Personalized Moon Crash

Ich Bin Zu writes "Do you want to create your own crater on the moon? CNN has an article about a company putting a personalized moon crash for sale on ebay. The bid opens with $6 million which will enable the highest bidder to stuff up to 10kg worth of stuff on a space craft and lob it to the moon. The condition of the cargo is not guaranteed as it crashes on the moon at 4000 mph."

Comments

Not guaranteed?

[larien]

I think we can safely guarantee the condition of just about any cargo which hits the moon at that speed...

Re:Not guaranteed?

[Anonymous Coward]

... fucked

Re:Not guaranteed?

[jabbadabbadoo]

Well, we've seen what an airbag can do these days.

Re:Not guaranteed?

[zephc]

I want it to say CHAIR on the moon, visible from earth! But if they mess it up and it just says, for instance, CHA, I want my money back!

Re:Not guaranteed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's been watching "The Tick" then....?

Re:Not guaranteed?

[waveclaw]

any cargo which hits the moon at that speed...

Darn. There goes my bucket o' nanites idea.

Re:Not guaranteed?

[MasTRE]

then you can do the ChaCha!

Re:Not guaranteed?

[Jorkapp]

I would want mine to be an outline of goatse. That way, he would be known throughout ALL the world.

I'm sure we would all get used to it. Eventually.

Re:Not guaranteed?

[seann]

perhaps i'll blast a bite sized hole from the moon.

Re:Not guaranteed?

[rickshaf]

I agree that we can certainly guarantee the condition of the cargo! But, can we gurantee that the cargo will actually hit the Moon? Well, we can if we know the location of the "Cosmic Bull's Eye" on the Moon, otherwise known as "Mare Orientale"! To see a great image of it, just go to: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960112.html

Re:Not guaranteed?

[andalay]

I would want mine to be an outline of goatse. That way, he would be known throughout ALL the world

This is a case in which being an AC would be better for you.

Re:Not guaranteed?

[Anonymous Coward]

"War is like legalized violence." -Dalai Lama, Central Park NYC, Sep 21, 2003 (Peace Day)

WTF? War *IS* legalized violence. If you pinkos paid attention to grammar, the Dalai Lama might be the whitehouse now.

fp?

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Could it be?

I want to send my mother in law to the moon...

RS

Re:fp?

[ScottGant]

I want to send my ex-wife Alice to the moon...

Zoom boom to the moon Alice...TO THE MOON!

Re:fp?

[Lifewish]

I have a sister who I'm willing to send anywhere, the further the better. Unfortunately I have no idea if she'd fit in the containers. Would it be acceptable to split her into many sections and send each separately? I'm sure she'd enjoy it really...

Re:fp?

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to send GW along with Condi and Dick.Ch

They will make a lovely Trio, No?

Re:fp?

[Kenshin]

Did you marry a midget? Otherwise, you'll have to do a bit of work on getting your mother in law down to 10kg.

Re:fp?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my GOD you couldn't have butchered that classic line any worse. History will not be kind to you.

Re:fp?

[whiteranger99x]

Did you marry a midget? Otherwise, you'll have to do a bit of work on getting your mother in law down to 10kg.

You could always chop off her limbs...heck, the head alone would take off a good portion of weight ;)

Re:fp?

[DoraLives]

Dehydrate her. No problemo.

Re:fp?

[whiteranger99x]

You're awfully nice. If i had my way, i would lob her to the sun >:)

Re:fp?

[MrIrwin]

As a concept it could raise funds.

Not for sending your mother in law, but I think there are many public figures that could potentially entice large funds to send them crashing into the moon. Bin Laden is an obvious choice, but I bet SCO's directors are not far behind ;-)

Then of course there is the political spin for politicians in minor countries getting into low cost space programs by sending thier first mission (perhaps an opposition spokeperson) to the moon.

For those in Italy I can hear Berlusconi right now: "Abbiamo fatto grosso impegni con i programmi spaziale....piu viaggi all luna per tutti!"

Re:fp?

[Hogwash McFly]

Ask Hitomi Kitahara

Re:fp?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, I was just thinking the same thing...

I guess she's cast another under her spell.

Re:fp?

[Marko DeBeeste]

She must be REAL small. Or did you have in mind just to send choice parts?

Re:fp?

[Almost-Retired]

I was gonna see if I could make the first post on that topic, but I see you and the next poster have beat me to it.

I was gonna volunteer my ex-wife. But, I don't care how you freeze dried her, there's no way you could get that much lard down to 10kg.

Besides, I don't have the 6 mill either... Damnit.

Cheers, Gene

Re:fp?

[heptapod]

But she's a nigger with a capital N.

Fuck her, if she didn't suck of GWB in 1971 she'd be a Mississippi windchime.

Re:fp?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. I hate it when that happens.

Re:fp?

[Zugok]

Well my ex gf is so cold that if I lobbed her into the sun, it would get extremely cold here, very quickly.

Re:fp?

[TheQuantumShift]

For that kind of price tag, we need to get a little more practical in our selection.... I'm thinking of world leader, three words, starts with a G, ends with a eorge W. Bush...

Re:fp?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you want to send her there because she wanted to meet Bob?

Re:fp?

[Cryptnotic]

You do realize that that line was a euphamism for wife beating, right? Every time he said that, he was threatening to beat her into submission.

Of course, I guess that's how you feel about your wife.

Re:fp?

[ScottGant]

of course you know, it was a joke...

Of course you know that people joke around...and they really don't mean "I'm going to beat my wife" and as you DO remember Alice from the Honeymooners was NEVER submissive nor was she ever hit by Ralph...quite the opposite...she always put him in her place.

Of course, things like this may be lost on you.

Re:fp?

[Cryptnotic]

Oops. Another case of sarcasm lost due to text-based communications.

Redneck

[BWJones]

Boy, how redneck can you get?

"Hey Bubba, I know what let's do! Lets go throw sh*t at the moon and see if we can make craters. Yeah, that's cool Zeek. heh, heh, heh."

Seriously though, where is the science in this? They claim to want to take pictures, but they are pictures of the near side of the moon, of which we have plenty. And, unless you wanted to bury your cremains on the surface of the moon, this is the same kind of thing you find when you go hiking in the desert or mountains and find cans and things that people have shot at and left to rust or names carved into trees or rocks saying "Steve was here".

I am usually a strong supporter of science related work and space exploration, but this seems.....well?......What's the point?

Condition of the cargo cannot be guaranteed after the 4,000 mph impact, Orbital Development explains, although the cargo is contained within a special burst-resistant canister.

P.S., what is the point of using a "burst resistant container" if you are going to be aiming your "object" for a 4000 MPH impact with the moon? I am currently unaware of any container system weighing more than .00001 grams or so that is capable of withstanding an impact of that speed. Marketing gone awry.

Re:Redneck

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the redneck version of "moon crash" would have an entirely different meaning: "If we're all hanging our asses out the windows, who's driving?"

Re:Redneck

[s20451]

Thanks for posting the first "bah, humbug" post. I'll take my shot at the first "Jane, you ignorant slut" post.

You don't have to take visible-light pictures only. You could do something else cool, like bombard the surface with neutrons, looking for hydrogen (= water).

Actually, if you put pretty much any vehicle in the vicinity of the moon, you will probably find a scientist who will want to do an interesting experiment with it. Scientists are ingenious that way.

There was also a story not long ago about an effort to deliberately crash things into the moon to liberate clouds of debris, which could be analyzed by ground instruments. In that case the useful payload could be nothing but bricks.

And a "burst resistant container" may be useful if you want to do science in the millisecond that the probe has to survive on the surface. Seriously! A recent Mars mission had a couple of probes that were supposed to work this way (they failed).

Re:Redneck

[Bobdoer]

special burst-resistant canister
Water ballons, perhaps?

Re:Redneck

[MoonBuggy]

What's the point?

The purchaser gets the chance to be part of the design and testing of the spacecraft before launching whatever onto the surface. I sure as hell know I'd pay a fair amount for the chance to be involved in something that interesting. I'm sure I could think of something useful to put there by the end of the construction process too :-)

Re:Redneck

[Gleng]

No science, just commercial space travel. Yes, smashing crap into the moon is completely without merit, but to me it's exciting that it's even possible for someone with the $6M cash and no experience in rocketry to think "Hmm...I think I'll throw something at the moon today."

Go for it, guys. Run pointless, self serving commercial space launches. Make it cheap.

There really isn't *too* much of a stretch of imagination between this, and a University landing a portable, robotic observatory on the moon for $500,000.

Re:Redneck

[flossie]

I sure as hell know I'd pay a fair amount for the chance to be involved in something that interesting.

"Interesting" jobs like that only stay interesting until you are paid to do them. When you get down to the actual work, there is little difference between designing a spacecraft, an aircraft, a car or an engine component. As the complexity of the overall object rises, the amount of impact any one person makes on the project reduces accordingly. Of course, that doesn't stop it being fun to talk about the time you used to work on project X.

Re:Redneck

[Hogwash McFly]

Why does everything have to be in the name of SCIENCE? Or is it just because it's to do with space they automatically have to be looking for new elements or finding a lunar cure for cancer? I think playing computer games is 'cool' and I am very well aware that when I'm fragging a few people online I'm not bettering the human race.

However, your concern about pollution is a valid one and I agree that it would suck if we made the moon into a wastepaper basket and chucked random shit at it. That said, it would be kinda cool to be the first person ever to be 'buried' (not literally, unless you were Verne Troyer you'd be too heavy for the cargo weight limit) outside of Earth. Quick, get grandma's ashes!

Re:Redneck

[PsiPsiStar]

"Hey, Clara, Duh you weigh more or less than ten keelo-grams?"

Re:Redneck

[Feztaa]

However, your concern about pollution is a valid one and I agree that it would suck if we made the moon into a wastepaper basket and chucked random shit at it.

What's so bad about turning the moon into a landfill? It's a large, barren wasteland to begin with. Sending all our garbage to the moon sure beats the heck out of having landfills overrun the planet down here.

Now, if only we could find a cheap way to get all the world's landfills onto the moon...

Re:Redneck

[cybermace5]

And a "burst resistant container" may be useful if you want to do science in the millisecond that the probe has to survive on the surface. Seriously! A recent Mars mission had a couple of probes that were supposed to work this way (they failed).

Beagle II?

Re:Redneck

[Hogwash McFly]

If it was economically viable to send garbage to the moon, why not go the extra step and send it into the sun?

I love the smell of incinerated Whiskas cans in the morning.

Re:Redneck

[Crixus]

viruses

Re:Redneck

[another_henry]

It would be kinda cool to be the first person ever to be 'buried' (not literally, unless you were Verne Troyer you'd be too heavy for the cargo weight limit) outside of Earth.

Sorry, someone's beaten you to it - Gene Shoemaker, of comet fame.

Shortly before Professor Shoemaker died he said, "Not going to the Moon and banging on it with my own hammer has been the biggest disappointment in life."

Well, he sort of got his wish. I'm not certain he's the first but haven't heard of anyone before him.

Re:Redneck

[Jim Starx]

It wouldn't be any harder to get it to the sun either. All we gotta do is give it a tiny nudge in the right direction. Who cares if it takes 50,000 years to get there?

Re:Redneck

[Jim Starx]

Things wouldn't decompose on the moon.

Re:Redneck

[burbilog]

No science, just commercial space travel. Yes, smashing crap into the moon is completely without merit, but to me it's exciting that it's even possible for someone with the $6M cash and no experience in rocketry to think "Hmm...I think I'll throw something at the moon today."

Go for it, guys. Run pointless, self serving commercial space launches. Make it cheap.

Yeah. Go for it, guys, make it cheap to build ballistic missiles. If you have a rocket with enough punch to reach the moon then you have a ballistic missile with enough punch to fly around the globe with most primitive nuclear warhed (gun type).

Re:Redneck

[Anonymous Coward]

Things wouldn't decompose on the moon.
Cool!

Re:Redneck

[mcrbids]

I think playing computer games is 'cool' and I am very well aware that when I'm fragging a few people online I'm not bettering the human race.

Yeah, but do you have fun when you're fragging?

Fun between you and a few others improves the quality of life for you and those few others - and that's bettering the human race, too.

Re:Redneck

[value_added]

You seem to be suggesting that crashing objects from great distances doesn't advance science. Granted there's no "David Letterman School of Physics" but isn't dropping rubber balls and watermelons off a roof what inspired Galileo?

Don't know about you, but if we could have fire extinguisher-powered wheelchair races on the moon, I think Newton if he were alive would enjoy them as much as any guy named "Bubba."

Re:Redneck

[Gleng]

Oh well, the ter'rists have won. Let's all sit around and wait for the Sun to explode.

Seriously, who really needs nuclear ballistic missiles anyway? Why be so obvious? You can see those coming a mile off! A warhead in the back of a taxi would do the trick just fine, and wouldn't need expensive propellant or guidance systems either.

Meh, ballistics are yesterdays scaremongering. (Except for when I'm playing Civ 3, they're quite handy then.)

Re:Redneck

[shadowbearer]

So, fine, they could do some science.

Are they? No.

Oh, people; google for Gregory Nemitz sometime, and you'll see the kind of things he's doing. I'm not sure whether he's a nut, a visionary, or just a failed dot-commer - you decide.

SB

Re:Redneck

[Feztaa]

That's a good idea, we could let gravity do most of the work. All we'd have to do is give it enough speed to escape earth's gravity, then let the sun pull it the rest of the way.

Re:Redneck

[Feztaa]

You brought up economics, which is something I hadn't thought of. Whoever pays to have all this garbage eliminated is going to have to find a way to profit off the reclaimed land, enough so to make it worth his while :)

Re:Redneck

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I get angry those fucks won't die for good ... so I shoot them again, with my fingers crossed.

Re:Redneck

[snake_dad]

FYI: NASA's Polar Lander. It crashed. And much like the Beagle 2, there was a months and months during search for it, and AFAIK it was never found.

Re:Redneck

[burbilog]

Oh well, the ter'rists have won. Let's all sit around and wait for the Sun to explode. Seriously, who really needs nuclear ballistic missiles anyway? Why be so obvious? You can see those coming a mile off! A warhead in the back of a taxi would do the trick just fine, and wouldn't need expensive propellant or guidance systems either. Meh, ballistics are yesterdays scaremongering. (Except for when I'm playing Civ 3, they're quite handy then.)

No. A warhead in the taxi will work once. Then roadblocks will be installed and borders will be patrolled (strict border patrols of USSR were almost 100% secure and certainly secure not to bring several hundred kilogram device). It did not take much resources from USSR and could be done in US.

But I'm not talking about terrorists at all. The technology of such missiles will spread wide enough to be replicated in third world, and we'll see a lot of new nuclear countries. And lesser countries will have LESS safeguards on these. And we'll see nuclear war between Syria and Israel...

Most countries don't pursue nuclear arms because they have nothing to reach their adversary. With cheap rockets... ewww.

Why not charge $10 million...

[bc90021]

...and add some brakes? I'm sure there'd be takers for the opportunity to put a telescope on the moon, instead of just crashing something into it.

Re:Why not charge $10 million...

[Tony Hoyle]

How to you slow down? Not much to use as friction, what with their being no atmosphere. You're not going to get a chemical rocket in 10kg.

Of course the moon itself is a hell of a brake...

Re:Why not charge $10 million...

[Anonymous Coward]

For $10 million, they'd better provide it with ABS, I tell you... cheap bastards!

Re:Why not charge $10 million...

[MrIrwin]

"I'm sure there'd be takers for the opportunity to put a telescope on the moon, instead of just crashing something into it."

A recent slashdot story established that telescopes on the moon are far less useful than ones simply dropped off halfway in geostationary orbit.

Now advertising hoardings, that would be a different matter......your name on the moon!

But, another recent slashdot story claimed the idea of adverts in space has allready been patented by a russian.

Re:Why not charge $10 million...

[prelelat]

Yeah, I want a telescope on the visible side of the moon.. Then I can look in millions of peoples windows late at night... I'm watching you. Though if you have the money to spend 10 million to send a scope to the moon, you would have to fork out alot of money to use the telescope from earth.. In the end it would probably cost alot more.. Also lets not forget that 10 million could be the final price for just throwing your exwifes favorit cat into space, it is just the starting bid. though I don't think any one would be "Bored" and "Rich" enough to want to spend that cash to send stuff to space.

Re:Why not charge $10 million...

[mforbes]

It'd be a whole lot more valuable to put either a visible light telescope or a radio telescope on the far side of the moon than to put either on the near side. For a good chunk of each lunar month, there's no sun or earth in the sky-- no light/radio-wave pollution that way.

imagine

[whiteranger99x]

Imagine if people could so that repeatedly to spell something...like chairface did with that laser on the Tick :D

Re:imagine

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a gramattical slashdot post.

Re:imagine

[Hogwash McFly]

Imagine if people could so that repeatedly to spell something...like chairface did with that laser on the Tick :D

As long as you're not in charge, sure! :P

Re:imagine

[whiteranger99x]

As long as you're not in charge, sure! :P

Sorry, it seems that my Newton was acting up again, while I was writing that! :P

Re:imagine

[shadowbearer]

Yeah!

Like "Coca-Cola", "Viagra" ...

or perhaps "Microsoft"

/sarcspasm

SB

#1 bidder is...

[Stiletto]

Hmm... the #1 bidder, someone named GWBush2004, lives in Yucca mountain, and has 77,000 tons of something he wants to get rid of.....

Re:#1 bidder is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not anymore. The current top bidder is BillyG and he apparently has lots of worthless $200 CDs to send.

Re:#1 bidder is...

[Anonymous Coward]

HAHAHA ANOTHER BUSH BASHING JOKE THAT WAS SO FUNNY AND ORIGINAL AND HAS NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE!

So let's hear it, smart guy. What's your solution? It's so trendy now to bash president Bush it seems like every moron with half a brain is doing it. You know, I know, and everyone else here knows that you would kill yourself the second public pressure came down on you for a decision you made.

Re:#1 bidder is...

[Anonymous Coward]

The current top bidder is BillyG and he apparently has lots of worthless $200 CDs to send.

AOL must be sending him platinum CDs.

Re:#1 bidder is...

[Anonymous Coward]

AAAAAAHHHA HA HA HA... How can you be so funny??!?!? I mean to beat up on President Bush in a post??? Why, your a fricking genius! Bear with me, im still ROFL. LOOOOOLOLOL!

Asshole.

Re:#1 bidder is...

[Anonymous Coward]

HAHAH Another Bush supporter crawls out of the wood work. I thought you guys only read the Bible (never slashdot) and have sex with your family members while listening to Garth Brooks.

10KG of water

[Anonymous Coward]

That ought to be enough to annoy all the scientists measuring micro traces for life.

Re:10KG of water

[Hott of the World]

Even better, send 10KG worth of a Nuclear Bomb.

Good luck getting it to 10KG, but man, that'd be one hell of a crater!

Re:10KG of water

[Hogwash McFly]

10 kilos of matchstick heads? :)

Re:10KG of water

[erobertstad]

I'd like to send a 10kg rubber ball, lets see how far that fucker bounces. :)

Re:10KG of water

[a CanofPropane]

Or just any explosive and an ignighter so when the "non-bustable" (or whatever its called) container hits it blows it all up... I would be watching the sky that night

Re:10KG of water

[zeath]

That was by far the funniest post I've read on slashdot in a while. Until, of course, I started to think about it scientifically. (which I tend to do with all jokes eventually).

Unfortunately, with the lack of pressure, the water would instantly vaporize as soon as it got a glimpse of sunlight, and any debris ejected from a collision at that speed will likely not return to the moon's surface due to the low gravity. I doubt it would have any long-term impact on traces for microbial life, with the exception of ejecting any native microbes off the moon during impact.

Re:10KG of water

[Penguinshit]

now THAT was funny!

huh?

[_Shorty-dammit]

"The MoonCrash Project would probably be attractive to some bored rich guy, who is tired of playing with his radio-controlled model airplanes and wants to move up to the next level." I fail to see the relevance of this statement, unless you get to control the thing, which makes no sense.

Re:huh?

[The Fanta Menace]

They're pointing out that some people are simply useless. Bored rich guys are typically the most useless people we have on this planet. Along with those bimbos who walk down catwalks.

Re:huh?

[pinkocommie]

Chics? Catwalk? Victoria's Secret? Lingerie? Model? *Short Circuit* PZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rich guys I agree. But catwalk bimbos are not useless. To whom will we masturbate without those bimbos?

Re:huh?

[janbjurstrom]

I'm sorta remembering Douglas Adams writing about spaceships full of simply useless people. Didn't they like, colonize some planet and depress the native humanoids to extinction? I wonder what became of that spacefaring bunch of losers.

Re:huh?

[FreemanPatrickHenry]

Actually, we'll send hairdressers, telephone sanitizers, middle management...

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're just mad because you are useless, but don't have the money to have fun with it.

Re:huh?

[wintermute1974]

I wonder what became of that spacefaring bunch of losers.

Psst, your ancestry is showing.

Re:huh?

[metlin]

Ah! Slashdot, the only place where Bimbos, Catwalks and Useless will be seen in the same sentence.

I, for one, can think up several uses for/with them Bimbos :-p

Re:huh?

[janbjurstrom]

Et tu, Brute ;)

Re:huh?

[crashfrog]

Along with those bimbos who walk down catwalks.

Think of them as a really great case mod for a Vagina Support System.

Re:huh?

[Chainsaw Messiah]

Well, at least things like this will keep some of them out of politics.

Put Bush on a diet!

[jackbird]

Is that 22 lbs. as measured on Earth or on the Moon?

'Cuz I bet GWB could slim down to 132 if he really tried. Don't think it's gonna happen for Cheney, though.

Re:Put Bush on a diet!

[MagPulse]

The kilogram is a measure of mass, not weight, and therefore does not rely on the force of gravity.

Re:Put Bush on a diet!

[CrackedButter]

Do they use metric measurements? I'm from Europe.

Re:Put Bush on a diet!

[Anonymous Coward]

10kg is a measurement of mass, which doesn't change.

Re:Put Bush on a diet!

[ptomblin]

I bet his dessicated remains would mass less than 10kg.

Re:Put Bush on a diet!

[jackbird]

bitchin' UID, but you forgot the tags.

Re:Put Bush on a diet!

[jackbird]

Shite. Make that the

<pedantic>

tags.

Re:Put Bush on a diet!

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you are saying is that we should lob eurotrash up there?

Re:Put Bush on a diet!

[Anonymous Coward]

The kilogram is a measure of mass, not weight, and therefore does not rely on the force of gravity.

Maybe that's why jackbird said 22 lbs?

Re:Put Bush on a diet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I thought all the eurotrash left for the New World hundreds of years ago?

Better than being cremated

[toygeek]

Hey if you're gonna die soon (no I'm no trying to be morbid) and you have wishes to be cremated, why not do it this way? You'd be "craterated". Or just have your ashes sent up. "Yep, my dear old Dad, he's moon dust by now..."

Re:Better than being cremated

[_Shorty-dammit]

you weigh 10kg? eat a burger!

Re:Better than being cremated

[Jin Wicked]

That was actually an idea I once had, only it involved being cryogenically frozen and having your body encapsulated and shot into space, hopefully with the intention of being picked up by technologically superior aliens at some point and brought back to life. Crashing into the moon seems counter-productive.

Yes, I have no religion. It was my only hope of living forever...

Re:Better than being cremated

[Anonymous Coward]

What and have them revive you as a sideshow attraction or clone you into some invastion force sent to destroy your bretheren in a distant future?

alien scientist to the local media:

This odd being is clearly an intergalatic hoax sent to puzzle or bemuse scientists from other civilizations. Nothing ever evolved into 'that'.

Borg453b (cant be bothered to log in)

Re:Better than being cremated

[Bob9113]

Hey if you're gonna die soon (no I'm no trying to be morbid) and you have wishes to be cremated, why not do it this way?

I was thinking the same thing, but the cost is prohibitive. Apparently cremated human remains weigh between 4 and 10 pounds, meaning you could only get about 3 people in the capsule. $2 million a pop isn't the right price.

Of course, there may be more than just carbon left after the mere 1500 degrees in a standard crematorium. If a serious industrial incinerator could get the weight down to around one third of a pound (doubtful, we are carbon based after all), then it'd be a goer - $100,000 is definitely within the reach of 60 people within the 15 month delay till it flies.

Of course, the families would want insurance, and that'd jack the price back up. Maybe you shoot for .2 pounds and 100 participants.

Re:Better than being cremated

[Anonymous Coward]

clone you into some invastion force sent to destroy your bretheren in a distant future?

Well, at least its them, and not me!

Re:Better than being cremated

[Xzzy]

They could submit the ashes to that company that turns said ashes into diamonds.. they're quite small, and I presume, light.

That process costs from $2500 to $14k. If a 0.5 carat stone only weighs 0.1 grams (according to google), you could fit a whole bunch of those stones into the capsule.

So not only do you get to spend eternity as a diamond, you get to do it on the moon. ;)

Re:Better than being cremated

[Jin Wicked]

clone you into some invastion force sent to destroy your bretheren in a distant future? Yay.... Jinarmy...

Re:Better than being cremated

[patches]

I thought I read somewhere that someone who is cremated thier ashes will wiegh exactly what they weighed when born....

Could be BS though....

Re:Better than being cremated

[gargan]

My original idea was to be cremated and divided into portions and one of the portions be shot into the sun. But now I think I'm going to incorporate this idea into it. Wish I hadn't wasted all my mod points.

Multiple bids

[Anonymous Coward]

stuff up to 10kg worth of stuff

Can I buy multiple bids and send Darl packed up?

Send a Black Obelisk

[g0rath]

or maybe just a troupe of monkeys...

Re:Send a Black Obelisk

[Stu_hacking]

don't forget the typewriters;

Shakespeare scripts don't write themselves :)

How much does a A-bomb weigh?

[Anonymous Coward]

If we all chip in we could nuke the moon...

Re:How much does a A-bomb weigh?

[whiteranger99x]

If we all chip in we could nuke the moon...

D'oh!! We have to save those for the oncoming asteriods, you nitwit! :P

Sure, it *seems* like a good idea...

[physicsphairy]

until the moon people launch a full-scale retaliatory strike.

Re:Sure, it *seems* like a good idea...

[Mr2cents]

Makes me think of this little movie..

Re:Sure, it *seems* like a good idea...

[Mir322]

that, or untill the martians think they're next!

explosives?

[Anonymous Coward]

i wonder if you can pack the thing with 10 kg of explosives so that you get the biggest bang for your buck...

Re:explosives?

[Anonymous Coward]

hahaha, i get it, bang for your buck...clever...gotta love the /. anonymous cowards...

Star Jones

[whiteranger99x]

What would happen if we lobbed Star Jones towards the moon at 4000MPH? Would it shatter? Fwahahahaha! >:D

Toner.

[Zzootnik]

Hmmm...How about 10 Kg of custom mixed Toner. I'm thinking red or maybe green... I suppose it would look like a paintball target...

Re:Toner.

[Baron_Yam]

Yeah - I was thinking something along the lines of a giant piston, so that as the head of the missile hit, it shoved the powder out a series of vents at the back aimed 45 degrees high... but only covering a circle of about 80 degrees or so and using a very reflective yellow powder.

PAC-MAN FOREVER!

Re:Toner.

[Cyno01]

Just fill it with 20 kilo's of regular paintballs.

Re:Toner.

[SEWilco]

Decades ago an SF story described sending a puff of carbon black through a screen and toward the lunar surface. Basically, silk-screened spray painting of a logo.

For $24,000

[BillsPetMonkey]

You can get a sidewinder missile lobbed at a Fallujahn mosque much closer to home ....

(I have karma to burn and a conscience to clear)

Re:For $24,000

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anyone shoot a air-to-air missle at a building. If you're going to make gratuitous slams on the military at least know what you're talking about.

Re:For $24,000

[RobinH]

What's the point in knowing what they're talking about. Dubya doesn't.

In Texas we... um... well, you see in Texas we have a saying... maybe you have a saying here too, but we have this saying, if you shoot a sidewider missile at a mosque, and two guys come running out on fire, then you just killed two arabs with... that is... two bad guys, you know, because they're bad... anyway, you get two guys with one sidewinder missile. That's what we say in Texas. Do you say that here too? :-)

Re:For $24,000

[stienman]

For $24,000 You can get a sidewinder missile lobbed at a Fallujahn mosque much closer to home ....


Shoot, for that much you could get 4 or 5 suicide bombers.


(Only a shallow conscience can ever be cleared)

Re:For $24,000

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny? Maybe.

Stupid? Yes.

Missle was fired from a helicopter. Most likely a hellfire laser quided antitank missle. Sidewinder an all aspect infrared anti aircraft missle. Firing it at a mosque not really likely, moreso since it isn't mounted on helicopters.

I bet I know who bids high

[Anonymous Coward]

This will give NASA a chance to throw one of their moon 'landers' off the soundstage. It will take years before a Chinese or other mission will leave them with anything to explain.

Great news for all of us...

[Justifiable_Delusion]

Now we don't even have to wait to get to a planet to piss away its surface with polution and shit we don't need. Now we can charge obscene amounts of money and do it...w00t!

One a secondary note...if you were really worried about your legacy standing the surface of earth in 100 years after we finish with this planet then you could potentially safely store a whole bunch of things...DNA, booze, *nix admin bible...

Re:Great news for all of us...

[lothrids]

No kidding.... Its not enough that we dump enough crap on this planet, now they want to turn the moon into a garbage dump. Do they offer curb side pickup with that?!?!?!

Re:Great news for all of us...

[benna]

I'm thinking we should load the thing up with marijuana seeds. Let the government TRY to tell me I can't grow it off the planet.

Link to Auction

[BrianGa]

Auction is at http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cate gory=45046&item=3808751242&rd=1

Re:Link to Auction

[BrianGa]

Project Link is here.

Re:Link to Auction

[AnomalyConcept]

What would be really funny if it said "shipping not included" on the eBay site. XD

Re:Link to Auction

[Tony Hoyle]

"To place a bid of US $15,000.00 or more, you'll need to provide a valid credit card"

No shit....

Re:Link to Auction

[Anonymous Coward]

Orbital Development is offering the highest bidder the opportunity of the Century

I for one will be severely disappointed if crashing 20 pounds of crap into the moon turns out to be the opportunity of the Century.

Re:Link to Auction

[Anonymous Coward]

Dang, they don't take Paypal. All that phishing for nothing... Ah well, there's always the aircraft carrier. Or the F18. Or...

Re:Link to Auction

[Anonymous Coward]

Impact of the Spacecraft at your chosen location on the Moon (nearside only)

They better not crash on my land:
http://www.planetaryinvestments.com/

I wonder...

[cdrudge]

how high a 10kg super bouncy ball would bounce going 4000mph in low gravity. Think it would bounce hard enough to hit the space station?

Re:I wonder...

[Cyno01]

Better yet, 10 kilos of normal sized superballs.

Re:I wonder...

[Phanatic1a]

Good question. 4000 mph ~= 1800mps, KE = .5(10)(1,800)^2 = 16 megajoules. Perfectly elastic collision gets you a PE = 16 MJ = 10 kilograms * 9.8/6 * height, so the height would be...damn, a million meters? That's pretty friggin' high.

Re:I wonder...

[benna]

Did you take into account that this is moon gravity and not earth gravity?

Re:I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't ya notice the factor of 1/6th?

Re:I wonder...

[benna]

No heh.

Re:I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

Zero. Don't expect it to bounce because it will shatter on impact.

Silly putty and rubber balls are flexible, but if the energy of the impact is greater than the material can contain, no matter what that material is - it will be torn apart.

Put it this way - think of compressing (in, say, a vice) a bouncy ball such that it will fly off at 4000mph if the pressure on one side was suddenly released... it's not going to happen - the ball would split apart and break long before it could contain those kinds of energies.

Re:I wonder...

[RoloDMonkey]

That would explaing that noise.

Re:I wonder...

[quixoticsycophant]

The bounce would be large enough to invalidate your presupposition of a uniform gravitational field.

The gravitational field is dropping off with the inverse of the distance from the moon's center (i.e. the gravitational force going with the inverse square).

It would bounce much, much "higher".

Re:I wonder...

[0x0d0a]

Uh...okay, if this thing is smacking into the moon at 4000mph, it's a pretty good bet that they aren't using braking thrusters (or else they'd increase the amount of the braking fuel and be selling people *non*-disintegrated stuff landed on the Moon). The Moon has a negligable atmosphere. That means that the ball will be hitting the surface in excess of negative escape velocity.

So if you have a perfectly elastic collision, as you assumed, your ball will escape the gravitational pull of the Moon, and rebound out into space.

Re:I wonder...

[Phanatic1a]

That means that the ball will be hitting the surface in excess of negative escape velocity.


No, it won't. 4000mph is about 1800 meters per second. Lunar escape velocity is 2400 meters per second.

I mean, c'mon, you can Google this stuff.

Re:I wonder...

[Phanatic1a]

The gravitational field is dropping off with the inverse of the distance from the moon's center (i.e. the gravitational force going with the inverse square).


That only holds true when the gravitational body is small enough, or far enough away, to be dealt with as a point source. When you're close up, you can't do that and have to deal with messy integrations.

This was a BOTE envelope calculation. It's within an order of magnitude. If you want something more precise, knock yourself out.

Re:I wonder...

[cdrudge]

It was a joke guys. :) You really can tell when you are joking with geeks...

Re:I wonder...

[quixoticsycophant]

You are incorrect. It's a mathematical theorem that a sphere can indeed be treated as a point source in the case of inverse-square relationship.

Standing on the moon, you can think of all the moon's mass concentrated at a point in the center with you standing on a massless structure surrounding that point.

This makes the integration easy. Force goes as inverse-square. Potential energy goes as inverse-cube.

The uniform-field calculation is not within an order of magnitude.

But anyway, the whole thing is silly. If you assume no energy is lost during the bounce, it could conceivably bounce all the way back to earth!

In reality, it's going to plummet into the moon and make a crater. The energy will go into heat and into moving lunar soil.

Re:I wonder...

[Phanatic1a]

It's a mathematical theorem that a sphere can indeed be treated as a point source in the case of inverse-square relationship.

Christ. That's only true when the diameter of the sphere is than the distance of the object from the sphere.

Go look it up. I'll wait.

Re:I wonder...

[quixoticsycophant]

Not sure what your sentence is trying to say, but my statement is indeed true.

In an inverse-square relationship, there's a happy cancellation of forces which net to a single point source at the center of the sphere, no matter where you are outside the sphere.

It even works if you are inside the sphere! In this case, the gravitational pull is equivalent to a point source with mass equal to the sphere whose surface passes through you. The gravitational effect of the leftover "shell" completely cancels itself out.

Really, it's a nice theorem. Do the integration. I'll wait.

Re:I wonder...

[Phanatic1a]

*Sigh*. You're neglecting tides.

Look, concentrate the mass of the earth to a point, and you're dealing with a black hole. You've got the entire mass of the Earth crammed into a mathematical point, which is, rest assured, smaller than the Earth's Schwartzchild radius.

Now, from a distance, a black hole is gravitationally no different than a non-black hole of equivalent mass.

But from close up, it's not, because of the gravitational gradient, which gets steeper as the radius of the gravitational body goes down.

You can only treat the gravitational effects of a sphere as a single point of mass M at the center of the body when you're working at a distance that is large compared to the actual diameter of the body.

Really, it's the truth. Go check Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler. I'll wait.

Re:I wonder...

[quixoticsycophant]

Surely you don't mean I'm incorrect because I haven't factored in tidal effects? If so, that's the most pedantic thing I've ever heard. It's like if I'm explaining the parabolic nature of projectiles, you interrupt exclaiming, "You are wrong! You haven't accounted for the coriolis force due to the earth's rotation!" Coriolis effects have their purview, but we must be reasonable given the problem at hand (not to mention air is more significant).

Do you even acknowledge the theorem to which I'm referring? You seem to miss it. The first thing to do is to look it up or prove it yourself.

Part of what you are saying is true, but you miss the happy mathematical cancellations which occur in the unique situation of a sphere combined with the inverse-square relationship. With any non-spherical and/or non-inverse-square situation you must indeed perform integrations.

Now let's return to the original problem. We have a ball bouncing off the moon with enormous, escape-velocity-ish speed. (It's not really going to bounce but let's say it does.) It bounces inelastically and "straight up".

How high does it go?

I assume that you have recanted your assumption of a uniform gravitational field. It's not going to be even close to within an order of magnitude. That much is clear.

Our goal is to integrate force over distance, equating that with the kinetic energy at bounce-time.

Say the ball is 10 meters off the ground. What is the gravitational force? We do an integration (since we don't trust the aforementioned theorem) and find -- wow -- the force is the same as the force due to a point mass at the center of the moon.

Say the ball is 500 meters off the ground. We do the integration again, and whaddaya know, the force is again the same as the force due to a point mass.

It becomes clear that we can use a simple inverse-square in our force over distance integral. The result is 1/R - 1/r, where R is the radius of the moon and r is the unknown radius we seek. Put in all the constants, equate it with the kinetic energy at bounce-time and there's your answer.

Now of course the problem is grossly oversimplified. It's not going to bounce "straight" up, the earth may have a measurable effect if the velocity is large enough, etc. But it's a starting point at least.

If you don't agree with my method, how exactly would you do it? With tidal effects? Coriolis forces? What?

Re:I wonder...

[Phanatic1a]

It's not going to be even close to within an order of magnitude. That much is clear.


It's so clear you can't even provide a single number to back it up?

Re:I wonder...

[quixoticsycophant]

Interesting. You avoided my question, changed the subject, and made an out-of-context quote.

Notice the words I wrote right beforehand, which state the current problem of note. Here, I'll quote it for you--

We have a ball bouncing off the moon with enormous, escape-velocity-ish speed. (It's not really going to bounce but let's say it does.) It bounces inelastically and "straight up". How high does it go?

(In retrospect I said "inelastic" when I meant "elastic" but I assume you took the meaning.)

The past 8 posts in our discussion began with your initial refutation of my point-source assumption: "That only holds true when the gravitational body is small enough, or far enough away, to be dealt with as a point source. When you're close up, you can't do that and have to deal with messy integrations."

I stated that, no, it is mathematically correct to use point-source calculations. You then went on to say, "Christ. That's only true when the diameter of the sphere is than the distance of the object from the sphere" and "*Sigh*. You're neglecting tides."

I then spelled out, quite explicitly, how the problem should be solved using point-source calculations. I challenged you, asking how you would use "tides" in this problem. I'm basically calling you on it, because honestly it seems like you are taking lines out of a textbook without really understanding their application or their purview.

You neglected to take my challenge; you haven't told me how "tides" would be applied to the problem, or what exactly is incorrect about the point-source calculations. How would you do this problem differently?

Instead, you backed up 8 posts, asking me to show numbers regarding whether a uniform field can be used or not. By this time, however, I have already stated the problem as re-quoted above (what you neglected to quote). The key words are "escape-velocity-ish speed". I took the uniform-field-or-not issue out entirely by stating the problem in this way in order to address the point-source-or-not issue. Perhaps I lost you. But remember, you started by claiming point-source was invalid, I was merely following up.

You now wish to discuss the uniform-field-or-not topic. I would love to address this topic, however first things first. We must first agree whether a point-source calculation is valid or not. You claim it is not. I ask you again, show me how the problem should be done differently. Are you referring to such pedantry as nonuniform mass distribution? Show me specifically why the point-source calculation is wrong.

By the way, I fully expect you NOT to answer, as you have done before. But I'll wait.

Re:I wonder...

[quixoticsycophant]

Thought so.

Link to the auction

[mike_lynn]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cate gory=45046&item=3808751242&rd=1&ssPageName=WDV W
</karma whore>

wtf

[U.I.D 754625]

Hell, give me the $6 million and I'll get rid of your 10kg of junk. What a waste. It's the kind of people who buy SUVs for their daily commute that are behind these sorts of things.

Let freedom ring

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree completely. I think that congress should mandate that every website everywhere use unicode characters. Then we can really free, so long as we conform to the demands of others.

Ebay link

[alanwj]

Does anybody have a link to the ebay auction? Unless I missed it there isn't a link in the Slashdot blurb nor the actual article, and my searching on ebay hasn't turned up anything.

Re:Ebay link

[Anonymous Coward]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cate gory=45046&item=3808751242&rd=1

Littering or trespassing?

[kalislashdot]

So if it lands on the property I bought from the Lunar Embassey (http://www.moonshop.com/) can I sue them for littering, or even trespassing. I am serious, I have the paperwork and everything. Don't tread on me!

Re:Littering or trespassing?

[zapp]

Depends, do you have a "No tresspassing" sign posted on your property? ;)

Re:Littering or trespassing?

[stienman]

Unfortunately they don't have jurisdiction where the perp currently lives, so you'll have to wait for them to go to the moon and then arrest them. I doubt the Lunar Embassy has an extradition treaty with the US or the Russians...

-Adam

Re:Littering or trespassing?

[kalislashdot]

Hey that is an idea. 10kg worth of No Trespassing signs. Its a win-win situation. I am sure a few would survive the crash. For $6mil I hope then can land it on my plot of land.

Re:Littering or trespassing?

[patches]

No but think of it this way, you coul dcharge them rent for the space they occupy until such time that they can go and remove the offending articles from your property :)

Re:Littering or trespassing?

[Technician]

So if it lands on the property I bought from the Lunar Embassey (http://www.moonshop.com/) can I sue them for littering, or even trespassing. I am serious, I have the paperwork and everything.

Um, why not buy the flight (you seem to have spare change for useless items) and have your real-estate sign with the SOLD sticker delivered to your parcel? It's probably cheaper than putting up the sign yourself. ;-)

How much do you think Darl weighs?

[Greasy Spoon]

Probably more than 22 lbs... Damn. Just curious...

I wonder....

[Grey Ninja]

I can't help but wonder if they would allow a nuclear device to be put in it. I would imagine that a dedicated enough geek could make one hell of a fireworks display out of the moon. =P

Re:I wonder....

[in7ane]

10kg nuclear device... makes me think of briefcase nukes... which make me think of terrorist links...

So that was their plan all along - to blow up the moon? (was Dr. Evil consulted?)

Re:I wonder....

[another_henry]

I'm not sure even a briefcase nuke (which is somewhat more than 10kg) would have an effect on the moon visible to the naked eye. IIRC they're limited to about 10kt maximum yield, now that's a fairly big bang but less so with no atmosphere although the dust is there of course... I'd expect a brief flash, probably visible to people looking in the general direction, and a small crater visible only through a telescope (and very hard for an amateur to tell from the numerous surrounding impact craters)

Lets send Lance Bass

[Anonymous Coward]

A piece at a time.

me!

[jjeffries]

At first I thought, well, I'll just off myself and then I can be the first person buried on (in?) the moon!

But I see there is a 10kg weight limit...

Thus, I have decided to cut off my head, and have just it sent to the moon! Eat your heart out, Walt Disney!

It HAS to be said...

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, the Moon crashes on YOU!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Link

[gibbdog]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cate gory=45046&item=3808751242&rd=1&ssPageName=WDV W

Even better!

[Jin Wicked]

Procure a corporate sponsorship from the Kraft company to get their logo on there, then you really could mess with little kids by telling them the moon is made of cheese. ^_^

Re:Slashdot and US-ASCII

[Anonymous Coward]

Great insight, thanks for sharing!

the best bit

[real_smiff]

"Shipping and handling: Free Shipping (within United States)

Will ship worldwide. "

hmm irony. methinks eBay wasn't really made for this..
So no takers yet then. The guy has zero feedback, don't trust him ;)

I want to send my contribution,

[Anonymous Coward]

Ariel Sharon. Shalom...

Gah...

[nuclear305]

Have we *really* run out of space on Earth to pollute and feel the need to throw our useless junk on the moon before we even colonize it?

I'm all for scientific missions and even some sight-seeing by probes, but I can't help but wonder how throwing our junk at the moon would impact possible future plans to establish a human presence there.

But hey, maybe those moon creatures living in the craters could use a few old Playboys or some worn-out shoes.

Re:Gah...

[Wellmont]

This is no scientific mission, or experiment. This is comming from the same place where people tried to sell their virginity and collect money for an IPO on themselves in order to get through college. Basically it's the home of the insane, mundane, over-priced...EeeBaaY!

BTW who the hell would want to colonize the moon, the very most that I would want to do is put a few missle launchers on the moon to insure our security as a nation....personally I don't think the missle launchers would care, I doubt they'll throw a fit when they land.

The moon is the perfect example of a solar system junk yard, because of it's gravitational pulls and pushes. It's because of the moon's ability to suck in small astroids that in the future small cities like New York might survive, and quite possibly it may be why life survived here in the first place.

At the same time because of its lack of an atmosphere in any noticable sense there is very much a reason to trash it up, it would actually further human "colonization" by providing work for people in the "trash" business.

Re:Gah...

[Bromrrrrr]

the very most that I would want to do is put a few missle launchers on the moon to insure our security as a nation.

Huh? How would that secure anything?

Send my ex-wife

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd send my ex-wife, but sadly that 10 Kilo limit is way, way, way too low. 100 Kilos maybe. Now that would be a crater worth 6 mil..

Stinking face in the Sky

[polemistes]

And in 25 years after 36500025 * 10kg garbage thrown at Earth's untill now pure and romantic little sister in space, we will be able to smell it all the way through the vast space, and the scientists have to change all their theories about the speed of odour through vacuum.

Re:Stinking face in the Sky

[Have Blue]

Then we'll just have to hit the moon with another equally large garbage blob! New New Yorkers, start your littering!

Why not the sun?

[dj245]

Seriously, for $6 million dollars, I would want to add my cremated remains to the fusion reactor that is our sun. If they can escape Earths's gravity and send a craft on a trajectory towards the moon, surely they can aim for the sun as well. Nobody cares about the moon except Bush. I say we aim for the sun.

Re:Why not the sun?

[in7ane]

That would definitely be more interesting, but getting on a trajectory to the sun would be harder (ignoring the targeting etc.) the 'balance' (whatever the scientific term is) point between the Earth's and the sun's gravity is further away from Earth than that of the moon. You never fully 'escape' the gravity of an object, just that the gravity of the other object becomes stronger and so you are attracted to that (eg. tides are effects of the moons gravity, can also use this as a, poor, example since there are no tides as the sun passes over, therefore weaker force, therefore 'balance' point is further away).

Anybody with better knowledge of astrophysics can explain this?

Re:Why not the sun?

[Have Blue]

I think even Bush's plan to put a base on the moon is more workable than what you're proposing.

Re:Why not the sun?

[dozer]

It's easy to orbit the sun (heck, you're doing that right now), but it's pretty hard to actually hit it.

Let's say you're a satellite orbiting earth and you want to hit the earth's surface as soon as possible. What direction should you fire your thrusters? Assume current techology: you have relatively little thrust at your disposal.

Most people say, "fire the thrusters directly away from the earth!" This is actually wrong. It will make your orbit elliptical, but it would take a very long time to actually hit the earth. The best direction to fire is exactly against the direction of your forward motion, tangential to earth. Slow yourself down and let the earth's gravity take over.

The moon orbits the earth at 2300 MPH (1 km/s), but orbits the earth at 67,000 MPH (30 km/s). This should give some idea as to the difference in scale. There are more difficulties too, mostly because you're trying to boost yourself UP to the moon but DOWN to the sun.

Of course, you could also shoot yourself toward another planet and get a gravity assist toward the sun. That would take a lot less energy but a lot more time.

Re:Obligatory

[rylin]

All three of them?

rather

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the moon would sucked into her gravitational field and absorbed, black hole style.

Re:rather

[whiteranger99x]

I think the moon would sucked into her gravitational field and absorbed, black hole style.

dear god, you're right!! That scares me! What Pandora's box have I unleashed?! :O

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

I know where we can get the potatoes!

Too bad it's not february...

[greppling]

...as it would make such a sweet valentine's day present...

10kg paintball

[cryptochrome]

I want a day-glo splotch big enough to see from earth. Ha ha moon! You're out of the game!

Quick calculation

[MajorG17]

Damn, Bill Gates does weigh more than 10 kilograms...

Re:Quick calculation

[SharpFang]

Hmm, Human body is almost 90% water. Dehydrate him, will be less than 10kg, and if you don't want his water to remain on earth, split it up into hydrogen and oxygen and donate as fuel to the rocket so it will be taken for free.

Damn it, I just realised.

HUMAN body.

Re:Quick calculation

[surprise_audit]

Don't have to send all of him... Just a few representative parts, such as his head.

Who's plot will it land in?

[GoodGuys]

Say, what about those guys who sold us plots of land on the moon? Do you think if they crash it in my plot I can sue them?
Has anyone else considered this?
(Both serious and funny replies are welcome).

Re:Who's plot will it land in?

[MrIrwin]

Ironically, looking at Orbital developments homepage they would appear to be involved in a things called the Eros project, which is all about property rights in space.

Perhaps your 10Kg cargo could just be flag with which you stake your claim ;-)

10 kg, eh?

[aduzik]

You could probably fit about 1/7 of Darl McBride in 10 kg -- let's say just the head. Now if only I had $6 million...

Re:10 kg, eh?

[shadowbearer]

Well, you also need Darl's head. You might have ask IBM for that soon (*VERY* nicely).

But seriously, your calculations are off. Darl's head has no more mass than a balloon.

SB

Re:10 kg, eh?

[incabulos]

Having Darls head shot off to the moon wouldnt stop him from making those wonderfully concise and factual speeches he gives from time to time. We all know he utilises an orifice other than the mouth for these oh-so helpful 'open letters' and patriotic sermons.

And the second chance offer goes to...

[Hogwash McFly]

Dr. Evil

"A frickin' good eBayer, they sent my "laser" to the moon in frickin' quick time. A++++++++++"

That's great

[KalvinB]

lets trash the moon before we even get there.

On the "bright" side at least when we finally do start a colony (permanent or otherwise) the astronauts will feel right at home.

Ben

Re:That's great

[jonadab]

> lets trash the moon before we even get there.

Care to explain why we'd want to get there? I mean, besides just to say we've
been there and stick up a little flag, because we've done that bit. Apart from
that, the moon is a totally unattractive place to go. Not only doesn't it have
an atmosphere to speak of, it doesn't even have enough mass to hold one. If
we were going to go somewhere outside of Earth, Mars is the closest meaningful
place to go. Mars could potentially be terraformed (though I'm not sure we
have the technology to do it yet and I'm certain we can't foot the bill yet).
The moon? It's basically just a big rock, useful mainly for reflecting the
sunlight and influencing tides.

I surely don't see the *point* of putting 10 kilograms of junk on the Moon
(and if it's not junk now, it will be after impact), but I don't see that
it does any harm either. If anything the greatest harm it does is remove
that much mass from Earth, but in that regard it's nothing compared to all
the (admittedly more worthwhile) exploratory craft we've sent various places.

Infecting the Moon with a nanotech phage

[NZheretic]

1) Create a self replicating, self organizing nanotech phage, that organizes itself into units of solar powered networked RAM and RISC processors.
2) Port Linux to the processor.
3) Drop package on Moon.
4) Lease resulting massive beowulf cluster to interrested parties - Profit!.

Re:Infecting the Moon with a nanotech phage

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a story in Analog magazine several years ago about a civilization that colonized/explored the galaxy by shooting nanobots at star systems. In the story some of the bots landed on the moon and mars and started building a base and growing copies of the beings that sent out the bots.

It was not an invasion story, but more about trying to understand why these alien bases were growing out of nowhere.

Re:Infecting the Moon with a nanotech phage

[shadowbearer]

Neat idea. Brings a whole new wrinkle to the name Skynet

SB

Sure

[Transcendent]

Let's just start polluting the moon! Let's litter its surface with tons of our crap for a nominal fee! Maybe someday our grandchildren will enjoy a nice, multi-color moon to lighten the night sky...

Does anyone else here thing this is horrible?

Re:Sure

[jonadab]

> Let's litter its surface with tons of our crap for a nominal fee!

Umm. If they're charging a *minimum* of six million greenbacks for 20kg, a
ton would cost... over eighteen billion smackers *per ton*. You call that
a nominal fee?

Re:Sure

[paul-h-squared]

Does anyone else here thing this is horrible? Yes, I for one certainly do. It won't be very long before there's nothing - not even the night sky - left unscarred by the rape of our civilization. I can't say I'm at all surprised that some people are serious about this, though.

Re:Sure

[gl4ss]

hey.

just wondering.

where you suppose the litter is better off, here on earth where people LIVE or there on moon where nobody lives, or will ever live without veerry high tech that could take care of the 'problem' of having few kilos of litter on the surface.

(of course, this is kind of moot since getting that stuff up there to the moon is going to produce quite much litter that will stay here on earth)

Re:Sure

[Transcendent]

where you suppose the litter is better off, here on earth where people LIVE or there on moon where nobody lives

Yes... those are the only two options in the entire universe... either we put our crap on the moon, or bury it under ground.

Hey, we got a huge giant furnace at the center of our solar system... think that could incinerate some trash for us?

You missed the point of my argument, anyway...

Re:Sure

[ratsnapple tea]

"Hey, we got a huge giant furnace at the center of our solar system... think that could incinerate some trash for us?"

Don't worry, it will eventually.

Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

We had the same idea and you even have the same initials (RS)? Have I gone schizofrenic?

Cool!

Same guys who say they own the asteriod EROS

[Anonymous Coward]

OrbitDev is involved in sueing NASA for ownership of the asteriod EROS. They want the government to pay them for "Parking and Storage Fees for the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft, permanently parked on Eros." There's more info here:

http://www.erosproject.com/

Re:Same guys who say they own the asteriod EROS

[KD5YPT]

I would say OrbitDev is a greedy dumbass and an idiot. That don't own the asteroid EROS, show me the land deed! What? US don't grant extraterrestial land claims? Too bad, that mean US owns them, and ultimately, you got pwned.

Re:Same guys who say they own the asteriod EROS

[ebrandsberg]

What I would love to see is this project Eros to be declaired to be valid in legal status, then start taxing them on the value of the property. I think that paying taxes on Eros would provide that much more of a basis for them to say that the property is theirs.

Aim?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they hit the American flag, bad things will happen to these people.

Exactly

[joggle]

Why does everything have to be in the name of SCIENCE?

Think of the irony of sending a college textbook on physics as the payload! Actually, I have a specific one in mind, care to chip in? I was considering making a bonfire out of it, but this would be MUCH more fun.

Re:Exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

which textbook?

Re:Exactly

[joggle]

The fourth edition of "Fundamentals of Physics" by Halliday, Resnick and Walker (the physics book I used in college). It was a particularly aweful book on physics, combined with (for me) a terrible physics professor. So, it has a certain sentimental value to me.

Man in the Moon

[niktesla]

Great, just what the Man in the Moon needs - acne! Next thing we know, NASA will be ordering a giant dose of Noxima! =)

No that sun thingy of Janet's

[Bender Unit 22]

That way, America would have to blur the moon, for the entire continent, forever.

Dad, why is the moon pixelated?
It's a filthy, filthy place, son.

10kg of PAINT

[Anonymous Coward]

PAINT the moon... what color?

plaid? striped? pink? argyle?

Respect for one's customers...

[ChiralSoftware]

Gregory Nemitz, president of Orbital Development, said: "The MoonCrash Project would probably be attractive to some bored rich guy, who is tired of playing with his radio-controlled model airplanes and wants to move up to the next level."

Wow, that doesn't seem like the right tone for someone trying to sell a $6mil unnecessary luxury product.

--------
WAP server software

Re:Respect for one's customers...

[Bromrrrrr]

Seriously, when you consider their other project I'd say this is a hoax.

From the site:

Orbital Development is at the forefront of the critical issue of "Property Rights in Space." Since March, 2000 the firm has managed the "Eros Project" which is designed to bring the issue into a United States of America Federal Court for a difinitive decision on the new legal subject of "Space Property Law."

The Eros Project is primarily sponsored by Beefjerky.com. You can support this critial legal work in progress by trying some delicious "Final Frontier Jerky"

Interplanetary pollution

[securitas]

We have lots of garbage and pollution on Earth, lots of space-junk in orbit around the Earth that is widely predicted to become a hazard, and plenty of junk left on the Moon's surface from the manned and unmanned expeditions.

The place isn't even accessible to tourists yet and someone has come up with a way to pre-pollute it.

Do we really want to turn the Moon into an interplanetary garbage dump?

Keep your litter and junk to yourself.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[stienman]

If you could find a way of making someone pay you 6 million to dump a bucket full of 'stuff' in your yard, you'd do it. If someone payed you 6 million to dump a bucket full of stuff somewhere in yellowstone park, subject to some restrictions, then you'd likely do it in a heartbeat. Why is the moon so special? When spaceships can pollute a large portion of the moon, they'll be able to take people there and the pollution will happen naturally. But the pollution from this one 'hit' will be so small that you'll actually have to look for it, you aren't just going to stumble across it.

-Adam

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[the_mad_poster]

If you could find a way of making someone pay you 6 million to dump a bucket full of 'stuff' in your yard, you'd do it

If someone payed you 6 million to dump a bucket full of stuff somewhere in yellowstone park, subject to some restrictions, then you'd likely do it in a heartbeat.

Ah yes. The ultimate justification for any idiotic, debase action: money.

I'm sorry to hear you have so little moral fiber in your body and can't fathom why someone finds the idea of intentionally polluting an object we can't even inhabit so despicable. It's unfortunate that there are so many people that think like you, because the underlying problem with that kind of thought process is always the same:

If it doesn't directly affect me, why should I care?

Dropping 10 kg of junk on the surface of a desloate object in space isn't a big deal. It's the principal of the thing. Human beings seem to be the only life on earth that would consider intentionally dropping garbage somewhere just because they can. A sad commentary on human nature, I suppose.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[Anonymous Coward]

ultimate justification for any idiotic, debase action

Actually, I've found that the usual reason is the smug self-righteousness that possesses a lot of people, which convinces them that whatever they do must be a correct action since their hearts are pure and they're so much more... you know... moral than all those other people.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[another_henry]

I feel I must reiterate this again and again. The moon is FUCKING HUGE. If we have the capability to transport enough junk there to make any kind of a mess at all then our tech will be advanced enough that this won't be a problem.

Furthermore it's a dead rock anyway, and I can't think of a better place for an interplanetary garbage dump. Well maybe dropping stuff into Jupier. Even Venus is interesting.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[stienman]

I'm sorry to hear you have so little moral fiber in your body and can't fathom why someone finds the idea of intentionally polluting an object we can't even inhabit so despicable. It's unfortunate that there are so many people that think like you, because the underlying problem with that kind of thought process is always the same:

Gee, you're right. I'm going to change my culture and ideals because you took time to insult me and all the people you grouped me with.

So, are you saying that you would not accept 6 million dollars to dump a bucket of stuff in the middle of yellowstone park (subject to some restrictions)? You didn't exactly specify that you wouldn't - you only decided that I must have bad morals because I posited that most people would. would it make a difference if I said I'd put that money to good use - such as donating it to yellowstone park?

Are you principled only when it's convenient for you, or do you make every reasonable attempt to follow your own ideals at all times, in all places, and under any circumstances?

At this point the discussion devolves into Churchill's quote (paraphrased):
"Madam, would you sleep with me for a million pounds?"
"I do believe I would."
"How about for 5 pounds?"
"What kind of a woman do you think I am?!"
"We've already determined that, now we're just haggling over price.

-Adam

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[ciroknight]

Who knows, in the future, it might be a quite lucrative business running an interplanetary junk yard. Not only would it be cheaper (and safer to humans) to run an incenerator on a huge rock with no atmosphere (just as long as the material you wanted to "burn" provided its own oxygen supply, or was destructable when HUGE doses of radiation are applied to it), it would be quite profitable in the long run. Hell, with the way we treat earth, we could almost start doing this today.

When space travel becomes cheap enough, I'm sure we'll this kind of thing popping up on lots of moons. The only thing moons are good for really are the fact that they're magnificent gravity wells, pretty to look at in the sky, most of the time are completely inhospitable (making them good junk locations), etc etc. I for one hate the idea of taking perfectly usable material and moving it to a location where it'll just sit unused, but in a location like space, we could find new ways to recycle the material and ship it back. The only thing stopping us now is the cost of the trip, which, with new technologies like space elevators and possible air breathing, horizonal launch vehicles, these costs should go down quickly. It's a shame we spent more time on innovation of the things we put in space, and not on the things we use to get it there.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[topham]

I still trying to figure out what constitutes pollution in an environment that is so hostile to life.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[the_mad_poster]

...I'm going to change my culture and ideals...

So, your culture and ideals include, explicitly, your ability to be bought off?

You're getting caught up on the quantity when I'm talking about the principal. The quantity is irrelevant. Would you shoot a starving child in the face who was going to die anyway for 6 million dollars? More? How about 1 billion? The act you're being paid for is not the point, and that's the point.

The point is this: human beings would actually seek to ACTIVELY GO OUT OF THEIR WAY to pollute something.

However, if you'd like to discuss the particulars of the issue instead, I have a serious problem with your "ends justify the means" mentality. If you dump 22 pounds of trash in the middle of yellowstone (ah yes... "with restrictions"), you are polluting yellowstone national park. Are you going to dispute that? So, you get your 6 million, and you give it ALL to charity. So what? You still polluted Yellowstone, now didn't you? In fact, you went out of your way to do it.

Now, while it's still immoral, it's FORGIVABLE which is entirely different. However, this is a "commercial spacecraft project" that is seeking to profit by intentionally polluting a foreign object and is going well out of its way to do it. Only humans could be so pathetically crass.

Is ~22 pounds of material a big deal? No, it's the point that these morons are doing it on purpose and for profit, and that some imbecile will actually spend the money for it.

I can accept that human progress pollutes. This is not progress. This is intentional destruction for the amusement of some sorry buffoon who doesn't have anything better to do with his or her time. The point isn't that 22 pounds isn't a big deal, it's that they're doing at all.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[NanoGator]

"Do we really want to turn the Moon into an interplanetary garbage dump?"

Well I do have a couple of bodies to bury...

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[blake8087]

You still didn't say if you would take the money to do it.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd take the money. And I'd dump it in your yard.

That's the True American Way.

Shithead.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[stienman]

it's still immoral

This point of view is not universal. The belief that it's immoral is only a belief, one which others, apparently, do not hold or agree with. The point isn't that this is or is not bad, the point is that you are foisting your beliefs and opinions on others.

Sure riled you up, though. I'll leave you alone now. :)

-Adam

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[stienman]

I believe that in this context pollution is simply defined as "Putting something somewhere that we don't want there." It's like a scientist who has 'polluted' a flagon of sulferic acid with, say, peanut butter. The compound is no longer good for many (if not most) uses.

In this and many other cases it's often a personal belief or desire. In some cases there are reasonable reasons for avoiding certian 'pollution' (such as rinsing the orange juice glass before filling with milk).

-Adam

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[Hobobo]

That's some nice hot air you got there, but what exactly is so despicable about polluting the moon. The only negative exernality I can think of is that it diminishes our resources on earth.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you dump $6 million in his yard?

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[shadowbearer]

Great post, and I agree with you.

My biggest beef with this ridiculous idea is that they are wasting a launch that could be used to do useful things; now, if they were using the launch to test a new lunar-capable booster and this was a way of raising funds, ok. But they're not. These guys are going to buy a booster launch from someone else for an idea that, on the face of it, is just plain stupid.

This is intentional destruction for the amusement of some sorry buffoon who doesn't have anything better to do with his or her time.

s/time/money.

What a waste. I hope their auction fails because people with $6M are too intelligent to waste it in this way. (Unfortunately, someone just may take them up on it - reminds me of the old axiom of fools and money). What the hell, it probably won't go anyway - and if it does, they'll end up spending more to pull it off than they get (or get sued by the auction winner when they go bust). Stupid, stupid, stupid.

SB

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[gargan]

Did you just happen to be eating a peanut butter sandwich and drinking a glass of milk when you posted that? you sure did make me hungry...

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[Anonymous Coward]

Like the poster, I had moral objections. However, your solid, rational and well-reasoned argument has changed my mind. I'd like to propose that you and your trailer be the first piece of trash that we crash into the moon.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[shadowbearer]

If you can afford to ship the stuff to "some rock" you might as well just dump it into the sun. Best incinerator in local space, and you don't even have to staff it :)

SB

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[Spazmasta]

You're missing the point. "Doing something just because we can" isn't all that bad. Think of all the scientific discoveries that achieved outcomes that weren't the initial intention. Whenever someone does something, work is being achieved somewhere, somehow.

For instance, the obvious benefit of this project is that it opens up the door to commercially sending stuff to the moon. Maybe this time it'll cost $6 million, but maybe the next time they'll charge only $3 million. Maybe the buyer will actually decide to send something useful (to some extent) to the moon, like say, a lego robot with a camera attached, in a huge ball of foam padding - or even a homemade spectrometer, to analyze the chemical makeup. Sure, maybe none of the above will literally happen, but the point is, the project opens the door to doing so.

In the big picture, this is just another $6 million going to a corporation that will hire contractors to build the rocket, who will in turn spend their money buying other stuff, and so on and so forth. Any exchange of money signified "work" being done.

The point is, this project really isn't the beginning of a whole dump-stuff-on-the-moon industry, but rather a transport-stuff-to-the-moon industry, for whatever useful ideas corporations can come up with.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[Anonymous Coward]

If you could find a way of making someone pay you 6 million to dump a bucket full of 'stuff' in your yard

But the thing is these people don't own the moon. You don't own yellowstone park. If you want to work out a way to get someone to pay you 6 million dollars to dump some stuff on your property, go you. But don't dump it on public property.

There's a difference between junking stuff in space because you have to in order to journey in space, to littering for the sake of littering. This is littering for the sake of littering. I'm all for spaceships having to litter some of their components, I support that. Because it's for a purpose. This is for no purpose other then to give some people a bunch of money.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[Stray7Xi]

Not only would it be cheaper (and safer to humans) to run an incenerator on a huge rock with no atmosphere (just as long as the material you wanted to "burn" provided its own oxygen supply, or was destructable when HUGE doses of radiation are applied to it)

Why ship it to the moon to incinerate it... you could just nudge it out of earth's orbit and let the sun pull it the rest of the way in and it'll be vaporized. I imagine there are side effects of using the sun as a dump (maybe increasing the mass and gravitational forces would disrupt planets orbits??) but I think throwing even the whole earth into the sun would have so little relative effect it'd be like pissing in the ocean.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[Wes Janson]

How many lives could that $6,000,000 dollars save? Probably a few hundred thousand easily. Wouldn't you trade a single life for that?

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[SEWilco]

I think it's more likely he was eating a peanut butter sandwich and drinking carbonic acid.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[VanillaCoke420]

Absolutely. There's something terribly wrong with us humans. Sure, we do plenty of cool, wonderful and amazing things, but it is always compensated and overshadowed by the stupid, inane and moronic things we do. Perhaps an asteroid coming our way wouldn't be so bad after all. After the impact, give nature a few hundred million years and perhaps there will be a species who not only pride herself with being smart, but also actually IS smart.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[SEWilco]

I imagine there are side effects of using the sun as a dump (maybe increasing the mass)

The Sun has over 99 percent of the mass of the Solar System. You could drop Jupiter in it without bothering it. Although it might be bothered if you dropped in the project's Environmental Impact Statement.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you shoot a starving child in the face who was going to die anyway for 6 million dollars?

This is not as easy a question as you make it sound. With that kind of money, you could donate to vaccines and such to save many more lives.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[Cyno01]

Hey, you got H2CO3 in my peanut butter!

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[richie2000]

It's the principal of the thing.

I'm afraid 10 kgs isn't enough to send your principal to the moon.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[Graff]

Why ship it to the moon to incinerate it... you could just nudge it out of earth's orbit and let the sun pull it the rest of the way in and it'll be vaporized.

From what I understand it actually takes more energy to send something from Earth orbit into the Sun than it would take to send the object on a path to escape the solar system. This is because in order to crash into the Sun you first have to cancel out the velocity imparted by being in Earth's orbit around the Sun in the first place. However if you wanted to leave the solar system you would simply add some velocity to your orbit around the Sun and this would kick you to an orbit further from the Sun.

In other words the quantity of energy needed to lower your orbital velocity to zero relative to the Sun would be less than the amount you need to add to escape from orbiting the Sun. This means that it probably takes less energy to send something to the Moon than it would take to send it to the Sun.

According to my quick calculations it would take a velocity of approximately 42 km/s to escape the solar system from Earth's orbit. Earth imparts a velocity of approximately 30 km/s to any object which is in a similar orbit around the sun. This means that you would need to either slow down by 30 km/s to hit the sun (30 km/s - 0 km/s) or you would need to speed up by 12 km/s to leave the solar system (42 km/s - 30 km/s).

Strange, but true - it actually takes less energy to leave the solar system than it is to crash into the sun from Earth orbit. This, of course, is not counting stuff like orbital slingshots around other planets and such which could decrease the energy needed for both crashing the Sun and leaving it.

Here's the site where I got some of the data I used for my calculations, as well as the formulas for escape velocity and such.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[alonsoac]

You can say that again, nothing beats pissing in the ocean.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[cazzazullu]

You talk about slingshots around other planets. While this is a well-established technique these days to gain speed or whatever, something isn't quite clear to me. How can you gain speed by such a technique? Ok, falling down to a heavy object and then leaving it behind will indeed speed you up in the intermediate phase and will indeed get you across that certain distance much faster than without the gravitational pull, but as a net result you will not have gained speed. So one could think that this "slingshooting" just involves crossing certain parts of the path from a to b faster by these gravitational wells, but that is not exactly how they do it I think. If you look at flightpaths taken by certain probes, these seem totally irradic, using the same planets multiple times ... So this is certainly not just "speeding up" in some pieces of the trip. Can someone explain why and how you can speed up/shorten travelling time by using planets as slingshots? Thanks

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[the_mad_poster]

Why do you care? Would it make you feel somehow vindicated if I admitted my own imperfection?

If anybody ever contacts me with the ability to dump 22 pounds of garbage on the moon and an offer of 6mil to do it, I'll let you know what I choose. Until that day comes, however, my answer is this:

I would like to think that I would not, but I could also put 6 million dollars to good use, so maybe I would.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[the_mad_poster]

This is not as easy a question as you make it sound.

That's sort of the point of that kind of question.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[tchdab1]

Yes, the moon is huge, or HUGE if it makes your point.
And there are so many buffalo you could never kill them all.
The oceans are so big you could never (a) catch all the fish, or (b) pollute them so it made a difference.
Bioengineered plants could never spread their genes. Radioactive by-products are easy to manage and are harmless anyway.
Etc.
Your point, that it doesn't really matter what we do whereever we go, has been made before and it's repeatedly been proven wrong. And you're arguing that we should be allowed to make a mess simply because we CAN, not for any reasonable reason?
I would like to argue that interplanetary garbage dumping should be prohibited or licensed to an arbitrated common benefit. I would like to, if I could trust my government to regulate it.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[Stray7Xi]

my intuition would say that if it takes 30km/s for Earth orbit, that slowing down to 29km/s would be enough so that it'd eventually spiral into sun?

What happens to such an object slowed down to 18km/s, does it take a more elliptical orbit then the earth?

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[zBrain]

When spaceships can pollute a large portion of the moon, they'll be able to take people there and the pollution will happen naturally

Naturally polluted? Thats an edumacated statement.

But the pollution from this one 'hit' will be so small that you'll actually have to look for it, you aren't just going to stumble across it.

Shipping your sh..tuff to the moon is stupid no matter how you try to justify it...that can thrown on the ground in a forest is small, and may never be noticed. Does that make it ok? Only if you're an idiot. I'm no tree hugger but this is retarded.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[Graff]

my intuition would say that if it takes 30km/s for Earth orbit, that slowing down to 29km/s would be enough so that it'd eventually spiral into sun?

What happens to such an object slowed down to 18km/s, does it take a more elliptical orbit then the earth?

If you only canceled out 1 km/sec of the velocity then you would just orbit a bit closer to the Sun.

As for whether the orbit would be circular or elliptical it depends on how the velocity change is done. Remember that velocity is a vector. If any part of the velocity vector has a component which is perpendicular to directly into the Sun then you will continue to orbit the sun. If all of the velocity is perpendicular to a path directly into the Sun then you will have a circular orbit. The more that your velocity is toward the Sun, the more elliptical your orbit will be.

The only way you would spiral into the Sun would be if you were losing velocity perpendicular to a path directly into the Sun. This could be through interaction with interstellar dust or through the action of a rocket. Look at something like a comet. There are many comets that have been orbiting the Sun for millions upon millions of years in highly elliptical orbits. They slow down a little over those years and they do spiral closer to the Sun but it still will be quite some time before they slow enough to crash into it. In fact, most crash into it because their orbits have been changed due to interaction with another large body such as Jupiter which changed the direction of their velocity vector from being partially perpendicular to the Sun to being almost directly into it.

The other thing is that you really don't have to get down to a velocity of 0 km/sec because the Sun is not a point but rather it is a sphere. However, you would need to get down to fairly close to 0 in order to take up a close enough orbit to crash into the surface. I just said 0 because it wasn't worth working out if it was 1 km/sec or 0 km/sec that was needed to orbit close enough.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[Graff]

Can someone explain why and how you can speed up/shorten travelling time by using planets as slingshots?

A slingshot maneuver serves two purposes. First of all, the slingshot allows you to change the direction of the velocity vector. This is important since most of the velocity you get from being in Earth orbit is perpendicular to a path directly to the Sun.

Look at it this way, imagine you have a ball on a string. You swing the ball around your head and let go. Does the ball travel directly away from you? If you film it and slow down the film you will see that it actually moves sideways, perpendicular to the string. If you want to hit something you need to let go just about 90 degrees before the string is pointed at the object. And if you want to hit something above you there is no way to do so from an orbit perpendicular to the ground. You might have to bounce the ball off another object to get it to go where you want it to.

The slingshot also does provide a velocity boost. Here is an excellent explanation of this usage. It boils down to the fact that all of the planets in the solar system are not stationary. By taking up a temporary orbit and changing direction of your velocity to be in the direction of the planet you end up adding the planets velocity to your current velocity.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[billcopc]

If I could find a way of making someone pay me 6 million to dump a bucket full of 'stuff' in SOMEONE ELSE'S YARD, I'd buy/build 5 million worth of weapons and kill off every last retard on this crazy beachball. The other mil I'd spend on funky audio equipment and bitches :)

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[jdeking1]

Naturally polluted? Thats an edumacated statement.

It's a perfectly cromulent phrase!

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[Tyreth]

Maybe it _is_ for something useful. Perhaps the auction is an excuse to gain money for a basic space trip which will provide the necessary research and money for further learning. This could just be an 'incentive' (no matter how moronic) for people to invest in space programs. Instead of just thanking sponsors, give them a personal touch.

Of course, there are probably better ways, but I doubt that it's just a bunch of people sitting around saying "how can we make a quick few million dollars? I know, let's offer to crash something onto the moon for a rich man!". Someone will accept this most likely because they want to give a donation to help grow the space industry, not because they want an easy way to take out their garbage.

Re:Interplanetary pollution

[cazzazullu]

Thanks that does make it indeed much clearer to me. I seemed to have forgotten that we indeed already have a tremendous starting-speed by our orbit, and that our whole solar system is one huge dynamical system of gigantic gravity wells we can take a ride on.

Thanks

Re:Happy Easter

[whiteranger99x]

Oh come on! Let's not ride our high horse, alright! You're talking about the same group who posts during Christmas, New Years, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, and especially Valentine's Day :P

...or maybe I just outed myself on my posting habits... =)

But what happens when...

[jolyonr]

they start firing things back at us?

Jolyon

Re:But what happens when...

[Anonymous Coward]

they start firing things back at us?

Probably they will burn up in Earth's atmosphere. The moon doesn't have an atmosphere. MUAAAAHAAAAAWAAHH!!

Re:But what happens when...

[utahjazz]

they start firing things back at us?

Bah! They're going to throw rice at us? Tell me where so I can go watch.

Re:But what happens when...

[Bagels]

Oh, that one's easy. I'll hide under my desk, I'm safe there. Works with nukes, too!

Re:But what happens when...

[xSauronx]

spawncamp them, then switch teams.

Ink

[a1cypher]

I wonder if you sent up 10kg of Blue Ink/Powder if you could see it from an earth telescope. That would be kinda cool.

Same guys who say they own the asteriod EROS

[Anonymous Coward]

OrbitDev is involved in sueing NASA for ownership of the asteriod EROS. They want the government to pay them for "Parking and Storage Fees for the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft, permanently parked on Eros." There's more info here:

http://www.erosproject.com/

Moon junk

[Anonymous Coward]

Great! It's not enough that we destroy our own planet, now we will use the moon as a garbage dump. Stuff like this makes the think that Agent Smith had a point.

You might be a futuristic redneck if....

[Himring]

Today:
"You consider a six-pack and a bug zapper to be quality entertainment."

Tomorrow:
"You consider a six-pack and making a crater in the moon quality entertainment."

Re:You might be a futuristic redneck if....

[jonadab]

> You consider a six-pack and making a crater in the moon quality entertainment.

What, a six-pack and slashdot is better?

> Post, you will. Modded down, you are...

Assimilated, you will be. Futile, resistence is, Hmmm...?

Re:You might be a futuristic redneck if....

[SEWilco]

Assimilated, you will be. Futile, resistance is, Hmmm...?

Borg known as Yoda was.

Wow, i just had an idea...

[Cyno01]

For a new type of orbital launch propulsion. The old tennis ball ontop of a basketball trick. Just let gravity do the work for us. How big of a proverbial basketball would be needed to bounce a 'tennis ball' to escape velocity?

And in a recent news report...

[SmackCrackandPot]

The Russian Lunar explorer has discovered a crater with a pod labelled "Jimmy Hoffa" on the side.

But what about?

[Nightreaver]

Hope they don't hit the amusementpark up there...

Ooh, wait... we're still only in the second millenium :/

Re:But what about?

[Nightreaver]

That would be the third millenium, you nitwit!

She's a harsh mistress

[Guardian452]

Careful. If Heinlein taught us anything, it's that if the moon starts throwing stuff back, we're in big trouble!

Hm... thin, memory metal...

[KD5YPT]

Use one of those memory metal (the one that reform itself when heated by sunlight), create a massive version of the goatse.cx image, fold and put into canister. Pod lands on moon, pod opens up, metal got heated by sun during full moon, bang, BIG GOATSE image on moon!

Real-life Mr. Show reference?

[Mitleid]

Did this happen to remind anyone else about the episode of Mr. Show where America campaigns to blow up the moon? It practically has the same premise; bored overdeveloped country has nothing better to do than throw shit out into space and cause some destruction, the only justification for it being the fact that we CAN.

As Sara Silverman's protestor character says..."We're earthlings, let's blow up earth things..."

Orbital Development

[bug-eyed monster]

This is being offered by Orbital Development, the same whackos who want to charge NASA parking and storage fees for the NEAR Shoemaker probe on Eros. It wouldn't surprise me if the seller's feedback score becomes negative in the not-so distant future.

Re:Orbital Development

[surprise_audit]

Didn't NASA come back with, "Sure thing bud! We'll forward a check to Eros right away. Good luck picking it up..."

The Tick

[Nephroth]

I think I'd much rather just carve my name in the moon... C H A I R F... damn, foiled again.

Interesting way to hide evidence

[katz]

This seems like something straight out of a James Bond film. Rich, evil antagonist buys his way into an innocent interplanetary garbage dump company to do away with incriminating and indestructible evidence.

I've got some good use for 10kgs of mass.

[flowerp]

I'd love to put 10 kgs of Antimatter up there. The flash and the following explosion should be strong enough to be seen even in daylight.

Next ... Advertising on the Moon!

[miskatonic alumnus]

Wouldn't it be great if you could sit out on the porch, look up into the night sky while sipping your beer, and see an ad for ...


Microsoft? Little red, yellow, green, and blue patches. Aaahh! Maybe the Man in the Moon could even wink at it! I know, put some Bill Gates eyeglasses on him. Yeah! Oh wait! Then, we could pay $6,000,000 to launch a cream pie at the moon to hit him in the face!

Soviet and US race to the Moon.

[SharpFang]

The american astronauts got to the moon, and received orders to watch what would the soviets do.
Day 1: "They took a lot of red paint and started painting the Moon red. Houston, awaiting orders!" - "Okay, stay put and observe"/
Day 2: "They got a lot of progress at painting the moon, should we do anything?" - "No, wait and observe".
Day 3: "They got 1/4 of the moon red already!" - "Just wait and observe!"
and so on,
Day 9: "They are finishing it!" - "just wait for them to leave"
Day 10: "They've packed empty cans of paint and left, the moon is all red! Houston, we could've stopped them!" - "Calm down, now get the cans with white paint we have sent you and paint a big "COCA COLA" logo all across the moon!"

Info about company and founder

[wildmage]

The company is Orbital Development.

Gregory Nemitz is an interesting character. I am a little skeptical about the deal since you are purchasing a "project" and not an actual mission. So there are very few guarantees attached, and you have limited authority of the project.

I think Nemitz's more interesting project is the most credible attempt to assert ownership over an extraterrestrial body. Specifically, he is asserting his claim over the near earth asteroid Eros.

On his website you can see legal correspondence between him and NASA as he gives them an invoice for a parking fee for their NEAR spacecraft that crash landed on the asteroid. Also available is his explanation of what he is doing and why he is doing. A very interesting read, and it gives some in-depth analysis of the nature of property ownership.

Re:Info about company and founder

[KD5YPT]

Well, Nemitz can stick it up his arse. If they're claiming that NASA is "illegally" parking their satellite on Eros, there can only be 3 outcomes.

1. US hostile take over by force (extreme measure).
2. NASA pays.
3. NASA don't do anything, and nothing happens. Because here on earth, what happened when you illegally park on someone's property? They tow it away, and Orbit Development is more then welcome to plan and pay for their own mission to get it off, since NASA don't even want the probe anymore.

Re:Info about company and founder

[wildmage]

Well, the parking fee is just a premise to get a declaration of ownership from the federal government. The invoice is like $10 per century, so its not really anything to get up in arms for.

So NASA said there claims are without basis. Then state department says it violates the Outer Space Treaty, however that only applies to governments annexing extra terrestrial bodies and doesn't apply to private citizens.

So now he's involved in litigation and his argument is based on some complex legal theory that I don't pretend understand called work-equity. You can think of like it homesteading, where you squat a piece of land, and put development in it. After a while, the government recognizes your claim because of all the work you put in it. However, Nemitz isn't physically at the asteroid. Possession is 9/10th of the law, but he doesn't have possession, so his legal arguments are based on other 1/10th.

Anyway, though his claims may be dubious, his goal is to set a legal precedent for this kind of thing where one does not currently exist. This will give investors a clearer understanding and more certain environment of the legal framework for space property where one does not currently exist.

Re:Info about company and founder

[Anonymous Coward]

All this is fine and wonderful.

Except...

How can US federal law extend to bodies beyond its shores? Or atmosphere for that matter? I think it's rather arrogant to assume that US law can be applied anywhere in the Universe, when precedent shows that it cannot (usually) be applied outside the US.

(aside from the asinine countries that are catering to the DMCA, that is).

He's a twit.

Re:Info about company and founder

[Anonymous Coward]

What Numnutz and other people don't realise is
that NOBODY OWNS ANY LAND except in their minds.
Mother Nature will be more that happy to evict
you on a whim, even if you have a trillion
dollars.

anyway, the Earth, the moon, astrioids, and
what not were here before these genetic fuckups
existed, and will still be here when they are
safely rotted away and fertalizing the land with
their bodies.

I'd set up encrypted data storage...

[stienman]

I'd send up an optical 10gbps repeater (otherwise know by it's more technical term, "corner cube" though the active version could also have storage of its own) and store 3.2megabytes of data in flight between the earth and the moon. If the feds ever call, it'll be erased with absolutely no trace in 2.56 seconds.

-Adam

Re:I'd set up encrypted data storage...

[SEWilco]

There already are laser reflectors on the Moon. Enjoy.

The flower of humanity

[Anonymous Coward]

Arms in space, advertising in space and now we turn the moon into a garbage dump. To paraphrase Robin Williams, spending $6 mil to do to the moon what rednecks do to rural traffic signs is God's way of telling you you're making too much money.

And it just occurred to me, that if this is the true mark of sapient behavior, maybe the *real* reason we can't find other intelligent life in the universe is because their commercialized space program has so trashed their solar system with weapons, ads and Alienica Online CD's we can't see their sun from here...

Bah...

Big airbags - bubble wrap - foam - cones.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I think we can safely guarantee the condition of just about any cargo which hits the moon at that speed.

Implying that it will be destroyed, right?

Not necessarily.

This is just an extreme case of the "egg drop" problem used by the UofMich ingineering school ion their packaging class one year (and no doubt other engineering schools from time to time).

Problem: Package a raw egg with less than (x) grams of packing material so that it can be dropped from the roof of the four-floor engineering building to the concrete below and arrive intact.

A number of solutions were tried. Some I remember hearing about:
- Suspended inside a ball by rubber bands.
- bubble wrap variants
- foam peanut variants
- Stuffed into the top of a stack of styrofoam cups with kleenex, fins added to last cup to insure bottom cup arrives end-on. (Energy absorbed by friction of cup stack cracking and collapsing).

(That last one was a winner and led directly to the nested-sheetmetal protectors you sometimes see on freeways in front of overpass support piers.)

Then we have NASA's recent "airbag" landing on Mars.

4K MPH is a bit extreme. But you've got a LOT of space to, for instance, blow up a LARGE airbag/bubblewrap analog, and plenty of time to do it.

Encapsulated electronics, and even moving parts if packed correctly, can handle thousands of Gs easily. (Think about MOOG's final test for his synthesizer components: Three feet to a cement floor, must stll be fully operational and still correctly tuned afterward.) 4000 MPH = 5867 fps. Bullets are routinely accellerated to that velocity in a few feet without distortion from the g forces involved (though that is a bit extreme), and bullets with moving parts (such as spin-armed explosive rounds) to maybe a couple thousand FPS ditto.

So figure inflating maybe a 50 foot radius cluster of 'way thin kevlar balloons or bubble-wrap with aerojell just before impact, and taking maybe 20kg at the peak of decelleration, and it should be survivable.

Re:Big airbags - bubble wrap - foam - cones.

[NanoGator]

"Implying that it will be destroyed, right?"

I think the implication, rather, is that you'll have to come up with your own packing solution. They're not doing anything special to guarantee the cargo. "Yo fault!"

Re:Big airbags - bubble wrap - foam - cones.

[DerekLyons]

So figure inflating maybe a 50 foot radius cluster of 'way thin kevlar balloons or bubble-wrap with aerojell just before impact, and taking maybe 20kg at the peak of decelleration, and it should be survivable.

• Aerogel is a solid and can't 'inflate' anything.
• At the speeds involved (5867fps), your 'airbag' wouldn't even be noticed.

Re:Big airbags - bubble wrap - foam - cones.

[xSquaredAdmin]

Am I the only one who read fps as frames per second? (5867 fps? Sweet!)

Re:Big airbags - bubble wrap - foam - cones.

[fr2asbury]

My sister did this in Middle School. Her succesful egg saving technique was to simply stick the egg inside her toy stuffed bear with a zipper on the back. I think it doubled as some sort of bag.

Re:Big airbags - bubble wrap - foam - cones.

[cornjones]

most engineering schools do this.

New challenge. 10kg worth of padding to deliver an egg to the moon. Now that would be impressive.

Re:Big airbags - bubble wrap - foam - cones.

[Cyno01]

We did something similar in a class. We had to build something to protect an egg from a bowling ball rolling at it with nothing but newspaper and masking tape. We simply made a wedge and deflected the bowling ball. I think its still in a closet somewhere, looks kinda like a star destroyer...

Re:Big airbags - bubble wrap - foam - cones.

[Anonymous Coward]

No commercial or non-experimental military "bullet" even comes close to 5K+ FPS - try 3200 FPS for exceptionally fast small (.17 Rem) rounds....

Re:Big airbags - bubble wrap - foam - cones.

[pknoll]

4000 MPH = 5867 fps. Bullets are routinely accellerated to that velocity

Not exactly. The 220 Swift was, until recently, the highest muzzle velocity available in a factory round at just over 4000 fps. 220 Swifts have a habit of destroying the rifling of the barrels they use, which tends to make them rather a specialty round, and hardly common. So "routinely" is inaccurate.

The highest muzzle velocity rifles routinely reach is about 3000 fps, and we're looking at nearly double that speed, for some orders of magnitude more mass, for the moon impact.

That's physics for you; the joules on the moon strike would absolutely dwarf a bullet impact.

Re:Big airbags - bubble wrap - foam - cones.

[Killjoy_NL]

hehehe, when I read that 5867fps, I thought, damn, that computer must have some great specs to deliver such a high framerate :D

Re:Big airbags - bubble wrap - foam - cones.

[GoliaththeX]

NASA's recent airbag landing on Mars was made possible by ILC Industries in Dover (Frederica) Delaware. The airbags were made from Vectran, not Kevlar, and polymethylphenylsilicone rubber. ILC Industries also make the spacesuits used by NASA astronauts.

I can see it now...

[Steamhead]

Bill Gates launches 1st edition Windows software at the moon, it crashes.

Yeah...

[Cyno01]

We'd better not piss off those mooninites. No one can defeat their quad-laser! Jumping...is useless...

Re:Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

You know you've been playing Quake too much when you start dreaming about rocket jumping to the moon. Then this article comes along. Someone please wake me up when it's off the front page of /.

Re:Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you can see this, because I'm doing it as hard as I can.

Mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent not a moron, like GP.

If I had to guess...

[vudufixit]

There will probably be a number of "exlusion zones" for such an impact on the Moon, more than you would think. Aside from the historic Apollo LEMs, there would be lunar seismometers, laser reflection mirrors, and impact/landing sites for prior Russian and American unmanned craft.

Re:If I had to guess...

[surprise_audit]

lunar seismometers

Now there's an idea - NASA could do this kind of shoot regularly, to make the moon ring like a bell. Whack it in different places and they'd build up a picture of the inner composition. Or did they do that enough already??

Re:If I had to guess...

[ColaMan]

See here :Apollo 15 Passive Seismic Experiment

Fly United

[Anne_Nonymous]

>> The condition of the cargo is not guaranteed as it crashes on the moon at 4000 mph.

You can achieve the same effect for much less money by flying United and checking your "cargo" as baggage.

Tip of the interplanetary iceberg

[gidds]

What about the principle? If we're thinking up good reasons to dump stuff there before we've even got there ourselves, just think what good reasons we'll have once we get there. And how quickly the mess will grow from something immeasurably insignificant to something noticeable, to something problematic, to something tragic. It's the thin end of the wedge, the tip of the interplanetary iceberg.

You can't argue that because one axe cutting down one tree has little effect, that therefore the rainforests are safe. It's the same here; one canister might be inconsequential, but if we endorse it, what else will we have to allow?

Re:Tip of the interplanetary iceberg

[Anonymous Coward]

So because people, over 16 are allowed to have sex, Michael Jackson is allowed to abuse little boys? That is the logical progression of your 'tip of the iceberg' arguement.

Re:Tip of the interplanetary iceberg

[Anonymous Coward]

You are so full of shit. It's the other way around, you fucking asshole, and it doesn't make sense even then, you used-condom-licking cunt scab.

Explosives

[s0rbix]

Can I pack 22 pounds of explosives?

MOD PARENT UP!

[Recoil_42]

best. the tick reference. ever.

moonrock

[MagicM]

If anyone has a moonrock laying around, I think they should send it back up there.

For some reason, that would make me chuckle...

Re:moonrock

[Anonymous Coward]

If anyone has a moonrock laying around, I think they should send it back up there.

For some reason, that would make me chuckle...

We have a moonrock laying around at the office.
Actually, it's in the front window of the corporate offices, might be tough to walk off with unnoticed.

http://www.tmbdesign.com/ourclients/Chicago%20Trib une%20Tower/tribune%20ur.html

MOD PARENT UP + INFINITY!11!!11!@!

[Anonymous Coward]

REALLY FUNNY!!!

Remember that nut who 'owns' Eros?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey guys, check the name of the owner of Orbital Development. Same guy who claims to own Eros and wants to charge NASA rent for NEAR, no?

I guess he'll use his imaginary spaceship to launch to the Moon too!

Any have 10kg of fissionable material?

[Anonymous Coward]

Big Bang. Big Big BIG bang.

10Kg?

[Master of Transhuman]

You mean, we can't put Bill Gates in there?

How about his head? Will that fit?

How about...

[Anonymous Coward]

throw shit at the moon as a political statement against stupid environmental organizations.
Kind of like a "Fuck Greenpeace!" or "Fuck the Environment!" sort of a thing.
Freedom of speech is wonderful ain't it?

Not likely

[kitzilla]

AS IF I'm going to bid 6mil on that auction. Seller has zero feedback.

Not only that: they don't take PayPal.

10 Kg of dye

[Eudial]

10 Kg of dye... green dye.

Then we'd have a green blob on the moon XD

Mankind Spreads Life to the Moon?

[wintermute1974]

I thought NASA always tried to ensure that the spacecraft it sent beyond the earth's orbit were free from life. This way, we would ensure that we would not be hurling Earth organisms into space.

Well, maybe we should instead consider it mankind's destiny to populate the solar system with life. Who knows, something in that 10kg payload might have the genes capable of surviving on the moon.

When we human beings manage to destroy the biosphere on which we depend, at least we will have given some species a fighting chance to exist far away from us.

Re:Mankind Spreads Life to the Moon?

[SEWilco]

Too late, there already are plenty of Earth rocks on the Moon. The various asteroid impacts have splashed assorted rocks up there, some of which would have had microbes. Indeed, today I heard that NASA has pointed out that the oldest Earth rocks and fossils may be preserved on the Moon.

Earth rocks on the Moon

Cargo Suggestion

[AragornSonOfArathorn]

AOL CDs

Darn!

[Anonymous Coward]

"[...] up to 10kg worth of stuff [...]"

Drats!! I assume Darl weighs a fair amount more than 10kg. Oh well...

Re:Wow

[codemonkey_uk]

Wow, you guys do that at "UofMich"? That's a university, right? Now I understand what's going on in the US education system. We do shit like that at primary school in the UK.

Yes. That's right. Primary school.

Under 12 years old.

Super Balls!

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a few kilos of superballs delivered at 4000mph, that oughta gimme some bang for the buck!

Re:Wow

[Jordy]

I did it in elementary school as well in the US. I imagine there must have been more prep work or something in the UMich version though. Or maybe it was just for fun.

RIAA or SCO...

[MrNonchalant]

"The bid opens with $6 million which will enable the highest bidder to stuff up to 10kg worth of stuff on a space craft and lob it to the moon."

Darnit, 10kg (~22 pounds) is not nearly enough for what I'm envisioning.

Throw me into the Sun, thanks!

[gargan]

I've actually always wanted to go out by being cremated and having at least some of my ashes flung into the general direction of the sun, and open and scatter into the universe. They'd probably drift into the sun and go with it when it explodes. I think it's a nice idea, and what else is a dead body good for?

Re:Throw me into the Sun, thanks!

[Anonymous Coward]

What else is a dead body good for?

Scaring tourists, as in Lenin.

Disgusting behaviour

[meowsqueak]

Yes, I think it's disgusting. I am also saddened and not the least bit surprised to discover the company concerned is American-based. Mod me troll if you want, but I think my point is legitimate - some companies (and not all are American) have a culture of waste and destruction for endless pursuit of profits and I feel compelled to speak my opinion and denounce it.

Re:Disgusting behaviour

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, the rest of the world needs to understand that if the US is to be stopped, it's up to the rest of the goddamned world to stop it. That means, use military force against the US when necessary.

Nobody has the balls to even consider it, and as long as that remains true, the US rules the world, and owns the moon.

Re:fp? Foul Play indeed!

[nizo]

Yes indeedy, this is an excellent way to remove 10kg of evidence quite far indeed from any nosy investigators. Make sure to use a light murder weapon, probably need to torch the remains so they weigh less, wrap it all up in a tarp, yep should be able to get it way under 10kg!

The Cheat

[akorvemaker]

I would love to send a The Cheat.

Hold on tight, The Cheat! We're blasting off to the moon!!!

Re:Wow

[patches]

My sister did this while she was in grade school too, only it was at a summer school. The main difference was that my sisters was dropped onto a grass field, from an airplane.....

Was pretty cool, I remember that one person that didn't have her egg break, her primary solution was she used a goose egg not a chicken egg.

Hmmm

[LizzyDragon]

Sounds like a cheesy idea to me . . .

Misplaced resources

[Entropy2016]

Hmm, which should I choose?

Spending 6 million bucks on shifting lunar rock?

or

Feeding some homeless people?

I'm interested in getting a hold of an IQ test on all millionaires, and comparing the results to the rest of the population.

pollution isn't inherently immoral

[foreverdisillusioned]

What is polluting what, here? A very small bit of metal is "polluting" a huge, cold rock whirling around a nuclear fireball, which will some day swell and swallow up that rock. I'm sorry, but this is not immoral. Polution *can be* immoral because of the negative ways it affects LIFE--and I'm pretty sure that there is no life on the moon. You're taking a slightly bizzare (though understandable) aethetic to keep the moon "unspoiled" and turning it into a moral issue, but it's NOT. It's aethetics, and nothing more. It doesn't matter at all if a bit of metal was mined on earth, processed, then blasted off to some other bit of rock. It just doesn't. You can't even argue that it's unsightly, because there's no one there to see it. I'm not saying that this isn't a stupid thing to do (it is), but immoral? Hah...

Re:pollution isn't inherently immoral

[Anonymous Coward]

It's aethetics, and nothing more.

http://www.google.com/search?q=define:philistine

Re:pollution isn't inherently immoral

[hords]

Of course it will create *some* pollution on Earth to get the rocket into space in the first place. I'm not saying we shouldn't blast rockets into space, but it would be nice if the reason to do so was beneficial in some way and not just a lame stunt.

stupid slashdot nerds...

[hangingonwords]

instead of sitting around bitching about polluting something we can't even inhabit yet why don't you get off your lazy asses and protest. you're all so god damn morally superior with your giant nerd like brains and your posts are indeed proof of that with your big words and smart grammar, but how about a good old fashioned get off your ass protest? speak up and let your voices be heard. i'm sure a lot of the slashdot community has some high rank pull and could offer SOMETHING to a "cause"

as for me, i have my opinions on all the crazy shit out there and i do my part. i've protested things that have never changed and i've went out of my way to change what needed to be changed. i'm not rich and i don't have much pull but at least i get off my ass... give it a try...

Re:stupid slashdot nerds...

[hangingonwords]

aw, i'm a poor little baby.

Orbdev = crackpots

[phritz]

Orbdev has been on slashdot before; if you recall, these guys are suing NASA for parking a probe on "their" asteroid. Take a minute to poke around their website - after I realized who these guys are, I realized there's no way they'll ever be able to figure out a way to get some millionaire's 10 kg of trash to the moon. Total and utter crackpots.

Eternal

[iMaple]

How about offering to send your payload outside the solar system like the Voyegeur.

You can send your buisness card so that when he aliens arrive to conquer earth you could handle all their real estate needs. Even better if there is someone you really hate just send a Windows CD with his name and address on it ...

Wha?

[Anonymous Coward]

No bids? What gives?

If it not for science then cuse we can.

[dont_stand_so_close_]

We don't alway have to do stuff for science. Kennedy sent us to the moon in the first place to beat down the commies. If hurling our garbage up there would have impressed the reds i'm sure he woulden't have wasted any time/money on putting people up there.

Anyway, anyone with 6M to do this is hording money the economy needs anyway. Start Spending You Rich Basterds...

Naysayers

[tregoweth]

I don't understand all the naysaying -- it's got free shipping!

Mod parent down

[Anonymous Coward]

You not smart enough to be moron.

Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a personalized sun-dive would be much more worth the money, especially after a Disaster Area concert.

This is intresting

[Martigan80]

Shipping and handling: Free Shipping (within United States)

You'd figure for 6 Million this would aply world wide.

who owns the Moon

[Kanasta]

why is it that the average person cannot even visit the place yet, and already some stupid company decides they have the right to start destroying it? I guess the stupid Americans want to claim they own the moon now

you ended that thought wrong...

[Transcendent]

Not only would it be cheaper (and safer to humans) to run an incenerator on a huge rock with no atmosphere...

but it would be even CHEAPER to just throw it in the huge incinerator at the center of our solar system!

Is flag burning immoral?

[IceAgeComing]

What is polluting what, here? A very small bit of metal is "polluting" a huge, cold rock whirling around a nuclear fireball, which will some day swell and swallow up that rock. I'm sorry, but this is not immoral.

Is flag burning immoral? It doesn't create much pollution, either.

I see this issue as fundamentally similar to the idea of dropping garbage on the moon.

It's everyone's moon, dammit. I ask you seriously and not rhetorically:

Which is worse, denying one individual the right to spoil something, or denying a billion people the right to think of the moon as unspoiled?

Re:Is flag burning immoral?

[Random832]

Is flag burning immoral?

no. what do you have to say to that?

Re:Is flag burning immoral?

[0x0d0a]

Is flag burning immoral? It doesn't create much pollution, either.

I certainly wouldn't have any problem with burning a flag -- it would be on the same level as calling Rev. Jesse Jackson a stupid cotton-picker. It really doesn't *do* anything aside from piss a number of people off that feel strongly about the issue.

Re:Is flag burning immoral?

[some guy I know]

Is flag burning immoral?

No, as long as it doesn't create a fire hazard.
What is immoral is to try to pass a Constitutional amendmant that would have people thrown in jail for burning a piece of cloth.

Which is worse, denying one individual the right to spoil something, or denying a billion people the right to think of the moon as unspoiled?

It doesn't matter, becasue the Moon has tons of junk on it already.
The problem is, these people want to dump garbage on "property" that they don't own.
I don't know who, if anybody, owns the Moon, but they certainly don't.
And if the Moon is owned by humanity in general, individuals or groups shouldn't be allowed to litter it any more than they should be allowed to throw trash in the street.

Re:Is flag burning immoral?

[IceAgeComing]

> Is flag burning immoral?

no. what do you have to say to that?

I say: how about mentioning what, if anything, is sacred to you? If you're arguing that nothing's sacred, then I argue that you will, at some later point in your life, wonder what your life was really for.

Re:Is flag burning immoral?

[Random832]

my argument was that the flag is not sacred. freedom of speech (including flag burning) is... and that you're a fool for pulling _that_ assumption out on _this_ site.

(the moon, incidentally, is most emphatically _not_.)

Re:Is flag burning immoral?

[IceAgeComing]

and that you're a fool for pulling _that_ assumption out on _this_ site.

Are you using logical argument here or are you resorting to trollish ad hominem? A nonsensical idea calling someone a "fool" would under most definitions constitute flamebait, and I hope your post gets modded accordingly.

I don't follow you at all. Who decides what is sacred? Are you saying you don't care what the rest of the world thinks, or that you just already know?

If you really are a troll, then just do your karma a favor and don't bother replying.

Re:Is flag burning immoral?

[Random832]

i didn't say you were a fool for your (though i do not agree with it) belief that the flag is sacred - i said you were a fool for holding it up as an example, making the assumption that everyone here (of all places) believed that flag burning was wrong.

Re:Is flag burning immoral?

[IceAgeComing]

That's funny strange; I picked the flag example not because I happen to believe it (I don't) but because I thought it was a canonical example. I still maintain that people in general have *something* they consider sacred, whether it be institutions or something extremely personal.

The whole point I'm trying to make is that individual rights and societal rights are never without tension.

With technology moving so much faster than legislation, it's clear to me that the individual is winning, and libertarians should be rejoicing. People are doing things before society can decide the moral implications. One huge gorilla of an example is private military contractors. It's not illegal to use these in war under U.S. law, but there are some pretty nasty implications if some kind of boundary isn't drawn around it.

Re:Is flag burning immoral?

[Random832]

private military contractors? what's that?

do you mean like mercenaries?

Re:Is flag burning immoral?

[IceAgeComing]

Yes. There are US companies for hire on the world market, often to the highest bidder. The US Army is one of the biggest consumers.

Re:Is flag burning immoral?

[Random832]

in case it went over your head "do you mean like mercenaries" was meant to imply that this is nothing new, and thus not a suitable example for something that's "changed too fast to be made illegal"

moon marking fireworks

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember a Robert Heinlien story where there was a commercial venture to the moon. At one point they mentioned selling a cola company a way to mark the moon with ash. the result would be a giant advertisement in the sky forever. Of course they then sold the compeating cola company the rights to be the pop that kept the moon clean. They got money and were able to not carry the extra weight of moon-fireworks.

Re:You're a polluter

[IceAgeComing]

Bla bla bla...spare me intellectual BS. Seriously though. You very nature of being human at this point in time is contributing to the pollution problem. And it's not just you, it's everyone (99.9999%) that takes part in 1st world activity.

Great reason to throw all principles away, huh? Believe it or not, I ride around on a bicycle to/from work because I believe it makes a difference. And sure, I dry my clothes in the dryer instead of on the line right now. But just because we can't be perfect (and none of us will ever be) doesn't mean you should give up completely.

Nothing would get done with an attitude like "We're not perfect, so why even try to be better?"

You're at the "ground zero" of cynical thought with that one.

Re:If I had my choice,

[Technician]

I'd send up a bucket of golf balls and have them delivered near Neal Armstrong's. It'll give future archeologists more of a challange. :-)

Simple Question

[VivianC]

How many AOL CDs can we fit in 10Kg?

?Syntax Error

[xtal]

The moon orbits the earth at 2300 MPH (1 km/s), but orbits the earth at 67,000 MPH (30 km/s).

I know what you're getting at, but.. Eh?

Re:Wow

[surprise_audit]

My daughter did it too - our solution was two foam rubber bricks taped together with an egg-shaped hole in the middle. Dropped off a two story building, it was one of the few survivors.

This is sick and wasteful!

[Anonymous Coward]

There are people all over the world
their buts off trying to keep a roof
over their head and some food on their
table, and yet some idiot can/will blow
millions for *THAT!?*

What I want to see is a Robin Hood scenerio
happen where some f#@& up wins the auction, and
the auctioneer gives the money to people who
really need it. Too bad it won't happen >:(

Forget the cargo, take some pictures

[Avlimator]

What would be cool is to see someone launch a vehicle like this, but instead of pointlessly crashing something into the moon, do some fly-bys of various lunar landing sites and send some high quality pictures back.

Can you....

[ScoreZX2]

If this landed on property that you had bought (link), can you sue for trespassing?

oh good

[VanillaCoke420]

So even before we start living there, littering the place with garbage, we feel we have to do it intentionally? What is wrong with us? When did garbage get promoted from "necessary evil" to "unnecessary fun"?

we like the moon...leave the moon alone.

[atarione]

http://www.rathergood.com/moon_song/

man that is the suck, stop teh lobing of stuff at the moon. =(

Reminds me of...

[Cyno01]

One of my favorite books Generation X, by Douglas Coupland, also wrote Microserfs.

"I've also devised a way to get rid of all the world's plutonium - safely and forever. I've been just so clever while everyone was away."... "You take all of the plutonium that's lying around, you know, the big chunks that they use as doorstops at power plants. You take these big doorstop chunks and coat them in steel, just like M&M candies, and then you put them in a rocked and fire them out over land. That way, if the rocket crashes, you just go and pick up the M&M'm and try again. But the rockets won't crash, and the plutonium gets fired right into the sun."

Hey!

[Anonymous Coward]

You got peanut butter in my H2CO3!

Re:Hey!

[0x0d0a]

You two nitwits put peanut butter and H2CO3 in my nice clean glass!

Nuclear Bomb

[slazar]

Am I the only one who thinks it would be kinda cool to send a nuclear bomb? Well kinda sick actually, but I am just wondering if say, it would be visible to the naked eye from earth...

Paint It RED!

[gmby]

How about a big 10Kg red paint ball?

Then you can say that you got to:

SHOOT THE MOON!

and of course it will need to be biodegradable paint!

Re:Paint It RED!

[misof]

This reminds me of an old joke:

American astronauts arrive to the moon. Their communication with Earth:

• Astronauts, 12:00: It's okay, we are the first men to the moon.
• Astronauts, 13:00: Russians are landing nearby! What shall we do?
• NASA, 13:01: Just wait.
• Astronauts, 14:00: The Russians started to PAINT THE MOON RED! What shall we do?
• NASA, 14:01: Just wait.
• Astronauts, 17:00: The Russians are done, almost the whole moon is red... What the hell shall we do?
• NASA, 17:01: Now it is our turn! Open the container with white paint and write: Coca-Cola!

Re:Paint It RED!

[unts]

3 hours to paint the moon red - those industrious Russians!

OB: UserFriendly :):):)

[laejoh]

Just came to this one today, seems appropriate :)

In a manner of speaking (http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20040408 )

Re:fp

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad 22 pounds ain't enough for a body.

What about an old HD?

[Mercury2k]

I have an old defective 9gig SCSI that I would be love to see hit some surface at mach 4. But could data recovery companies still recover my data? ;)

Shipping

[Viceice]

From the above link:

Shipping and payment details

Shipping and handling: Free Shipping (within United States)
Will ship worldwide.

Thats not good enough, we need it shiped OUT of this world.

Its not polluting the moon...

[mlush]

... its polluting Earth. Most of the rockets mass is going to be spread in Earths atmosphere and the solid waste will be end up dropping into our 'back yard' or worse in orbit where it can damage real space craft.

On top of that there is the waste producing the rocket, not just rubbish going to the corporate dustbins and drains, but energy needed to refine and machine the materials has a cost in pollution.

Its not the kilograms on the Moon, the kiloton's on the Earth that are the real issue

Do they qualify?

[buzzsport]

Just think - Rosie O'donnell, Oprah Winfrey, and Martha Stewart all taken care of in one mission.

I'll send my slashdot karma.

[guttergod]

I'm sure they'll appreciate me adding negative weight to the project...

How about...

[DamienNightbane]

a few gallons of semen? If that doesn't fuck with scientists, what will?

How about sending a portable mp3 player..

[guttergod]

playing ride of the valkyries repeatedly... Now that would make for a great impact...

Re:pollution isn't inherently immoral: YES IT IS!

[irikar]

The Anthropic principle. We humans can't think out the box. For example, we would never meet a true alien creature because it would biologically be too different from the way we define a living creature. According to the same princile, our universe was created the way we see it simply because if it wasn't, we probably wouldn't be there to observe it in the first place.

But that does not mean there's nothing else surrounding us that we don't see because we are not designed to see it... So who the f-word are we to think we know the consequences of your acts?

We have a very biased definition of what is a living creature, very human-centric; not too different from the old folks who thought the Earth was the center of the universe...

Who said the moon is not a living creature? How do we know? Are we so omnipotent as to think that the whole universe is the way we are able to observe it; not to mention that our only tool of observation is our brain?

Come on, go back and read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it'll help you put things in total perspective...

In doubt, don't mess around with things we only think we understand... So yes it is immoral to mess around with something we don't understand and we have no idea of the true consequences of your foolish acts in the long term; more importantly when there is no other purpose to the messing around than a very despicable and short term objective of making money; especially when we know zillions of ways to do a more useful thing with all that money...

Quick, before I start bidding..

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats Bill Gates weight in Kgs?

>'o'

Bad Idea

[nukeade]

I agree - remember how MIR had lichen growing all over the bottom of it when it crashed into Earth? If this stuff isn't properly sterilized, it could end up that the moon grows a lichen lawn, becomes less reflective, and not only do we lose the ability to appreciate a very unique object in our night sky, but it'll lead to the extinction of a variety of species on Earth, including sea turtles that use the moon's light to find their way to sea after hatching.

Although, if there were some way to get it to spell "Ben Rules" with shiny foil...

~Ben

Re:pollution isn't inherently immoral: YES IT IS!

[irikar]

So yes it is immoral to mess around with something we don't understand and we have no idea of the true consequences of your foolish acts in the long term

Oups, I meant our not your...

I think Nasa and other agencies would object

[earthforce_1]

To deposititing material that is not absolutely sterile on other worlds. It really screws up their research into lunar soil composition and the search for organic compounds on the moon/mars if some bozo splatters his remains or the remains of his pet dog/cat all over the surface just for vanity's sake.

Moo

[Chacham]

Reminds me of the GI Joe episode where Cobra Commander used a laser to put his (covered) face on the moon.

Re:robotic Observatory

[ObscureCoder]

Would they refund your money if the first 5 pictures sent back to earth, was an asteroid coming towards, and smacking your telescope??

Lunar Polution, Not!

[OrbDev]

The viewpoint that this uselessly trashes the Moon lacks rationality. The total surface area of the Moon is about the same as Africa. The debris footprint from this spacecraft will be about a 1000 foot diameter circle or oval. The moon is +250F in the daytime and -250F at night. There is no life or ecosystem whatsoever. The moon is a huge, dead rock. Just what "consequence" could you possibly imagine that is so detrimental, which this project desecrates? Human progress is based upon the exploitation of resources, like it or not. When they are exhausted on Earth, we >will get them from Space. OrbDev's little MoonCrash Project is more about demonstrating a commercial lunar activity, in hopes it will encourage more robust activities. Eventually we will get Helium-3 from the Moon to power our ever-expanding civilization with clean nuclear fusion. We can never go back to unspoiled wilderness, unless you want to murder 5.5 billion humans. The more industrial activity that occurs in Space will mean less in our Earth's environment. Best Regards, Gregory Nemitz "On the Moon, there are no trees for you to hug."

Physics to English

[Anonymous Coward]

A 4000 mph impact pretty much makes decomposition irrelevant. Unless, of course, we switch majors and study deconstruction.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I just used a hard-boiled egg...

</engineer>

Re:pollution isn't inherently immoral: YES IT IS!

[Anonymous Coward]

You ask how we know the moon isn't a living creature. What if it is, and we're starving it by *not* sending out garbage there? Who are you to say that's less likely? Seriously, that argument can apply to absolutely anything. Isn't it possible that these actions are creating new life forms we can't even imagine, and helping the whole universe in ways we can't know?

Two words...

[clarkcox3]

Tactical Nuke :)

Re:pollution isn't inherently immoral: YES IT IS!

[irikar]

You could be right, who knows, it's definitely a possibility. But since we have no idea of the consequence of such action, I think we should, in doubt, leave things the way they were before we arrived, especially when those things were around a lot longer than us human beings. I mean what's a few million years, the age of the human species (or only ~200K years for the modern human), compared to 4.6 billion of years, the presumed age of our earth and its moon...

Then again, we calculated the age of the human species and that of the Earth and moon by using our only tool of observation, the brain. We could be completely wrong since we don't even understand how the brain really works... And how would you understand the brain if your only tool of observation is the brain itself? Paradox of self-reference will make my brain hurt!

Cheers!

Nope

[shiftless]

The Sidewinder is a primitive AIR TO AIR missile. A Hellfire (air to GROUND) missile is what you want.

Re: Lunar Golf Balls

[some guy I know]

I'd send up a bucket of golf balls and have them delivered near Neal Armstrong's.

It was Alan Shepard, not Neil Armstrong, who golfed on the Moon.
(Also, it's spelled "Neil", not "Neal".)

Please learn how to use links.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please learn how to use links.

<a href="http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960112.ht ml">Lunar bull's-eye</a>

yields: Lunar bull's-eye

Microsoft

[MonkeyCookie]

If we have the capability to transport enough junk there to make any kind of a mess at all then our tech will be advanced enough that this won't be a problem.

I think Microsoft has been thinking along these lines all along when developing software :)

I have a much simpler, more efficient idea.

[Distortions]

Or, you could just hurdle the junk into the largest *free* incinerator ever made..

DUN DUN DUN!!!... <Dramatic pause>

THE SUN!
Or any sing one of the trillions of stars in the universe will do really.

Sometimes the problem is things can be "blindingly obvious" (pun intended).
Oh, and my sig will go quite well with my post :P.