Water water everywhere. Possible signs of water on moon/mars

[Fiduses and Diuses]

And oxygen made out of dirt.

Dreams of establishing a manned Moon base could become reality within two decades after India’s first lunar mission found evidence of large quantities of water on its surface.

Since man first touched the moon and brought pieces of it back to Earth, scientists have thought that the lunar surface was bone dry. But new observations from three different spacecraft have put this notion to rest with what has been called "unambiguous evidence" of water across the surface of the moon.

A hotly anticipated experiment will test the theory next month that the moon's permanently shadowed polar craters harbor pockets of water ice. A NASA spacecraft called the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) will perform a two-stage bombardment of a south polar crater to see what rises up in the ensuing debris plume.

Seems they're finding water all over the place...

There is much more water on Mars than anyone had thought -- possibly twice as much as in Greenland's ice sheet, scientists said Thursday.

Researchers have caught Martian water ice in the midst of a triply amazing disappearing act. Why triply amazing? The ice was spotted amazingly close to the Red Planet's surface, and amazingly far away from the north pole. The third amazing thing about the observations, made using NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science, is that the researchers knew it was 99 percent pure water ice because of how slowly it disappeared.

American boffins say they have developed a viable process for making oxygen out of moon dirt, which could allow humans to live for long periods in lunar bases. The new tech has been tried out under the equivalent of the moon's one-sixth-G gravity aboard NASA's famous "vomit comet" low-gee simulator plane.

So what does NSG think? Time for moon/mars bases? Does sunlight and moon dust really create water? Can we really get oxygen out of moon dust? And what does that mean if it does? Time for NASA and whatever the EU equivalent to step up and start getting people on the moon? Or should it be left to the Chinese and Indians? etc

[Takaram]

Wow. That's all I have to say.

[DrunkenDove]

We've suspected this for ages, good to hear it confirmed.

Anyway, The faster we get moon bases the better! It's only a matter of time before the universe decides to kill everything on on this planet, so time is of the essence.

[Fiduses and Diuses]

edit: articles put in op

[UNIverseVERSE]

Do you really have to quote six articles, about only two topic, in their entirety? And repeat two of them? Maybe a one paragraph summary of each event, and then links to the articles, would be a better course of action?

[Rhodmhire]

I read up to the word "India" and kind of gave up there.

[Carbarosia]

Removed.

[Rhodmhire]

Yay.When the Earth eventually global warms and waters flood everything we'll be safe up on the moon .

If by "we" you mean we can fit an increased amount of the current population on an area of space 1/4th the size of our current home, then no.

[Fiduses and Diuses]

Do you really have to quote six articles, about only two topic, in their entirety? And repeat two of them? Maybe a one paragraph summary of each event, and then links to the articles, would be a better course of action?

1st Its three different topics, water on the moon(3 sources), water on mars(2 sources) and making oxygen out of lunar dust(could only find one).
2nd that was a glorified bump.
3rd I don't tell you how/what to post but yes it was overdone/wall of text and has been edited accordingly. Edit: 3a Some posters either due to slow connections or what have you don't like clicking on links, if I have the whole article in the op there is at least a slightly better chance they'll read it.
4th I told another poster that one source does not a story make and as such I'm very well going to have multiple sources when I post whenever it is possible to find them.
5th Some people don't trust certain online sources/want to read slightly more scientific sources so I'll provide them when I can.

[Charlotte Ryberg]

For once I must express my excitement that there has been a discovery of elements needed to support human life outside Earth. But I must express that sunlight and moon dust may not be the only ingredients needed to make water unless the surface of the moon was ice, and then again it needs to be checked whether it is drinkable.

[UNIverseVERSE]

Do you really have to quote six articles, about only two topic, in their entirety? And repeat two of them? Maybe a one paragraph summary of each event, and then links to the articles, would be a better course of action?

1st Its three different topics, water on the moon(3 sources), water on mars(2 sources) and making oxygen out of lunar dust(could only find one).
2nd that was a glorified bump.
3rd I don't tell you how/what to post but yes it was overdone/wall of text and has been edited accordingly. Edit: 3a Some posters either due to slow connections or what have you don't like clicking on links, if I have the whole article in the op there is at least a slightly better chance they'll read it.
4th I told another poster that one source does not a story make and as such I'm very well going to have multiple sources when I post whenever it is possible to find them.
5th Some people don't trust certain online sources/want to read slightly more scientific sources so I'll provide them when I can.

1: my apologies, but I wasn't going to read six articles to find out it was three topics not two.

3a: And you think posters on slow connections, who don't want to follow a link to load an article, are going to be happy with you quoting six articles in full?

4, 5: Here's a slightly better suggestion, if I may:

Water has been found on the moon, say scientists, reporting on data gathered by India's first lunar orbiter. The discovery has been hailed as a victory for India in this '21st century space race', where China had been generally seen as far ahead. A NASA mission will shortly be conducting tests to help confirm the discovery.

The Times
Space.com
Scientific American

The discovery of water in the solar system hasn't ended there. New observations of Mars have revealed evidence for far more water present than had previously been suspected.

LA Times
MSNBC

Finally, US Scientists have announced a possible process for gathering oxygen from moon dust, which could be a major boost for any attempted habitation of the moon.

The Register

So what does NSG think? Time for moon/mars bases? Does sunlight and moon dust really create water? Can we really get oxygen out of moon dust? And what does that mean if it does? Time for NASA and whatever the EU equivalent to step up and start getting people on the moon? Or should it be left to the Chinese and Indians? etc

[Carbarosia]

Removed.

[Flameswroth]

Yay.When the Earth eventually global warms and waters flood everything we'll be safe up on the moon .

It'd probably be much more viable to create floating/underwater civilizations...or at least just as viable. And you wouldn't have to worry about oxygen if you had a floating society.

The cool thing about us is that we can create and adapt like that. All the other land dwelling species we don't use will be boned, though

[UNIverseVERSE]

If by "we" you mean we can fit an increased amount of the current population on an area of space 1/4th the size of our current home, then no.

Even with that, it's not possible, without killer lift technology way beyond anything we can even dream of today. Carrying people off the planet even fast enough to match the current population growth rate would be insanely hard, doing so at sufficient speed to alleviate problems in overcrowding is effectively impossible.

Earth's problems, for better or worse, will be staying on Earth -- you can't look to space to solve them.