India’s space program is positively chuffed  about the success of its Chandrayaan-1 satellite mission. Though the mission looked like a big dud a couple of months ago when they lost contact with the satellite and had to abort the whole thing, data retrieved from its Moon Impact Probe has revealed the presence of water on the moon:

In one of the three papers published in the latest edition of the journal Science on Thursday, researchers said they had analysed light waves detected by NASA-made instruments on board the Indian satellite and two other US probes.

The reflected light waves showed a chemical bond between oxygen and hydrogen – proof, the researchers said, of the existence of water on the moon’s surface.

Until now, scientists had advanced the theory that, except for the possibility of ice at the bottom of craters, the moon was totally dry.

What makes this a potentially game-changing discovery is that, with water around, it becomes a little easier to establish functioning lunar colonies. (And if there’s ice underground, that means those colonies will have a pretty decent bar.)

India is also crowing about the fact that the whole thing cost about half of what other countries have spent on similar missions. Money is the biggest impediment to space travel, as it’s often hard to justify the spending of billions of dollars for a program whose whole philosophical basis is “cuz it’s there.” (If India does space travel more cheaply than NASA, does that count as outsourcing?)

This story may not utlimately have the same impact on the public imagination as the sort-of-maybe-could-be-who-knows? discovery of life from Mars – this is the discovery, after all, of water, not the most sexy thing to find anywhere, but especially on an otherwise barren hunk we already visited a few decades ago – but it’s a potentially big deal, nonetheless.