Episode 541: Why Is The Moon’s South Pole So Important? It’s All About Water

As NASA prepares to return to the Moon by 2024 as part of its Artemis program, the agency is focusing its efforts on exploring the Moon’s polar regions. These are areas of the Moon which seem to have a lot of water mixed in with the regolith.

Some of these craters are permanently in shadow, and might still have large quantities of water, that’s accessible to human and robotic explorers. This is a critical resource, and the Moon might be just the place to help humanity as it pushes out to explore the rest of the Solar System.

But it might also be an illusion. We really won’t know until we look up close.

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Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected]

Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw

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References:

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/50-years-ago-lunar-landing-sites-selected

https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/

https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/1336/what-thickness-depth-of-water-would-be-required-to-provide-radiation-shielding-i

https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3480

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/lro-sheds-light-on-lunar-water-movement

https://www.nasa.gov/ames/LCROSS

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/inside-dark-polar-moon-craters-water-not-as-invincible-as-expected-scientists-argue

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/chang-e-landers-a-closer-look

https://www.isro.gov.in/gslv-mk-iii-m1-chandrayaan-2-mission/launch-kit-glance

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2017/1207-koreas-first-lunar-mission.html

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-12-new-lunar-science-technology-investigations

https://www.astrobotic.com/2019/7/1/astrobotic-awarded-5-6-million-nasa-contract-to-deliver-autonomous-moon-rover

http://www.planetary.org/explore/projects/planetvac/

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-07/uom-nsu071119.php

https://today.ttu.edu/posts/2019/07/Stories/NASA-picks-Nagihara-instrument-moon-landing