NASA Chief Excited About Prospects for Exploiting Water on the Moon

FILE PHOTO: NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine (L) makes remarks as US Strategic Command Commander Gen. John Hyten listens during the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee's joint hearing with the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, in Washington, U.S., June 22, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Theiler/File Photo

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has a vision for renewed and “sustainable” human exploration of the moon, and he cites the existence of water on the lunar surface as a key to chances for success.

“We know that there’s hundreds of billions of tons of water ice on the surface of the moon,” Bridenstine said in a Reuters TV interview in Washington on Aug. 21, a day after NASA unveiled its analysis of data collected from lunar orbit by a spacecraft from India.