, called Mini-RF, is riding on NASA?s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

India launched Chandrayaan-1 probe in October 2008 and carried 11 instruments to observe the moon from lunar orbit. It was India?s first moon probe and carried an impactor probe that it unleashed in November 2008. The spacecraft went offline in late August 2009 after an abrupt malfunction cut off communications with Earth.

India is planning a successor to Chandrayaan-1, dubbed Chandrayaan-2. The name Chandrayaan means ?moon craft? in Sanskrit.

The new Chandrayaan-2 mission is slated to launch in 2013, according to Indian news reports.

Original post:
Tons of Water Ice Found on the Moon's North Pole

BBC News

Hawking urges Moon landing to 'elevate humanity' BBC News Prof Stephen Hawking has called for leading nations to send astronauts to the Moon by 2020. They should also aim to build a lunar base in 30 years' time and send people to Mars by 2025. Prof Hawking said that the goal would re-ignite the space ... Stephen Hawking: Earth is in peril, it's time to get out of DodgeUSA TODAY Stephen Hawking: 'I Am Convinced That Humans Need to Leave Earth'EcoWatch Stephen Hawking: Humans Should Ride a Beam of Light to Other PlanetsLive Science Tech Times -Weekly Observer -Vox all 106 news articles »

See the original post:
Hawking urges Moon landing to 'elevate humanity' - BBC News