Except they don’t. particularly whrn the price tags come due. But the do cheer the engineering successes of EDL. For about 72 hours. Three news cycles, as history – and videotapes show. Even JPL ceases daily pressers after a week. Keep trying, josh.

My 747 example was a caricature of course. Yet to me this is very unclear especially since you may increase the risk of loss of vehicle by merely adding a LAS…

True about that system and true sometimes you can’t make it work. On a 747 not really practical too much variation in size/mass of passengers too much weight and too many passengers as well as lack of training for said passengers. The B-52 and many military jets do have ejection seats. LAS systems are not 100% fool proof and for the shuttle they would have been a nightmare to install after the fact design wise but for other situations more useful. Not a 100% chance it will work, but better than zero.

He’s walking it back a little bit.

http://www.examiner.com/article/nasa-s-bolden-walks-back-no-return-to-the-moon-remarks

Not surprising really, about what I expected. NASA lends a commercial moon mission its expertise in return for an astronaut slot. You get a NASA astronaut on the moon and Charlie doesn’t have to ask congress for schittz.

We already have “location [sic] and intensities”:

http://spaceref.com/moon/water-on-the-moon.html

Another neutron spectrometer isn’t going to tell us anything we don’t already know.

Folks are looking at robotic landers and rovers as the next step in understanding lunar hydrogen signals, not more orbiters and neutron spectrometers:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/humanoids/nasa-testing-rover-to-prospect-for-water-on-the-moon

http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/ground/resolverover.html

Even someone as gung ho for lunar water ice as Spudis agrees that more robotic ground truth is needed before other steps are taken:

“Rover 01 – Water Ice Explorer (WIE) – The first rover to the lunar poles will explore the polar light and dark areas, characterizing the physical and chemical nature of the ice deposits. We must understand how polar ice varies in concentration both horizontally and vertically, the geotechnical properties of polar soils and access to and location of mining prospects. This rover will begin the long-term task of prospecting for lunar ice deposits such that the closest, highest grade deposits are found”

http://www.spudislunarresources.com/Papers/Affordable_Lunar_Base.pdf‎

“It would be nice if you actually read some of these papers before you argue from a position of superiority which does not exist.”

I have read multiple Arxiv articles on this subject. None that I’ve read argue for more orbiting neutron spectrometers. You’re arguing for duplicative instruments and observations that we don’t need to make.

If you want to pursue lunar water and propellant production, then you have to get some ground truth on what the neutron spectrometers and other orbital instruments have been telling us and obtain other details that can’t be secured from orbit. That means robotic landers/rovers and/or astronauts, not yet another neutron spectrometer.

“There is plenty of evidence for large swaths of highly variable deposits across many different reservoir crater terrains, with the highest signals recorded coming from Cabeus.”

I never questioned whether there were “highly variable [hydrogen] deposits across many different reservoir crater terrains”. You’re arguing with yourself.

I questioned whether we have enough ground truth to initiate a multi-billion to multi-ten billion dollar lunar propellant production effort, particularly with regard to whether all the hydrogen signals are coming from water or -OH or solar hydrogen deposits or another mechanism, what specific depth(s) those signals are at, the degree to which they’re concentrated (or not) locally, and how the deposits are bound up physically with other regolith constituents.

“I can’t think of any glaring reason that the deposition method would vary that widely in this singularly unique environment.”

Because there are several possible sources of hydrogen signals.

We find fool’s gold in proximity to real gold in Earth mining all the time. You don’t want to spend billions of dollars developing a water and propellant plant for Crater X when it only has solar hydrogen deposits and Crater Y next door was the one with water ice.

“I don’t think further hypersonic”

How does one go “hypersonic” on an airless body?

You are woefully technically illiterate.

“smashing of the best water deposits is the best way to proceed here.”

Where did I write that the next step should be another impactor?

Apparently you have a problem with literacy and reading comprehension in general.

“but we already have enough to indicate it a worthy endeavor, at least at the scientific level. To claim otherwise is simply false.”

I never claimed that this topic wasn’t worthy to follow up on based on the science alone.

I argue that we have insufficient information from LCROSS and everything before it from which to make intelligent investment decisions on lunar water and propellant production going forward. More work, especially ground truth, is needed.

“You are making stuff up.”

I’m not the idiot who claims that we need another neutron spectrometer to obtain hydrogen “location [sic] and intensities” when maps of the same are publicly available on the web.

I’m not the idiot who doesn’t understand that there are several possible sources for those hydrogen signals on the Moon and that LCROSS only confirmed that water was one of those sources in one very localized area.

I’m not the idiot who is so technically illiterate that he thinks LCROSS went “hypersonic” on the airless Moon.

I’m not the idiot who is so generally illiterate that he made up no less than three false claims in one post about statements I never made.

Idiot.

Hypervelocity. Happy now? Thanks in for your keen insights into the physics of exhaust plume impingement and ejecta as it relates to landing large reusable spacecraft vertically on the surface of the moon, something you can now be be assured will happen in the near future.