A dry moon after all?

Almost five years ago now there was a of excitement in some quarters about the discovery of water on the moon.

Those who found the news stirring included fans of the science fiction master Robert Heinlein, who remembered that the water on the moon as a crucial plot point of one of Heinlein's best-loved novels.

I made that point at the time myself, in the blog that was a precursor to this one.

Now it appears the discovery was not so much as discovery as a plausible inference. And the dry moon has advocates who are chipping away at that inference.

Such is the progress of science. Sometimes those of us who follow it are delighted at a result, and sometimes we have to abandon that delight. It doesn't survive the testing.

Ah, Bartleby. Ah, humanity.

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