• Just wondering out loud...
  
  NASA's LCROSS Mission has apparently discovered "significant" quantities of water in the polar region of the moon.
  
  You might recall, it wasn't all that long ago that NASA's Phoenix lander was sent to Mars on basically the same mission with one significant difference. Scientists were employing their new strategy, "follow the water," in their search for microbial life on the red planet.
  
  So, my question is, if there was a chance that microbial life may have lived once upon a time on Mars despite its harsh environment, why hasn't NASA mentioned checking for microbes in the newly discovered water ice on the moon? I mean, the moon happens to lie within the "Goldilocks Zone," the habitable region considered the perfect distance from the sun to support life, as does the Earth. Despite its lack of an atmosphere, could the polar lunar soil support primitive life forms?
  
  If they did discover evidence of past or present life forms, would the need to protect them trump any suggestion of using the water on the moon to support the future space colony NASA has proposed?
  
  Just wondering out loud....