After interpreting data and pictures taken during the
Clementine spacecraft mission, a joint Department of Defense and
NASA program, scientists revealed today that deposits of ice
could exist in permanently dark regions near the south pole of
the Moon.
Initial estimates suggest that the ice deposit area is the
size of a small lake (60-120 thousand cubic meters), comparable
to four football fields 16 feet deep.
The ice is suggested to be
in a lunar crater which has a depth of one-and-a-half times than
the height of Mount Everest with a the rim circumference twice
the size the island of Puerto Rico.
Originally sponsored by the Ballistic Missile Defense
Organization (BMDO), the Clementine mission was designed to test
new technology that would track and intercept hostile missiles,
using celestial bodies such as the Moon.
Clementine made history
on Jan. 25, 1994, by being launched in half the time at a quarter
of the cost of other comparable satellites.
Several advanced
lightweight cameras onboard Clementine recorded approximately 1.5
million images of over 99.9 percent of the Moon's surface,
including laser radar measurements which produced a topographical
map of the lunar surface.
The discovery of ice on the Moon has enormous implications
for a permanent human return to the Moon.
Water ice is made up
of hydrogen and oxygen, two elements vital to human life and
space operations.
Lunar ice could be mined and disassociated
into hydrogen and oxygen by electric power provided by solar
panels or a nuclear generator.
Hydrogen and oxygen are prime
components of rocket fuel, giving the space program the ability
to re-fuel rockets at a lunar "filling station" and making
transport to and from the Moon more economical by at least a
factor of ten.
Additionally, the water from lunar polar ice and
oxygen generated from the ice could support a permanent facility
or outpost on the Moon.
The discovery of this material, rare on
the Moon but so vital to human life and operations in space, will
make human expansion into the Solar System easier and reaffirms
the immense value of the Earth's Moon as the stepping stone into
the universe.
The Clementine mission was sponsored and managed by the
BMDO.
The satellite was designed and integrated by the Naval
Research Laboratory and the sensor instruments were integrated by
the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.
The science team was
sponsored by NASA who also provided the Deep Space Network of
antennas to receive Clementine's image transmissions to the
Earth.
Clementine was launched aboard a Titan II missile from
Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.
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