Did you realize that we know the surface of Mars better than the surface of our own moon? It’s hard to believe — after all we’ve been there, people have walked on the moon, brought back rocks and we can’t get enough listening to their stories. And yet, we still know very little about our only natural satellite.

The moon is just not all that fashionable when you’ve got science superstars like Phoenix or the Mars Rovers grabbing the headlines.

This is all about to change. Since NASA has been given the task to return to the moon and establish a permanent outpost there, moon research is about to increase dramatically. One major question about the moon is still unanswered: Is there water on the moon?

About a decade ago the Lunar Prospector Spacecraft was crashed into the moon in the hopes that water vapor might be detected in the impact plume. Sadly, it didn’t work out. Lunar Prospector was a bit too small and came in at a rather slow speed and shallow angle to make a good useful impact.

Along comes LCROSS — another one of those infamous NASA acronyms that stands for Lunar Crater Observation & Sensing Satellite. It will hitch a ride on another moon mission rocket, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which had received a booster rocket upgrade and thus has room and fuel enough now to haul another spacecraft along.

LCROSS will be launched in Spring 2009, and its violent impact on the moon a few months later is expected to be visible to amateur astronomers with decent telescopes in the Western hemisphere.

So what’s the big deal about water on the moon?

It’s actually a question of money. A permanent human presence on the moon is going to need quite a bit of water. At eight pounds, a gallon water is pretty heavy, and hauling it all the way to the moon is outrageously expensive: It costs around $100,000 to transport one gallon of water to the lunar surface. And you thought gas prices were high these days!

So even if just 1 percent of the surface of some permanently shadowed craters on the lunar poles is covered in water ice, there would be plenty to keep a small settlement going — of course it would still require conscientious recycling, and the long hot showers you enjoy so much would probably be off limits.

Still — there may be an opportunity to live off the land, at least in that respect. It sure beats cobbling it together with oxygen from rocks and hydrogen from the solar wind.

Get lots more details at http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/

Beate Czogalla is the associate professor of theater design in the Department of Music and Theater at Georgia College & State University. She has had a lifelong interest in space exploration and has been a solar system ambassador for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/NASA for many years. She can be reached at our_space2@yahoo.com