From the Article

>Anand’s colleagues will send up an instrument they have designed in Nasa’s next Artemis mission, scheduled for 2024, called an exospheric mass spectrometer, to drill into rock, withdraw and analyse water.
>
>The research into water extraction is important because it costs an estimated $1m to bring a kilogram of any substance into space, so extracting water would be much more cost-effective.

The following submission statement was provided by /u/Gari_305:

From the Article

>Anand’s colleagues will send up an instrument they have designed in Nasa’s next Artemis mission, scheduled for 2024, called an exospheric mass spectrometer, to drill into rock, withdraw and analyse water.
>
>The research into water extraction is important because it costs an estimated $1m to bring a kilogram of any substance into space, so extracting water would be much more cost-effective.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/zwv6o3/moon_rivers_uk_scientists_at_heart_of_mission_to/j1wxniz/

From NASA press conference:

Moon rivers, wider than a mile are expected We’ll be drilling them in style some day Oh, dream investors , you heart breakers Wherever you're goin', I'm goin' higher Two drifters, off, we’ve seen the world There's such a lot of space to see We're after the same spectrums end Waitin' 'round the gravitational bend My exospheric mass spectrometer friend Moon river and me

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They done stealing resources and wealth from earth ?

They don't have enough to feed and keep their citizens fed (even after plundering half of the world's wealth for 200+ years). And yet they would rather focus on sending space missions instead lol.

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Ok, I have a science background in medicine so, not astrophysics or chem, so wondering if anyone can ELI5+ me…

We’ve been studying in detail, the Moon, and even brought back soil, new LiDAR-esque water discovery types of missions, other countries contributing and it is certainly not obvious that there is appreciable water there. Even if “locked” into other forms and or molecules.

At this point, are we barking up the wrong tree? Is there confirmed amounts of water that would even be any benefit, at scale <<<<< key concept <<<< to make any type of industry feasible?

Mars, does appear to have had, historically, an ecosystem of water in appreciable amounts, but my opinion based on all discoveries is that all feasibly useful amounts of water were blown/evaporated into space along with their prior atmosphere.

Do we have any astrophysics type of folks out there able to say, there is definitely enough water or sources of minerals that can beget copious amounts without destroying yet another heavenly body? Else, “we will” become a “planet killing” aliens species, not altruists as Musk would have you believe.

I think the next step will be figuring out how to turn moon rocks back into edible cheese so we have a reliable lunar food source.

The long term plan is to use the water to refuel rockets.

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