There is unconfirmed evidence of water ice in a crater near the southern pole of the Moon. Earlier results from Clementine indicated a 150 km wide crater near the south pole was in permanent darkness, fuelling hopes that water might one day be discovered there. At a Pentagon news conference on December 3 it was announced that radar evidence suggesting the existence of water ice. One report said that this might be a prelude to discovering microbes on the Moon . Several reports referred to this as a source of feedstock for rocket fuel production.
Lunar water is much too valuable for closed life support systems to turn into rocket fuel.
Besides, the ubiquitous lunar aluminum makes a quite passable rocket fuel. By international treaty that's a no-no in earth orbit, so the probe was sent to the moon. These machines can not only see individual atoms they can manipulate them too. The trouble is, a one tip microscope, the only kind made up to now, is much too slow to build anything of practical value. Researchers reasoned that they could speed things up if they had lots of tips running in parallel.