 Lunar excursions, habitabal lunar colonies, moon as launch pad for planetary explorations – once distant lunar fantasies now seem realisable in the near future. The breakthrough discovery of water molecules by the Moon Mineral Mapper (M3) of NASA on board India’s Chandrayaan-1 is a giant leap in the history of world’s space missions. The spacecraft’s imaging spectrometers made it possible to map lunar water more effectively than ever before. This discovery will for sure change the face of future lunar and planetary missions.  |