It's Official: Water Found on the Moon

space.com — 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. Sep 23, 2009 View in Crawl 4

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roseap Sep 24, 2009

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on second thought, forget the blackjack

kanojo1969 Sep 25, 2009

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@thbigtiket21I am extremely jaded with the whole process of humanitarian aid to developing nations. There are three reasons for this:First, it's well known that most of the money sent to most of the countries is subverted and used to fund violence, often against the citizens we are trying to help. Even if we send grain or clothing, that too is confiscated and resold.Second, the way that aid is dispensed via the IMF and other global organisations results in 3rd world countries with debts that they can never hope to repay. In many cases, the outcome is the same as indentured servitude. I read recently about an indian family, where one member had borrowed 80 cents three generations ago, and since then every family member has been enslaved to pay back this debt. Well, once you see how we structure loans to developing nations, you get the feeling that the first world is doing exactly the same thing to entire nations, as is being done to the indian slave family. We end up sending in our big corporates to own their infrastructure, telecommunications, water supply, everything. In twenty years the standard of living may be a little higher but they don't *own* anything in their own country. This leads to people like Chavez gaining power on a platform of re-nationalisation, which always leads to bloodshed and sanctions. The whole process should never have begun.Third, I don't beleive that simply propping up countries with money is actually any help anyway. We need to develop technology and education programs that will let the native population grow food and become literate without needing our support in the future. There are lots of people already doing this stuff. Small organisations, working together or independently, funded privately, will accomplish far more than any big government running in with a money hose.Besides, a lot of the technology that has gone into producing water filtration and irrigation systems for the 3rd world has come about because of research done in the space program.So yeah, the whole aid system is f**ked up, it would be no bad thing to stop it completely and let the developing world sort itself out for a couple of generations. At least the tinpot dictators and warlords would all collapse without foreign cash and weapons.

thbigtiket21 Sep 28, 2009

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Yeah I totally agree that the system by which aid is distributed is flawed. I am not saying that its perfect. I am just saying that giving up on it is not the solution. It is difficult and challenging to make sure our money is being used effectively, but can you really say that exploring space is more important that helping fellow humans. I wonder what your opinion would be if you were switched with someone in need of some kind of aid. I'm pretty sure it would be different right? It's really easy for us to be in our comfortable world and deal with other humans like pawns. But that is certainly not right. I hope we never look at people as expendable or not worth the money. Imagine if the money used to research space programs were used to directly research humanitarian efforts and solutions. I do understand your point though. We have wasted so much money already trying to help people, but that is not a reason to give up on them.