[But Can We Drink It?
The water absorption band strengths (the amount by which the spectra dipped from the perfect black-body spectrum) indicate that there is so much water that some of it had to be in the form of ice; it wasn't just adsorbed as single-molecule layers on mineral grains. In other words, if an astronaut were to visit this lunar crater, they could produce lunar water from the soil simply by warming it enough to melt. Although water has long been suspected to exist in these permanently shadowed polar regions in the Moon, it was not until the LCROSS impact that scientists achieved direct measurements of its presence and abundance. This is clearly a game-changing discovery for the future of lunar science and exploration.

But "we have not had time to enjoy" the water confirmation, Colaprete said, "because we are so interested in everything else that's there." The spectra indicate that the composition of the lunar subsurface is "a lot more complicated than we had anticipated." He said they compared the spectra to "primitive icy bodies like Centaur or Trojan asteroids, and there were a considerable amount of similarities." Such bodies contain materials such as carbon dioxide, methane, sulfur dioxide, and more complex molecules like methanol, ethanol, and even organic compounds. "It is certain that some of these species are in there, but which ones?" Colaprete asked.

Which ones are certainly relevant to future lunar exploration. A reporter at the press briefing asked whether the water produced by melting the regolith could be drunk. "If there's methanol in there, I wouldn't drink it, because you could go blind," Colaprete laughed. Data from the LAMP instrument on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft has indicated there may be even nastier materials, such as Mercury, present in lunar polar meltwater. But "If you could clean it, it would be drinkable water."]

The idea is "If you could clean it, it would be drinkable water". That certainly goes for the moon and would certainly go for Mars as well.

Very interesting, very good and it's about time.