Moon holds out fresh hope

THE moon is perhaps opening up new a vista of possibilities. A recent lunar space mission Chandrayaan-1 launched by India has, with its state-of-the-art instruments, found strong evidence of water in the moon's soil. Analysis has further shown that it is possible to extract a litre of water from a cubic metre of the moon's soil. This fresh finding that corroborates earlier results and speculations has bolstered space scientists' dream of carrying out space missions deeper into the solar system and even beyond from their future base on the moon.
The importance of water on any celestial body other than earth has always been a subject of great speculation and interest. That is simply because water and life go together. Water is important not just for any planet or its satellite within or without the solar system to host life in any of its forms. Existence of water anywhere beyond the earth is of prime concern also for reasons of sustainability of manned missions there. From that point of view, any concrete proof that water exists in our nearest celestial object, the moon, is great news for the entire mankind, let alone for the space scientists.
After the first US manned space mission to the moon in 1969, scientists' interest in sending further manned probes there gradually died down, if only for the astronomical costs those involved. Now the scientists will have more justifications in favour of such costs, once the moon itself turns into a resource base for onward space missions supplying water for man's sustenance as well as rocket fuel, hydrogen and oxygen, from the same lunar soil.
A word of caution may not be out of place here, especially against the backdrop of our Cold War experience of superpower rivalry over military use of the space. Though at the moment that cold war nightmare is history, there should still be no room for complacency even in a multi-polar world given the proclivity for acquiring nuclear weapons and their delivery technology by many new aspirants of recent origin.
The old big powers and the newly emerging ones like India and China have therefore a big stake in ensuring that the pristine moon may not turn into an object of future rivalry among them in the future.
As in the case of space, we are for peaceful use of the moon for carrying out further exploration into space. We are for keeping the moon forever as a shining spot of hope and dream in the sky.