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: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.

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

[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.

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...