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Bombing the Moon for Water
s20451 writes "In 1998, NASA scientists deliberately crashed the Lunar Prospector into the Moon, in a
failed attempt to detect traces of water allegedly hiding in deep craters at the lunar south pole.
Now the BBC is reporting a new proposal to attack the lunar poles with "Bunker Buster" missiles to liberate a detectable amount of water. Called Polar Night, the mission is being proposed as part of the "Discovery" series of probes."
They aren't going to attack the poles with "Bunker Buster" missles.
They're going to emplant "scientific equipment" "...a few meters below the surface of the moon."
Using "...probes are based on bunker-buster penetrators."
And when compared with the cost of sending up a [wo]man to dig a six foot hole for the same information, it sounds terrific. Let's Terraform!
First Iraq, then North Korea, and now the moon! The Lunans are conspiring against our interests abroad! Conspiracy, I say!
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
new proposal to attack the lunar poles with "Bunker Buster" missiles to liberate a detectable amount of water.
We must free the water from its evil ruler Saddam Moonsein.
They should give UN weapons inspectors more time!
The Moon has been added to the infamous "Axis of Evil" group...
.....the US has to make up some stuff about how the moon has WMD, supports terrorism, and insinuate that it was somehow involved in 9/11.
I fail to see the benefits of exposing trace amounts of water from the moon at the cost of destroying a small portion of it. The fact that we've already detected it proves it's there.
Guess what I just found out! It ends up there is lots of water on earth, and it's not even protected by rocks. No need to blow the place up to get it! ^^
okay, anyway, the only purpose for looking for water is to find life on the moon. By using missiles to release the water, we blow up any life we may have found, just a thought....
YOU SUCK BALLS!
Really, my... fellow americans. *stares at camera* I strongly believe that the moon is currently harbouring all kinds... of weapons of mass destruction. They most definitely have nucular weapon facilities. They are a threat to our way of life, to our liberty... and to the liberty... of all the free people of the Earth *blank stare* And so it is with great sadness, but firmness of purpose, that we must carry on, with the help of God, and rid the solar system of weapons of mass destruction.
George
Carpe Diem
There is no moon. There never was a moon. We are winning the war. The moon is painted on the sky by evil Americans to confuse us. There is no moon.
And in related news, NASA officials recently announced an exploratory campaign will be taking place in Syria next week.
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." -Voltaire
Bombing the moon? Finally: some astronomy that the Bush camp can get behind.
"I am so ashamed to be from the same state that Johnson space center is in." - Natalie Maines
...pictured Slim Pickens on a bomb in a space suit riding towards the moon yelling "whoo hoo", a la Dr. Strangelove?
I think they are really just trying to find a better source for cheese.
Little know fact: The cheese mines on earth are dwindling
Iraqi intelligence officials are reporting that the moon intends on defending itself against the crusaders to the end, and has already prepared the graves for thousands of imperialist satans.
(Reuters) In other news, NASA unveiled plans today to hit Geraldo Rivera over the noggin with a ball-peen hammer to see if any brains could be detected in the ensuing plume. Critics claim that the odds of success are too small to warrant the effort.
My
Limekiller
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
lobbing ordnance at the moon is probably the only way the US won't be able to either kill its own people or its allies. although i have a sinking feeling that the rocket will burn up somewhere ofer England and waste some british troops.
I guess we'll be seeing BUS carved into the moon's surface. No one will ever forget the President who tattooed the moon.
go U.S.A! we're totally going to KICK THE MOON'S ASS!!!
Did you even read the article? There aren't going to be any explosives at all on these missions (if approved). They use the PENETRATION technology of "Bunker Busters" to bury sensors under the moon's surface, and those sensors look for water/life/whatever and send the data home.
And by the way, bombs don't generally need atmospheric oxygen, the oxidizer is part of the explosive compound.
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
We should probably promote this as a "Ravine Change."
M@
Krispy Cream is people
http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2003/01/13/tomo/s tory.jpg
As a Frenchman, I cannot support this unilateral decision to liberate water from the moon. We must give the inspectors more time so we can better cover up our involvement with the moon. In the mean time, we (in France) are boycotting lawn darts in protest because we will not glamourize lobbing missiles at the moon.
However, should the Americans find water on the moon, we'll completely reverse our position.
"Derp de derp."
Just how exactly do you expect a Massive Ordnance Air Blast to work without the air? For those that need to be reminded... read
Have you thought for yourself today?
David: We have the technology; The time is now; science can wait no longer; the children are our future. America can, should, must and will blow up the moon.
Bob: Yeah. And we'll be doing it during a full moon so we make sure we get it all.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Too bad they screwed that all up. The moon is drifting away from the Earth and there is nothing we can ever do about it. Ever.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Did anyone actually read the friggin article? They don't want to bomb the moon. The bombs will not be filled with explosives. They will be filled with scientific equipment to detect water. They're just going to drop them into crevices.
Ok... string me up for not reading my own linked article through... its not the best description... an air blast weapon gets most of it's explosive power by dispersing a fine mist of a highly reactive agent over a large area using the oxygen in the surrounding atmosphere as the oxidant. Thus... no air... no boom, in all reality I would bet that most if not all conventional explosives would fail to detonate in space due to the lack of atmospherically supplied oxygen... any demolitions experts here that can answer this?
Have you thought for yourself today?
I can see how NASA plan came into effect, it was a simple meeting between George Tenet(CIA Director) and Donald Rumsfeld.
Rumsfeld: Tenet where is Osama Bin Laden?
Tenet: I have no clue! Maybe he's on the Moon? Hah.
Rumsfeld: Really?
Later that night...
Rumsfeld: Mr. President, I know where Osama Bin Laden is.
Bush: Where?
Rumsfeld: On the Moon!
Bush: BOMB THEM!!!
...of today....all the references are to the crappy "Time Machine" remake.....
What about "Space:1999" ???!!!
Moon does'nt have oxygen. Therefore this bomb will need to have its own oxygen system.
Umm, the vast majority of conventional munitions have their own oxidizing agent, with very few exceptions( such as the fuel-air bomb ).
If a substance's oxidation rate is dependent on its contact with atmospheric oxygen, it would be far more likely to "burn" than "explode".
The dust(?) created from this bomb will linger far longer than earth because of moon's gravity.
Another problem with your reasoning. The specific reason that dust "lingers" on earth is buoyant forces BY THE AIR upon very small dust particles. the moon's gravity well is smaller than that of the Earth, but the fact that F=ma will prevail without impedance by an atmosphere will make the "dust" settle rather quickly.
I can already see the headlines... Bombs headed for the moon fell on the Red Sea, Turkey, Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Iran. And then the Pentagon denis, FOX doesn't report it all the rest of the World laughs about it and a week later, after showing a successfull attemp of bombing the moon, the Pentagon admits that some bombs fell slightly off-target (Sun, Mars, Alpha Centauri....)
The Lunar Information Minister denies that the Moon posesses water, and was quoted as having said, "There are no Earthling infidels on the Moon. Never! We welcome them with cheese and shoes!"
Too bad that over 90% of that water is (almost) completely useless salt water.
Fresh water isn't as abundant as you'd like to think.
Plus, if water is found on the moon, it would be easier to build an operate a moon base. (hauling water in space is DAMN expensive)
You're new here aren't you? ;)
Random is the New Order.
Or did you read and article and just happen to miss this part:
You might want to refrain from commenting on anyone else's stupidity or engineering skills.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Most would be able to go off in a vacuum. There's what, about 250 grams of O2 in a cubic meter of air? That's not enough for solid explosives to use.
What I think the parent was saying, though, is the MOAB would explode, but there wouldn't be any way for the shock wave to propagate. It would just be a spray of high-velocity chemical by-products of the explosion. For a MOAB, though, that would still be nasty. I wouldn't want to be 10 meters away from that in a spacesuit, but you could be a LOT closer than with a similar explosion in an atmosphere.
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
Umm.. that's one way of putting it. Could be a handy phrase though in the future.
"The server didn't crash, it just hard-landed."
Jason
How many people read the writeup and saw the lame Iraq jokes coming a mile away?
Yeah, I thought so.
Nathan
Chairface Chippendale.
Cause he'd get really annoyed at the decendants of the Mutineers trying to poke him with a pin to see if there's anything good inside
Yeah, and then my stomach lurches to the left when thinking about the image of the moon drifting apart... as obviously the lunar construction project must've damaged the ancient Atlantean gravity engines that kept the ball of rock together in the first place.
Blech. Movie science.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Does anyone think this is a secret test project by the government to test the feasibility of some type of Star Wars program or missile program from space? I wonder...
Much more likely to be an attempt to destroy evidence of alien contact before the Chinese get there.
Be careful! New moon tonight.
Course Note 01 This paper is for homework purposes only OXYGEN BALANCE (OB) IN EXPLOSIVE MATERIALS Faisal G. Hashem August 12, 2001 Heat of Formation The general formula for explosives is CxHyNwOz. Explosive reactions are oxidation reactions. More generally, the oxidizer does not have to be oxygen; it can be an oxidizing salt such as Nitrate or Perchlorate.
Etc. (http://www.mines.edu/Academic/mining/csm_isee/csm _ee_course_notes/cn_mngn498s01_01.htm)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
wa wa wa wa....give the inspections a chance.
Bombing the moon for water is nothing more than thinly veiled American aggression
I'm sure with a LPS (lunar position system), a seeing eye dog, and a big freaking arrow saying the moon is here, the UN would finally have the ability to find their own ass with both hands.
Instead of wasting perfectly good bunker busters that could be put to better use dropping soap on the French why not launch the Hollywood crowd into the moon. I'm sure their thick skulls could crack it wide open. At the very least it would help with global warming as the amount of hot air being created would drop nearly 40% annually.