Nick said:

>With solar collectors it is actually feasable, albeit hugely
>expensive, to bake Lunar rocks and boil off any component.
>Also, I suggest you wait till we find out what the Lunar
>polar H-rich material is, before you rush to classify it.

Nick is quite correct in saying that we should not rush to classify what makes up the hydrogen detected on the lunar poles. Once again, Nick is showing himself to be a good scientist. However given that the Moon librates, I think I'm much safer in calling it "hydrated rock" than the people who insist it is surface ice.

In the context of cooking the hydrated rock or surface ice to make hydrogen, it should be remembered that people would mine lunar hydrogen in order to save the energy required to transport the hydrogen from the Earth. The key phrase is "save the energy". I'm extremely skeptical that any energy saving can be achieved from using lunar resources versus using an asteroid resource or going directly to Mars.

Gary