FlingingGoronGonads t1_jb06a5t wrote
Reply to comment by tghuverd in Canadian rover to help in global search for frozen water on dark side of the moon, in a future planned mission by thawingSumTendies
>people are talking about making rocket fuel out of it
Fair point. It's actually the carbon (as CO2) that worries me in that case - hydrogen should be replenished (albeit very, very slowly), but the carbon is probably from comets, making it acutely precious on Luna. Some have been concerned with preserving the purity of the ice, but you may be right - we can't entirely bootstrap the exploration of the solar system with such a limited resource.
tghuverd t1_jbgeryn wrote
>we can't entirely bootstrap the exploration of the solar system with such a limited resource
I doubt we can even bootstrap a Moon base, to be honest. Unless a method to extract necessary resources from solar power and cracking rocks is baked into the initial build, we'll burn through the ice and then flap our arms about in alarm when it starts to run out...then spend a fortune in a rush job to implement the resource extraction at the last minute 🤦♂️
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