Comments on: Water on the moon: it’s been there all along

By: hal

hal — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 22:58:36 +0000

yep, and when the energy dam breaks i can type in the code and make an orange or tomato. Exact flavor will need to be resolved, but a Porche will be a Porche, Wall-E

By: Keith

Keith — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 21:21:55 +0000

Or just maybe we are reading the evidence all wrong and in fact the hydroxyl is forming within the rock over millions of years?

By: SmartAndSober

SmartAndSober — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:08:03 +0000

I believe that you had been confused by the name “Sea of Tranquillity”.
The dark areas of the Moon’s near side (Moon is tidally locked, therefore always faces Earth with one side) are commonly known as ‘Mares’ or “seas’.
For example, Aldrin and Armstrong, on July 20, 1969, landed on Mare Tranquillitatis (or the Sea of Tranquillity).
Despite their names, they are not seas. Rather they are basaltic plains formed by volcanic eruptions.

By: SmartAndSober

SmartAndSober — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:02:29 +0000

Regarding miniaturization of sentient beings, I believe that the Planck-Length, the smallest meaningful distance in modern physics, is not the bottom limit of how small computing structures can be miniaturized.
The history of Science had, repetitively, shown us that the known limits at any time are almost certainly breakable.
The theory of relativity was once considered to be false. Heavier-than-air flight was once considered to be impossible. Telephone was once considered to have no commercial value. All of these beliefs are now broken.
Perhaps in the future we will discover how to miniaturize beyond the Planck-scale. And, from the perspective of such miniaturized beings, the resource available in the universe is almost infinite.
Perhaps true infinity lie not only in expansion out of this Universe, but also in miniaturizing ourselves.

By: SmartAndSober

SmartAndSober — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 23:53:44 +0000

Professor Hugo de Garis, in many talks and on his blog (profhugodegaris.wordpress.com) mentioned his concept of SIPI (Search for Infra-Particle Intelligence).
He believe that any sufficiently old alien civilizations will become, through their own technology, Infra-Particle-sized beings.
Instead of only searching for existing infra-particle intelligences, I believe we should also strive to become such intelligences.
The Solar System can hold a much larger population if we become IPI, than the population that is possible if we stay macroscopic.
Larger population also means greater overall intelligence (of our whole civilization).

By: SmartAndSober

SmartAndSober — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 23:46:49 +0000

I mean, necessities of life (for MOSHs and near-MOSHs) such as water, air and food can be synthesized this way. Femto-manufacturing and atto-manufacturing will be able to produce materials that are impossible to be created with nanotechnology.
I personally prefer a much more (in almost every way) efficient life as a uploadee. A sufficiently miniaturized computing structure the size of a sand grain (perhaps attotechnological or even more miniaturized) can contain several human uploadees, with their (optional) VR mind-supporting systems.

By: SmartAndSober

SmartAndSober — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 23:42:05 +0000

Wait until matter-transfusion becomes reality, then we will have unlimited amount of *any element* we want.
Imagine what you can do if you can change the number of protons in a nucleus, therefore change the element of the atom (a more formal name for such method of manufacturing will be (I guess) femto-manufacturing or perhaps atto-manufacturing).

By: Bri

Bri — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 22:38:07 +0000

At six parts per million your not talking about a lot of water. The polar craters are the best place to obtain water. This research is mainly helpful in terms of planetary body formation. It indicates the amount of water present on the early earth when the impact occured. The vast majority of which woukd have been in the form of steam trapped in the consolidated material. The early earth itself probably had received most of it’s water by then, otherwise the moon would have more water from cometary deposition.

By: matt

matt — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 20:50:24 +0000

why did I know there was water on the moon before the guys with rocket ships? how was there any doubt is my real question…

By: Gorden Russell

Gorden Russell — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 15:04:58 +0000

It will take a lot of robots a lot of time to recover these traces of water. But when robots can print up more robots, they will multiply like bacteria in a Petri plate. Once they get started, there will be a billion robots on the moon in no time at all.

By: SmartAndSober

SmartAndSober — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:36:59 +0000

A great challenge, when the first colonists on Moon expand their infrastructure, would be finding and extracting water.
This new discovery shall greatly facilitate the colonists’ survival and long term prosperity.