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

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

[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

[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]

Things wouldn't decompose on the moon.

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.

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: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.

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.

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?

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

[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

[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

[blake8087]

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

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

[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

[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

[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?

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?

Darn!

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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

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: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: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".

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