Many people have suspected for a very long time, that there is an atmosphere on the Moon of some form. Of course it won't be the same as Earth. Lighter gases such as Helium and Hydrogen on the Moon left long ago if they were ever present. Heavier gases like CO2 may have remained. But if water IS present on the Moon, then we know at least hydrogen must have been present at some point to form it. Unless the Moon scooped up water in space like a sponge while orbiting Earth. We won't get into that here

Water on the surface of the Moon, no matter how thin it may be, creates a very BIG problem for the Not Always Science Administration boys.

It wasn't that long ago we heard about water on Mars. A soil scoop on the Mars Lander uncovered what NASA has declared to be WATER. That particular water appeared to be in a frozen state due to the cold temperature at the pole, which then sublimated directly into a gas fairly quickly.

Finding water on Mars or on the Moon creates a big problem. Lower air pressure lowers the boiling point of water.

From one of uncle's websites comes this statement:

"On the top of Mount Everest, where the air is very thin, the pressure of the air is so low that water will boil at about 65C - which made it very very hard for Sir Edmund Hilary to make himself a cup of tea in the afternoon!

In outer space, with no air at all, it would be impossible to keep the water together long enough to apply any heat. Any liquid water would begin to boil immediately you unscrewed the top of the bottle, or opened the tap, not because of the temperature, but because of the lack of pressure to hold the bubbles in."

In a vacuum, water does not boil but simply goes directly to a gaseous state. Ice will also change from a solid to a gas (sublimation) without melting if exposed to a low enough air pressure. NASA claims this is what happened to the ice found on Mars by the Lander's soil scoop, when it simply disappeared after being uncovered.

By now you're probably wondering what all this talk of ice has to with the Moon. According to NASA, the Moon has NO ATMOSPHERE. The absence of any atmosphere can be considered the same as a vacuum.

Now let's take this idea of Moon water to its logical conclusion based on known physics. If the Moon has no atmosphere, how could a thin layer of water still cover the Moon's surface ­ after being BAKED for billions of years at 253F. by solar radiation?

Something just doesn't add up with this miracle water. And we thought the miraculous healing water at Lourdes, France was something special! Perhaps the Catholic Church better get up to the Moon ASAP - and bring back some of that amazing water that won't sublimate or boil away. Perhaps it can heal the common cold, too.

Yet water is just what three spacecraft have recently discovered on the boiling hot Moon which doesn't have an atmosphere but has plenty of water. Somehow NASA has ironically applied to the Moon an old sailor's expression about being marooned in a lifeboat at sea ­"Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink."

Now we need some answers from the Never Always Science Administration ­

1. Does the Moon have an atmosphere dense enough to prevent water evaporation or not?

2. Does it reach 253F. on the sunlit side or not?

If the recent spacecraft data is accurate, then it must have water and some type of atmosphere. The same laws of physics control how water reacts to heat and pressure everywhere in our solar system.

I'm sure we'll silent treatment to these questions.

Ted Twietmeyer

[1] http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem07/chem07192.htm