A20 Y NATIONALTHE NEW YORK TIMES FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2010

By KENNETH CHANG

The Moon, at least at the bot-tom of a deep, dark cold craternear its south pole, seems to bewetter than the Sahara, scientistsreported Thursday.

In lunar terms, that is an oasis,surprisingly drenched for a placethat had long been thought bymany scientists to be utterly dry.

If astronauts were to visit thiscrater, they might be able to melt10 to 13 gallons of water out of 8wheelbarrows’ worth of soil. Thewater, if purified, could be usedfor drinking, or broken apart intohydrogen and oxygen. The oxy-gen would be air for breathing,and with the hydrogen could beused as rocket fuel to get home ortravel to asteroids or Mars.

“That is a very valuable re-source,” said Anthony Colaprete,principal investigator of NASA’sLunar Crater Observation andSensing Satellite — or Lcross, for

short — which made the observa-tions as it, by design, slammedinto the Moon a year ago. “This iswetter than some places onEarth.”

The Sahara sands are 2 to 5percent water, and the water istightly bound to the minerals, Dr.Colaprete said. In the lunar cra-ter, which lies in perpetual dark-ness, the water is in the form ofalmost pure ice grains mixed inwith the rest of the soil, and isfairly easy to extract. The ice isabout 5.6 percent of the mixture,and, given the uncertainties, pos-sibly as high as 8.5 percent, theLcross scientists found.

“That is a large number, largerthan I think anyone was antici-pating,” Dr. Colaprete said. Ex-trapolating, he said there couldbe a billion gallons in the crater.

The $79 million Lcross missionpiggybacked on the Lunar Re-connaissance Orbiter, which was

launched last year and has beenmapping out the lunar surface fora future return by astronauts.Lcross steered the empty secondstage of the rocket, which other-wise would have just burned upin the Earth’s atmosphere, onto acollision course with the Moon.

Last October, as it neared im-pact, the Lcross spacecraft re-leased the second stage andslowed slightly to watch its 5,600-mile-per-hour crash into a 60-mile-wide, 2-mile-deep craternamed Cabeus. Quickly transmit-ting its data to Earth, Lcross metthe same demise four minuteslater.

For people who watched thelive Webcast video transmittedby Lcross, the event was a disap-pointment, with no obviousplume from the impacts. But asthey made a closer analysis ofthe data, scientists found every-thing they were looking for, and

more. Last November, the teamreported that the impact hadkicked up at least 26 gallons ofwater, confirming suspicions ofice in the craters.

The new results increase thewater estimate to about 40 gal-lons, and by estimating byamount of dirt excavated by theimpact, calculated the concentra-tion of water for the first time.

Articles reporting the Lcrossresults appear in Friday’s issueof the journal Science.

Also surprising was the cornu-copia of other elements and mol-ecules that Lcross scooped out ofthe Cabeus crater, near theMoon’s south pole. The bottom ofCabeus, at minus 390 degreesFahrenheit, is among the coldestplaces in the solar system andacts as a “cold trap,” collecting ahistory of impacts and debrisover perhaps two billion years.

“This is quite a reservoir of our

cosmic climate,” said Peter H.Schultz, a professor of geologicalsciences at Brown and lead au-thor of one of the Science papers.“It reflects things that hit theMoon.”

By analyzing the spectrum ofinfrared light reflected off the de-bris plume, which rose 10 milesabove the crater rim, Dr. Schultzand his colleagues identified ele-ments like sodium and silver.

Instruments on the Lunar Re-connaissance Orbiter identifiedother compounds, like calcium,magnesium and mercury.

Lcross’s thermal camera noteda delay of one-third of a secondbetween the crash and the spreadof heat from it. That tells the sci-entists that the material wasfluffy and not solid. “That wasreally a surprise, too,” Dr. Cola-prete said.

With the multitude of minerals,scientists can examine the rela-

tive abundances and start spec-ulating about what sorts of ob-jects have been hitting the Moon.Some material looks very similarto what is found in comets.Lcross and the lunar orbiter arepart of NASA’s Constellation pro-gram, started five years ago bythe Bush administration to sendastronauts back to the Moon. Ar-guing that it is too expensive andthat the United States has al-ready been there, President Oba-ma has pushed for its cancella-tion. A compromise on the agen-cy’s future has set aside Moonambitions for now, at least for thereturn of human explorers.

Dr. Schultz hopes that study ofthe Moon will continue.

“I think the poles have justopened up a flurry of new ques-tions,” he said. “I think it is a des-tiny that we will go there as hu-mans. I hope it’s not just for com-mercialization.”

NASA Reports a Moon Oasis, Just a Little Bit Wetter Than the Sahara

By KEN MAGUIRE

WASHINGTON — Sikhs in theUnited States expressed theirfrustration Thursday that Presi-dent Obama would skip a tenta-tively planned visit to their holi-est site in India, while advocacygroups called on the White Houseto reconsider.

Mr. Obama was expected tovisit the Golden Temple in Amrit-sar, India, next month, but therewere questions about how hewould cover his head. Sikh tradi-tion requires that men tie a pieceof cloth on their heads before en-tering the spiritual center. Thepresident, who is Christian, hasfought the perception that he isMuslim. Sikhs are regularly mis-taken for Muslims.

“There’s a xenophobic trend inthis country, where some peopleare calling him Muslim,” said Jas-jit Singh, associate director of theSikh American Legal Defenseand Education Fund, a Washing-ton-based civil rights group. “Ifhe gives in to this trend then ef-fectively he’s emboldeningthem.”

United Sikhs, a New York-based human rights group, alsourged Mr. Obama to go aheadwith the visit, which it said would“stand as the seminal educatingmoment for Sikhs to once and forall introduce themselves andtheir distinctive identity to theworld.”

Still, many Sikhs, while disap-pointed, stopped short of callingfor protests. They said theremight be legitimate reasons, likesecurity, why the president willbypass the popular tourist desti-nation, which is near the Paki-stan border.

“This may not be the only rea-son,” said Shamsher Singh,founder and director of the SikhCultural Society in Washington.“We don’t know. It’s like whenyou’re expecting a guest in yourhome and they don’t come. Onefeels as though they have beenlet down. But if he doesn’t go, Iunderstand it.”

Sikhism arose in the Punjab re-gion of India in the 15th centuryand includes elements of Hindu-ism and Islam.

A Pew Research center surveyin August found that nearly onein five Americans say Mr. Obamais a Muslim.

“If he bended under politicalpressure not to go because of ahead covering, then I’m reallydisappointed,” said Jasvir Singh,a member of the Sikh Society ofMichigan.

Robert Gibbs, the White Housepress secretary, asked Wednes-day about the headscarf issue,said the schedule had not been fi-nalized.

“Look, it’s a big country,” Mr.Gibbs said. “We’d love to spend alot more than the three allotteddays that we have in India. Butwe pick where we’re going to goon trips based on what we hopeto accomplish.”

At the National Gurdwara inWashington, a Sikh temple, Sam-puran Singh, a musician, saidThursday he had been in theUnited States for only one weekbut had been asked several timesby Americans if he is Muslim.

“Some understand, some donot understand,” he said. “It’s forus to keep telling people. Obamais welcome. He is a good man.”

If Mr. Obama or anyone elsevisits the brick temple , the in-structions are clear. Visitorsmust turn off their cellphonesand remove their shoes.

A box of orange bandanalikeheadscarves near the front doorwill satisfy the final instruction:“Please cover your head beyondthis point.”

Sikhs LamentObama PlanTo BypassIndia Temple

Rebecca Cathcart contributed re-porting from Los Angeles. andEmma Graves Fitzsimmons fromChicago.

By MICHAEL BRICK

DALLAS — For the first twoyears, George W. Bush managedhis return to private work in Tex-as as a quiet transition.

While anonymous donors puthis photograph on highway bill-boards that say “Miss Me Yet?”Mr. Bush all but shuttered hisranch near Crawford, scene ofsome of the more spectacularprotests against his administra-tion, moving instead to a quietcul-de-sac in the upscale PrestonHollow enclave of Dallas. Heeven waited until his belovedTexas Rangers began their cur-rent baseball playoff run to open-ly attend games.

But now Mr. Bush is bringingout the bullhorn.

“Breaking New Ground: Pre-senting the George W. Bush Pres-idential Center,” an exhibit set toopen this weekend on the campusof Southern Methodist Universi-ty, prominently features the

handgun taken from SaddamHussein and the loudspeakerused to address rescue workersat the World Trade Center in Sep-tember 2001.

The choice of mementos, em-phasizing some of the more con-troversial foreign policy aspectsof the Bush presidency, has rein-vigorated opposition to the cen-ter’s presence at the university.

“It’s the approach they’ve tak-en all along; it fits their world-view,” said the Rev. William K.McElvaney, a professor emeritusof preaching and worship at theuniversity. “It’s a tragedy forS.M.U. to hitch its star to this.”

The exhibit, open through Feb-ruary at the Meadows Museum,roughly coincides with both therelease of Mr. Bush’s memoir,“Decision Points,” and the Nov. 16groundbreaking for the 225,000-square-foot center, which will in-clude a presidential library and apolicy foundation, the George W.Bush Institute.

Antiwar groups have an-nounced plans to protest thegroundbreaking, and Mr. McEl-vaney said other demonstrationswere in the planning stages.Campus police are aware of theplans, said Kent Best, a spokes-man for the university.

Brad Cheves, vice president forexternal affairs at SouthernMethodist, said the universitywas working with the Bush foun-dation, police and protest groups.

“We’re preparing across theuniversity for the groundbreak-ing day, which will be a historicevent on our campus,” Mr.Cheves said.

“It’s going to, we hope, reflectwell of S.M.U., Dallas and theBush Center.”

While Mr. Bush maintains con-siderable support in Texas, his ef-fort to build a presidential centerat the university has raised oppo-sition from the start. For nearlytwo years, a group of Methodistministers, historians and teach-

ers sought to prevent the uni-versity from leasing land for thecenter to the National Archivesand Records Administration. Ofparticular concern was the insti-tute, which would operate on uni-versity grounds but outside itsacademic controls.

In 2008, the South Central Ju-risdiction of the United MethodistChurch agreed to support thelease, on the condition that uni-versity officials monitor the insti-tute’s effect on scholarship.

The new opening exhibit, someMethodist leaders said, providesa disturbing first glimpse into thepresidential center’s priorities.

“I hope that a bullhorn will notbecome the symbol for the entryof the United States into an un-justified war and that a pistol ofSaddam Hussein’s is not seen assome strange symbol of victoryin that horrendous misjudg-ment,” said Tex Sample, an elderin the Methodist Church whohelped lead the opposition to the

Bush Institute’s placement atS.M.U. “That these should be thesymbols of the values and com-mitments of the Bush administra-tion and should now become theface of Southern Methodist Uni-versity is cause for alarm.”

On campus, where nearly 5,000supporters are expected to at-tend the groundbreaking, othersseemed less concerned.

Austin Prentice, vice presidentof the student body, describedMr. Bush’s choice of the universi-ty as “an incredible honor.”

The pistol taken from SaddamHussein on Dec. 13, 2003.

Opening of Exhibit on Bush Reopens a Campus Rift

rector of the Louisiana Office ofCoastal Activities and leader ofthe sand berm project. “This is akey component to the oil protec-tion efforts.”

Some political analysts in Loui-siana suggest that abandoningthe berm project far short of com-pletion could mar the public’slargely positive perception of Mr.Jindal’s handling of the spill,which raised his profile both lo-cally and nationally.

Mr. Jindal’s resolve on thesand barriers “seemed to con-trast very sharply with what wasseen as a general failure by theObama administration to actquickly on the spill,” said Brian J.Brox, a professor of political sci-ence at Tulane University. “Boththis policy and the broader narra-tive really resonated with a lot ofpeople who were very, veryafraid of what was going to hap-pen when all this oil cameashore.”

“I think that stopping short orgiving any reason to label this asa failure or incomplete is some-thing that the state would want toavoid,” Professor Brox said.

In late May, at the height of thespill, Adm. Thad W. Allen of theCoast Guard did authorize theberms as an oil-spill countermea-sure and directed BP to pay forthem. But since then, the CoastGuard and the unified command,charged with responding to theoil spill under federal law, havehad virtually no oversight or in-volvement in the project.

Rather, the state is proceedingwith the permission of the ArmyCorps of Engineers, which reg-ulates offshore engineeringprojects yet has little oil-spill ex-pertise.

But as the dredging and con-struction press on, oppositionfrom federal agencies and envi-ronmental groups is growing.

Some conservation groups andscientists assert that the projecthas not only been ineffective butcould also threaten wildlife. Theywarn that the intensive dredgingassociated with the berms has al-ready killed at least a half-dozenendangered sea turtles and couldkill many more.

They have also repeatedlyraised concern that furtherdredging may squander limitedsand resources needed for futurecoastal restoration projects.

“As the summer went on, webecame increasingly convincedthat the amount of money thatwas being put into these projectswas not worth the benefits,” saidKarla Raettig, the national cam-paign director for coastal Louisi-ana restoration at the NationalWildlife Federation. “It was BP’smoney, but perhaps that moneycould have been better investedelsewhere.”

Some scientists and federal of-ficials suggest that the remaining

money allocated for the bermsmight be better spent on othercoastal restoration projects, amove that BP says it would sup-port. The money could be spent,they say, on barrier island resto-ration, for example, in whichdredged sand is used to bolsterexisting islands, mimicking natu-ral processes.

But state officials are un-swayed. “I don’t see a downsideto continuing to do this,” Mr.

Graves said. “Maybe we’re beingtoo protective of our coast. O.K.,accuse me. I don’t have a prob-lem with that.”

The berm project has been aboon to Louisiana industry: al-though many of the dredgingcompanies working on theproject have out-of-state head-quarters, all have a major pres-ence in Louisiana. The ShawGroup, the lead contractor on theproject, is based in Baton Rouge

and has been one of Mr. Jindal’sleading campaign contributorsover the years.

Several of the project’s othercontractors are also along theLouisiana coast. CF Bean, an en-gineering firm, is based in Pla-quemines Parish, and one of thefour dredging companies in-volved, Great Lakes Dredge andDock, has offices there, for exam-ple.

The berm project has drawnenthusiastic support from BillyNungesser, the parish’s presi-dent. “My vote would be to con-tinue them, to finish the projectwe started,” he told a federal oilspill commission last month intestifying about the berms.

The berm plan has been gener-ating controversy since earlyMay, when local coastal officialsproposed to convert a plan to re-store the state’s degraded barrierislands into an oil-spill protectionmeasure. One concern raised bycoastal scientists was that thatthe 40 miles of berms describedin permit documents werespaced too closely together andwould block the natural tidalflushing of interior bays, harmingproductive fisheries.

As the project evolved, thestate radically altered its originalproposal, allowing for large gapsbetween the berm segments andeasing concerns that the estuar-ies would be harmed. These alter-ations will also allow the project

to come in close to its original$360 million budget, state offi-cials say, but will mean that only22 miles of berms will be built —not the 40 originally envisaged.

Still, some Louisiana officialssuggest that the berms will notonly block oil but also benefit thebarrier islands, which have beenstarved of sediment from the lev-eeing of the Mississippi Riverand heavily eroded by stormslike Hurricane Katrina.

The berms are designed astemporary structures that canquickly wash away but in the pro-cess leave behind large amountsof sand that could bolster the is-lands. These islands have in thepast helped dampen the impactof hurricanes on the coast.

Yet coastal scientists are spliton whether the berms will ulti-mately do much good even inbarrier island restoration.

So some federal officials saythat now that the well is capped,it is time to review whether themoney would be better spentelsewhere.

“Circumstances have changedconsiderably,” said Thomas L.Strickland, assistant interior sec-retary for fish and wildlife andparks. “And that would seem towarrant a revisiting of whetheror not a continuation of the berm-building is the best use of limitedresources, when we’re looking atsuch substantial restorationneeds that exist in the gulf.”

Louisiana Builds Barriers in Gulf Even as Oil Disperses

SEAN GARDNER/REUTERS

Sand is pumped through pipes to build a sand berm near the Chandeleur Islands off the Louisiana coast.

LOUISIANA

MISSISSIPPI

New Orleans

G u l f o f M ex i c o

C H A N D E L E U RI S L A N D S

MississippiRiver Delta

Source: Louisiana Office of Coastal Protection and RestorationSource: Louisiana Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration

20 miles

THE NEW YORK TIMES

CompletedSAND BERMS Under construction Proposed

Berm Building Months after oil stopped flowing into the gulf, berms are still being built to protect the shoreline from oil.

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