We can say that they actually put a powered drill rig on one flight and get deep enough to ensure the ‘water’ content isn’t contamination. Given that the ‘cold-trap’ concept comes pretty swiftly but…
Has about zero (0) effect on Apollo itself as it’s a done deal even before Apollo 11 landed. Where it does come into effect is during the Space Colony ‘craze’ of the late 70s since instead of ‘having’ to go to the asteroids for volatiles we have a higher chance of finding them on the Moon which we are (according to the theory at the time) mining for materials to build the Space Colonies.
In essence you have managed to torpedo, (probably not sink but they need to put into port for major repairs) Zubrin and the “Mars Underground” as their PRIMARY argument has always been that the Moon is a ‘distraction” because it has no inherent resources, specifically volatiles like water.
I suggest a deep-read of these sites:
http://www.moonsociety.org/mmm
http://www.moonsociety.org/mmm#classics
(Specifically some of the ‘theme’ issues)
With keeping in mind that these folks were tending to ‘downplay’ the need to import volatiles because everyone believed there was no water on the Moon, and how much ‘better’ a case they can make if it’s know there IS available water!
Now this actually helps some of the later ‘return-to-the-Moon’ planning since we have a basis that Cis-Lunar Space is actually a lot more ‘valuable’ than it was considered in OTL until very recently. Does it help get something like FLO, LUNOX, ELA, etc get more traction? Maybe but in the end it’s going to be politics not technology that make the decision and as we already are well aware the Moon having water has in fact had little effect on political and public support for such concepts.
Where is MAY have an effect though is, as I noted above, that it undercuts Zubrin and the “Mars Mafia” on dismissing the Moon as a possible destination over going ‘directly’ to Mars. Take Elon Musk for example. His ‘initial’ concept was to stimulate public interest in space by putting a ‘greenhouse’ on Mars using the local CO2 to help ‘grow’ a garden and showing this all ‘live’ on the internet. He got ‘side-tracked’ because he couldn’t find a ‘ride’ for the needed payload mass on the then current “launch” market. But that’s going all the way to Mars which he doesn’t have to necessarily do in TTL since water is known to exist in the Lunar soil. He could launch a similar ‘greenhouse’ to the Moon with the available launch vehicles which would be closer and publically seem more ‘near-term’ (after all, Humans have BEEN to the Moon) and then still feel the ‘key’ is cheaper access. Without the more general and entrenched, (and frankly false) ‘common-knowledge’ that the Moon is a barren wasteland and that only Mars has the ‘possibility’ of available water the whole “direct” concept loses a lot of steam and it is less likely that Musk, (and many others) don’t get so fixated on Mars that they will actively oppose the idea of going back to the Moon as a first step.
With KNOWN water on the Lunar surface since we already know we can make abundant LOX from the soil we can now posit production of hydrogen and unlike “Mars Direct” we have no real need to bring ANY ‘seed’ materials to produce rocket propellant. Just hardware.
Mars loses a lot of it’s current ‘luster’ and the Moon becomes a much better initial ‘target’ for exploitation and colonization efforts. Will it really matter? Probably not as I’ve said by the time Apollo 11 lands most public and political support for general human space exploration has taken a significant down-turn and available resources on the Moon really doesn’t help. But it does increase the possible support that in OTL fractured into factions during the late 70s and early 80s.
It may very well decrease the tendency of later ‘planning’ to over emphasize Mars which IMO was the main reason why most of the “Space Initiatives” crashed and burned because they focused too much on Mars and not enough on the development and expansion of a supporting infrastructure that included Cis-Lunar Space. With clearly available resources on the Moon it no longer becomes so ‘clear’ that the only way to reach Mars is to have an “Apollo” like timetable to ensure the well-known, (and assumed) public/political support window can be abused, sorry, used to reach a limited goal before it collapses.
Apollo showed that the US could set itself a goal, achieve it with great effort and expenditure and then walk away once the ‘job’ was done. Trying to ‘repeat’ that mistake, sorry, achievement has been pushed as the “holy grail” of space exploration ever since with little or no effort to actually understand how it was done, why it failed and why it should not be repeated.
Therefore because in OTL “Mars” has ‘obviously’ been the only place where we might use local resources to help reduce the cost to reach it, (never mind that quite the opposite was pointed out in the mid-to-late-50s and early-60s and that the Moon is a worthwhile resource itself) thereby making the cost of doing so ‘only’ be double or so that of the Apollo program and thereby (somehow) getting a different outcome than Apollo by essentially repeating Apollo. And it isn’t questioned. (Well it is, but the ‘mafia’ then jumps on and drowns out any such questions because they support the holy cause and heretics must be burned)
I believe that early knowledge of the possible Lunar resources, especially water, will inevitably reduce the chances that the resurgent Space Advocacy movement of the 70s/80s will splinter and a more united, (not fully because you still have the pro/anti-NASA factions but they aren’t as bad as the “Mars” factions, Anti-Moon, etc factions we have OTL) Space Advocacy has a better chance of gaining and actually influencing public/political support. As it is as long as the ‘politicians’ occasionally say something “positive” about space, (literally things like US Citizens on a Lunar Colony COULD vote in a Presidential election, or a “Space Force” is a good idea, absolutely NOTHING substantive) then the “Space Advocates” will spend a couple of weeks ‘praising’ the ‘obvious’ support and then go back to tearing each other’s guts out over which is better, horizontal or vertical landing on Mars. (What about the Moon? Die heretic! Now return to your regularly scheduled Space Advocacy WWF match…)
Now from the above you may think it possible I’m a wee-bit ‘bitter’ over Space Advocacy in OTL, and you’d be right. I was a teen when “The Colonization of Space” was first published in Physics Today in 1974 and the books and articles that followed. I joined the L5 Society (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L5_Society) very early on and was very proud we helped defeat ratification of the 1979 “Moon Treaty” and was disappointed when we ‘merged’ with the National Space Institute and it became the National Space Society. This was because the NSI which was founded by Warner Von Braun and people directly tied to NASA whereas the L5 Society was very much based on the idea we’d go with NASA if they were going our way but we would not DEPEND on them. The NSS has always been a NASA booster and more concerned with seeking political support and funding for NASA rather than focused on Space Colonization or exploitation. Personally I was never ‘anti-NASA’ and was rather angry with those who were, (Hello Dr. Pournelle, “If it weren’t for NASA…” unless they are paying for MY X-Program that is) since NASA in fact was not the ‘issue’ but politics and public support. But once “we” became the NSS then NASA and only NASA could get us where we wanted to go which never made a lick of sense since NASA, quite obviously, was only going to ever go where the politicians let it and they had no interest, (and still don’t) in actually doing anything if they can help it.
So I wandered for a bit as the pro/anti-NASA factions played at ‘advocacy’ while engaging in a war of words over whose ‘fault’ it was we weren’t mining asteroids by the late-80s. Then I read an article in 1990 where someone named Robert Zubrin and David Baker proposed that despite the ‘failure’ of the Space Exploration Initiative, (and how can you ‘succeed’ when the President who proposes it doesn’t even support it?) we could go DIRECTLY to Mars for ‘cheaper’ than the 90-day study suggested if we only did something ‘smart’ and used local resources to help reduce the costs. Well I was taken by the idea. Bring some ‘seed’ hydrogen to Mars and use it and the atmosphere to make Methane and LOX propellant to get back to Earth. Brilliant! Why did no one else think of this? (Actually the ‘idea’ was initially suggested at an “Using Interplanetary Resources for Space Exploration” conference in 1962 but Zubrin claims no one else every thought of it) We could go to Mars and we could do it in around a decade and we could do it all for a little bit more than Apollo. But…
The first thing that bothered me was Zubrin’s claims that building ‘infrastructure’ and support capacity, (most of the cost of SEI and what we’d spend 15 or so years doing BEFORE we went to Mars) were distractions and wastes as that’s “not how we did Apollo” after all. Sure enough going back over the article, (and later book chapter) he DOES mention going to the Moon using the same architecture… As long as you are willing to drag everything you need with you and use nothing on the Moon because it’s a “wasteland” without resources. In other words it’s “MARS” Direct and there’s nothing on the Moon, (or in Earth orbit, Cis-Lunar Space, or Mars orbit) ‘worth’ stopping to even look at. We go ‘directly’ from the surface of Earth to the surface of Mars and back to the surface of Earth. And as noted we do it in about the same timeframe, (because political and public support is so fickle) at about twice the cost of Apollo AND we will somehow, (it’s never made clear why doing the ‘same’ thing and Zubrin makes no bones about MD being the ‘same’ as Apollo even though it isn’t at all will turn out differently) we will continue to go to Mars and it will soon become colonized and settled all because we made out return propellant on Mars instead of dragging it with us as all “previous” plans did.
The other thing that bothered me was that while eventually Mars Direct did get some ‘tweaks’ here and there, initially at least Zubrin and the Mars Mafia, (which is basically what the Mars Underground became the second they got some legitimacy) stomped on anyone who dared question or suggest changes to “the plan” as it stood. And as I watched the initial solidarity of the Space Advocacy community splintered as suggestions were rejected and those who made the suggestions split off into things like Mars-Oz, (the aforementioned ‘split’ over vertical versus horizontal landing) alternatives that didn’t require a “new” heavy lift launch vehicle, ones that used existing medium launch vehicles, ones that went to the Moon first, (Die heretic!) ones that went to the Moons of Mars first and so on…
Eventually there was enough support (and questions that wouldn’t be quashed) to force an update which became “Mars Semi-Direct” and eventually became part of the “NASA Reference Mission” so ‘victory’ right? Well no because by this point the ‘splits’ are permanent and the idea that NASA is the only means to make this work, (which is STILL the ‘official’ position of the Mars Society even if Zubrin is ‘willing’ to consider the Falcon-Heavy as a launch vehicle) is still contentious so that there is no effective focus for Space Advocacy. Add in Musk’s Mars plans, (which are essentially a privately funded Mars Direct with all the flaws intact and even more marginal really*) and even MORE splits have appeared as people side with one private venture or another over everyone else.
Early knowledge of water on the Moon could very well prevent all that
*= Don’t get me wrong Musk and SpaceX have done wonders to shake up the aerospace community and give hope that private commercial launch can and will drive down the basic price of access. The problem is that being focused on “Mars” and therefore “Commercial Mars Direct” in the form of the Interplanetary Transport Ship and BFR he/they are specifically declaring that there is nothing worth ‘doing’ in Cis-Lunar Space and therefore the ONLY plausible plan is to take off directly from the surface of the Earth, fly to the surface of Mars, and then return to the surface of the Earth. Period.
But wait they ‘re-fuel’ in orbit right? Why yes, by launching multiple ‘tanker’ versions of the ITS…
And he calls and considers that ‘infrastructure’ to support the ITS… (He also dances around the ‘fact’ that technically the Tanker ITS can perform Single Stage To Orbit missions with a ‘small’ cargo of several tons of payload, for the obvious reason that people would fixate on the possibility of SSTO… Oh snap never mind they already did)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Mars_transportation_infrastructure
No it’s NOT ‘infrastructure’ at all because if you THINK about it for a few seconds it should be very clear that if you had ‘infrastructure’ then the ITS would be launched into orbit to rendezvous with a FUEL DEPOT in orbit where it would re-fuel and then launch for Mars, etc. But if he puts up a Fuel Depot then it has to be supplied and probably maintained which would require multiple flights into LEO AND support/maintenance of the depot. While you could do this with the BFR/ITS tankers NOT having the depot ‘should’ cost less. But with the planned method ONE (1) tanker accident, (especially if they don’t have multiple launch pads which may not be the case early on) ends the mission. The ITS and passengers have to return to Earth. This before we get into the historical fact that monopolies tend to NOT decrease costs and there’s no way that this is NOT a monopoly since the plan is fully based on using ONLY SpaceX assets. (Could they use “New Armstrong/Glenn”? Yes but doing so would make no economic sense since the more flights the ITS/BFR makes the ‘cheaper’ it is and supporting the ‘competition’ isn’t sound business policy)
Want to go to the Moon? Launch a ‘Gateway’ station to L2? Put a space station or fuel depot in orbit? Fine but that’s not what ITS/BFR is for and not what Musk in interested in so IF they can ‘fit-it-in’ (and you can pay. Cash, upfront in small unmarked bills please) then they might book a flight. But the MAIN point is there is absolutely nothing ‘worth’ doing in Cis-Lunar Space and both BFR and ITS are ‘focused’ on Mars and beyond. (He has since ‘backed off” from this even going so far as to suggest a ‘smaller’ BFR for Earth orbital missions… Which makes sense since in order to PAY for any future plans SpaceX actually has to continue to service the only ACTUAL market which is Cis-Lunar Space satellite delivery. I happen to think by 2019 plans will come around to reduce the BFR/ITS even more because it will be clear that “infrastructure” IS actually important but I don’t expect Musk, or the hardcore fans, to every come out admit this point
)
In the end I suspect most of the ‘heavy lift’ concepts will be downsized because to put it simply if mildly there’s no real ‘need’ for them unless you are planning on doing something like “Mars Direct” and that’s a far too limited plan to be operationally viable.
And water-on-the-Moon in general and the ability to build and utilize a supporting infrastructure in Cis-Lunar Space specifically means the only justification for heavy lift and “Mars Direct” like operations is so someone now in their middle ages or a bit older can possibly see a “man on Mars” in their lifetime which while understandable is vastly selfish and short sighted.
We have played the ‘short’ game already and historically it has failed us every time its suggested. We reject the ‘long’ game because it does not appeal to our need for quick gratification but historically it is the ONLY way to win. Time to mature-up and decide if we’re going to actually get serious about this ‘game’ of space exploration or just keep dabbling till the “extinction level event” sets up the next species for being ‘top dog’ on Earth…
Randy