Boating on the Moon?
The latest NASA launch to the moon on April 1 wasn’t an April Fools’ joke—it’s real! The Artemis II mission with crew of four have just completed a record setting flyby of the moon, thereby becoming the farthest flying manned mission in history. While this mission does not include a moon landing, it marks a notable chapter in NASA’s renewed interest in manned missions to our nearest celestial body. The official plan is to establish a permanent moon base by the early 2030s.
What does this have to do with boats and marine news? Well, it turns out the moon contains a surprisingly large amount of water that may be the critical focus of the new generation of moon missions. The water situation also begs the question, could there ever be boating on the moon?
The Discovery
The discovery of water on the moon was less of a “eureka!” moment and more a gradual conclusion reached over several years. The Apollo human landings by NASA between 1969 and 1972 brought mankind invaluable insights, but the rock and soil samples were all taken near the six landing sites closer to the equator of the moon. These samples contained no water and the idea that the moon was “dry” was general consensus among the scientific community.
However, the findings of less-celebrated unmanned lunar probes in the 1990s started to challenge the dry moon consensus. NASA’s Clementine mission in 1994 suggested there was ice in a permanently shadowed area of the moon. The perpetually dark interiors of deep craters for example could contain more. The Lunar Prospector mission in 1998 concluded that the highest concentrations of hydrogen were within areas that are not exposed to sunlight. The lunar South Pole especially seemed like an area that could contain the motherload. According to NASA.gov, the “images were low resolution so no strong conclusions could be made.” This is a headscratcher in hindsight. Apparently the low resolution images didn’t excite many or tell them much.
The real breakthroughs happened in 2008/2009 with laboratory revisits of the Apollo samples and the two deep impact unmanned moon missions Chandrayaan-1 of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and NASA’s Cassini. More missions to the moon, including the LCROSS satellite that essentially blasted a rocket-bullet into a crater and then flew through the debris with its sensors, found a growing body of evidence for water ice.
The undeniable confirmation of water on the moon ultimately came in 2020 from earth observations. The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA, which is housed within a modified Boeing 747SP) revealed water ice contained within the soil of the moon, in a sunlit location no less. Using its top tier infrared observing capabilities, SOFIA has continued to map water on the surface of the moon with a focus on the South Pole, which is now believed to contain a lot of the water.
NASA’s future Artemis missions and a new water-hunting rover VIPER will be focused on the moon’s South Pole with the promise of finding water being perhaps the biggest draw.
Moon Water – More than Refreshment
What’s the true value of moon water? The most obvious is that humans need water to survive and if we’re going to establish permanent residence on the moon we’ll need to figure out the water situation. Every pound of material flown from the Earth into space costs thousands of dollars, so being able to harvest water on-site solves one of the great expenses and logistical challenges of setting up shop on another celestial body.
Another wonderful thing about the water molecule is that it is H2O—two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen. We have the technology to extract breathable oxygen from water molecules, thereby giving us humans another life necessity on-site. With a source of drinkable water and breathable air, the odds of humans surviving for long periods on the moon go up greatly.
But wait, there’s more! We can also extract hydrogen atoms from the water molecules to make hydrogen rocket fuel. That’s right, water ice on the moon can potentially give us water to drink, air to breathe, and fuel to both power our spaceships and our moon base technologies. Heck, scientists have successfully grown plants in lunar soil too, which is welcome news as Martian soil has turned out to be extremely toxic.
This all begs the question—will there ever be boating on the moon? This will entirely depend on the size of our lunar bases and whether or not standing water features will be a part of the design. What’s more, according to NASA the temperature of the South Pole of the moon ranges from around -203o C (-334o F) to 54o C (130o C), largely depending upon whether you’re in a shaded or sunlight area and the time of year. Ice sailing comes to mind, but with no atmosphere there is no wind. Besides, with blades and a hull that vaguely resembles a modified kayak, an ice boat isn’t much of a boat, but that is a different debate.
I have a better idea. In theory, the crew of a future moon base could extract water from the ice, fill an improvised pool at the just right spot during the perfect time of year on an ideal 800 F Earth-summer-like day, and deploy a small boat just to add “boating on the moon” to the ever-growing list of Awesome Things Humans Have Done? Yes. Hey, if Alan Shepherd could be the first to hit a golf ball on the moon in 1971 during Apollo 14, anything is possible. We here at Best4Boats are ready to report the story when that great day for space boating comes—maybe even on-scene from the lunar surface. Dream big!
