WASHINGTON, March 6: There is enough water on the moon to support a human colony for a hundred years or perhaps hundreds of years, according to NASA scientists. Scientists said yesterday a neutron spectrometer aboard the lunar prospector robot probe, which went into orbit around the moon in January, had sent back data which indicated major deposits of ice.William Feldman, who analysed the spectrometer results, said that preliminary data showed that the moon could hold enough water to sustain a human colony for generations or enough hydrogen to serve as fuel for further explorations into space.``The moon's north pole has twice as water as south but both reserves could be immensely useful..This is a significant resource which will enable a modest amount of colonization for centuries,'' Feldman said. ``Our data is consistent with the presence of ice in very low concentrations across a significant number of craters,'' he added.Feldman and others estimated there could be 11 million to 330 million tonsof lunar ice dispersed across about 1,73,000 km of the north pole and about 70,000 km of the south pole.Finding ice on the moon is a big boost for tentative plans to establish a permanent lunar base. If water could be mined on the moon, it would ease the need of sending a supply from earth. It could take thousands of litres to maintain a permanent moon complex. The presence of water could also enable astronauts to make their own breathing oxygen and to use the moon as sort of a space-based filling station. Water can be split into its chemical components, hydrogen and oxygen. Oxygen could be used for breathing and the combination of hydrogen and oxygen can be used as a rocket fuel.The lunar prospector was launched in January and put into a 100-km high orbit of the moon. The 4-foot-long, 300-kg spacecraft is NASA's first return to the moon since the last manned lunar landing mission, Apollo 17 in December 1972. The robot craft carries instruments that can detect alpha particles, gamma rays and neutrons,along with a radar experiment.The 65 million dollar spacecraft is expected to spend the rest of year mapping the moon's surface. When it runs out of fuel, the craft will crash into the moon so it would not become an orbiting hazard to future lunar missions.
