Suddenly, the moon looks exciting again. It has lots of water, scientists said - a thrilling discovery that sent a ripple of hope for a future astronaut outpost in a place that has always seemed barren and inhospitable. Experts have long suspected there was water on the moon. Confirmation came Friday from data churned up by two NASA spacecraft that intentionally slammed into a lunar crater last month. “Indeed, yes, we found water. And we didn't find just a little bit. We found a significant amount,” said Anthony Colaprete, lead scientist for the mission, holding up a white water bucket for emphasis. The lunar crash kicked up at least 25 gallons (95 liters) and that's only what scientists could see from the plumes of the impact, Colaprete said. Some space policy experts say that makes the moon attractive for exploration again. Having an abundance of water would make it easier to set up a base camp for astronauts, supplying drinking water and a key ingredient for rocket fuel. “Having definitive evidence that there is substantial water is a significant step forward in making the moon an interesting place to go,” said George Washington University space policy scholar John Logsdon. Even so, members of the blue-ribbon panel reviewing NASA's future plans said it doesn't change their conclusion that the program needs more money to get beyond near-Earth orbit. The panel wants NASA to look at other potential destinations like asteroids and Mars. “This new and terrific result reassures us about lunar resources, but ... the challenges currently facing the human spaceflight program remain,” Chris Chyba, a Princeton astrophysicist who is on the panel, said in an e-mail. It was NASA's Oct. 9 mission involving the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, LCROSS, that provided the stunning confirmation announced Friday - water, in the forms of ice and vapor. The LCROSS spacecraft only hit one spot on the moon and it's unclear how much water there is across the entire moon. The October mission involved two strikes into a permanently shadowed crater near the south pole. First, an empty rocket hull slammed into the Cabeus crater. Then, a trailing spacecraft recorded the drama live before it also crashed into the same spot four minutes later.
