With the discovery of water on the moon, there was a distinct possibility of humans setting up a colony in the nearest satellite from the Earth, former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair said Wednesday.
The Chandrayaan-1 mission's finding that large quantities of water were present in the polar region of the moon opened up the possibility of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, Nair said at the function to present him with the `Malayali-2009' honour by Asianet News channel.
While hydrogen could be used as fuel, oxygen would help sustain life on the satellite. Initially, robots could be sent to the moon to study whether the moon's surface was
inhabitable before sending human beings, he said.
"The finding of water on the moon's surface was the most important scientific truth India gave to the world," Nair said. The Chandrayaan-1 could find out that the polar region of the moon had around 100,000 tonnes of water, he said.
Nair said Chandrayaan-1 also proved the efficacy of international co-operation in space missions. The mission took two American and three European instruments to the moon which produced the desired results which showed that such joint ventures would be extremely useful in future study of planets and galaxies, he said.