The moon and back

Chandrayaans water finding could inaugurate a whole new frontier of space research....

This monotonous rock pile,this withered,sun-seared peach pit that is how the whole lunar project was dismissed by American astronaut Michael Collins who orbited while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took their baby steps on the moon. Given its arid inhospitability,it was assumed for decades that moon missions were empty and expensive stunts. Now,a joint Indo-US effort has changed everything,and brought back the old sense of astonishment into space study.

Indias rover craft Chandrayaan-I,before it was lost last month, managed to beam across the most startling and significant findings in recent space history evidence that water is still being formed across the moons surface.

While ice in the permanently shadowed craters near the poles has long been considered a likelihood with Japanese orbiter Kaguya explicitly searching for these,NASA instruments on Chandrayaan detected the chemical signature of water and hydroxyl throughout the moons surface. This,they say,is formed by solar winds blowing across the surface and mixing with the moons oxygen rich top soil. The day-night fluctuations in sogginess suggest that this water formation is an ongoing process. This revelation opens up other tantalising possibilities if wet patches can be found on the moon,maybe similar interactions of solar winds could produce water on asteroids and other airless moons. Many of our wilder science fiction fantasies now seem a little more supportable,and space bases on the moon are now a distinct possibility.

For India,this is a moment of undiluted triumph. After the American Apollo programme was wound up and its space programme limited to earth orbits,the space race seems to have shifted towards Asia. China,Japan and India all have energetic and competitive space programmes,on the rationale that while they may not result in immediate strategic gain,space technologies show off the nations scientific prowess. Given that ISRO spends only 15 per cent of its 1 billion budget on advanced research and development,and missions like Chandrayaan,this has been tremendous bang for the buck,and is a vindication of the magnificent madness that fires lunar missions.