Slashdot Mirror
NASA's $73 Million Water-Finding Trick
An anonymous reader writes "The folks at NASA, obviously looking for new ways to explore the universe, are planning to crash a two-ton probe into the moon. The goal? To find water." From the article: "NASA plans a series of robotic precursor missions including the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, which will plow into the crater, and the mapper, called the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. When LCROSS strikes the crater, it is expected to create a hole 16 feet deep and send up a 2.2 million-pound (998,000-kg) plume of debris for sensors and cameras stationed on a second spacecraft to monitor. Dozens of ground-based telescopes, as well as possibly space observatories, such as the Hubble telescope, will be trained on the plume as well."
That's no moon, it's a.... ... pinata?
Now if they'd just started making this one of the secondary objectives in every mission, there would hardly ever be any failed missions. It's a Win/Win situation.
"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today." -Isaac Asimov
Couldn't they just send up Ted Kennedy to pilot the next shuttle mission?
Explosions RULE!
The more you know, the less you understand.
Since i'm positive someone will post it, i'll debunk it ahead of time.
"WHAT IF WE DESTROY THE MOON!?"
It won't. A good anaology would be crashing the empire state building into Wyoming. It would look sorta cool, but that's about it.
"WHAT ABOUT DESTROYING NATURE!?"
Well, the moon in a dead chunk of former Earth material which has no atmosphere and certainly no ecology. And as stated previously, the explosion won't be all that neat on a planetary scale. The Moon has taken much much worse hits from meteors and what not.
So basically, break out your telescopes in '08 and enjoy the show.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
1) One has to wonder if the excitement generated by Deep Impact is just going to spawn a whole series of experiments involving slamming large impactors onto heavenly bodies... if only for the publicity of smashing a heavenly body.
2) One has to wonder if people will, like in Deep Impact, ask if the scientists are going to crash the moon into the Earth... because they don't understand what they are doing, and that it is unsafe.
Just ask the Defense lawyers for the team at Duke. This Probe is doomed to fail.
They used to crash the upper stages of the Saturn 5 to gain scientific data from the Moon. Learned a lot that way.
Hard to say if this will work though. The theoretical plume size has a lot of unknowns involved. To date, they have never directly observed water on the Moon, but have only identified a certain amount of hydrogen, which would correspond to a certain amount of water, if that hydrogen was bound in water molecules. If the hydrogen is hydrated minerals, that plume will be much, much smaller than projected.
I guess NASA did learn something from all the Mars impacts after all... ;)
Oh well, what the hell...
Won't that, like, modify the orbit of the moon and mess up the entire solar system and cause armageddon?
These NASA people are sure enthusiastic about wasting taxpayer money blowing holes in flying rocks...
FTA: NASA astronauts visited the moon during the late 1960s and early 1970s under the Apollo program but have not returned.
I think it's a little late, now, to think of sending up missions to bring them back to earth.<grin>
Have they no respect for the environment?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
You know what would be amazing? If we could talk about technology on Slashdot again, and leave Bush out of the conversation. Seriously. What prompted you to say that? Was it political, or about technology (and the troll who tells me that technology is political should lay off)?
They better not hit the sites of any of my future summer homes!
;)
"... it is expected to create a hole 16 feet deep and send up a 2.2 million-pound (998,000-kg) plume of debris"
I think they're most likely ballpark figures for a 5 metre deep crater, and 1000 tonnes of debris. Convert these to imperial measurements and back again without thinking too much, and you gain many significant figures of accuracy!
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Dozens of ground-based telescopes, as well as possibly space observatories, such as the Hubble telescope, will be trained on the plume as well.
It does not look like Hubble will be around long enough. Without shuttle-based repairs, it is not expected to last more than a few more years unless it gets luckier than the Mars rovers.
This collision mission sounds similar to the comet-crash mission last 4th of July, Deep Impact.
Table-ized A.I.
When you need to crash a spacecraft, NASA are the go to guys.
You know, I don't approve of the current administration's actions either, but your comments are completely out of place and should be mod'ed "Troll."
If you don't pick your moments and speak intelligently then your message will become easily ignorable background noise.
You're a smart guy; you can contribute more than this.
But... But... The Enterprise doesn't smash a Class 1 Probe into planets when it wants to scan for water, so why does NASA have to? Or maybe this is another instance where I'm inappropriately placing elements of Star Trek technology into contemporary science problems? I'm so confused...
-William Brendel
NASA crashes probe into planet, news at eleven...
At least they've learned their limits and have decided to specialize in that which they already excel. Bet you the "big hunk o' metal" probe costs over $1 billion US to manufacture anyway.
Good Lord,
In space there's hardly any gravity. I've seen pictures of ordinary humans being able to perform great feats of strength in space, like upside down pushups with the tip of their finger while wearing an orange jumpsuit and gobbling floating blobs of water like a chameleon. I've also seen astronauts on the moon take great flying leaps that no human could do on Earth. If an ordinary human can do those things in space, then obviously a 2 ton weight should be able to do unimaginable damage. It's likely that the moon will either crack into 2 pieces, or possibly fly off into space where it will be gobbled up by Jupiter or become a tenth planet. I can't imagine what these "scientists" are thinking. We seriously need to put a stop to this now.
The $272 seems to be working so far. Look ma! No planes hitting buildings!
One thing I like about Moon missions is we can see the results pretty much immediately, we can even see the mission via a telescope!
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
"NASA's mission to crash a probe into the moon came to an unfortunate end today as the probe suffered a glitch and settled into a stable orbit around the Moon instead of the planned death-dive. Officials said they believe the cause of the problem was engineers mistakenly using the metric system in a system where imperial measures should have been used."
~Philly
I can't decide whether to try to make an Excel Saga joke out of the project name, or merely reflect on the vague similarities to Baxter's "Moonseed".
Couldnt a nice drill be constructed and landed gently to dig down 16 feet? Why do we need to start trashing the moon? I understand that probablly every planet and moon needs to have a 'New Jersey' to dump its trash but come on, we havent even colonized yet.
Poor logic.
"I only paid $10,000 for my lucky won't-get-struck-by-lightning charm and OMG! It TOTALLY works!"
Money well spent? I don't think so. Especially if the lightning's is known to place value on changing tactics. But I bet you would feel safer.
Remember, statistically speaking, no Americans have been killed by terrorists in the last 20 years.
Yes and when Clinton was "ministering" young interns in the oval office we didn't have planes running into buildings either.
Is this really necessary?
I'm glad that banging stuff together when bored and frustrated is still an accepted practice.
Now to take care of some coworkers...
Didn't Beagle 2 already do this?
I'm sorry. I really am.
I pretend to know more than I really do by mooching off google and wikipedia.
The knowledge that oil is available is known,
but it's not likely there is appreciable water in the moon.
The expediture is relative, and possibly just as moot.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
The best part of Star Trek: The Motion Picture was when the Klingons probed an alien phenomenon in a similar way.
Let's hope NASA's probe has different results!
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
Poorer logic. Your analogy is contrived. You have no proof that our $272 investment and larger sacrifice hasn't been a deterrent. In fact, you have significantly less evidence than I do since, well, there hasn't been any attacks on US soil since 9/11.
Face it: our efforts and policies are working.
Okay, I admit, I'm a bit of a bumpkin when it comes to understanding the scale of all this. I was just curious: Would this be visible to the naked eye?
... of all things... fire. There was a theory that a large meteor struck the moon and put on a light show. I was just curious if a.) Anybody knows about the story I'm referring to and can point me at the right search terms to find it and b.) if there's an off-shoot chance that Nasa's going to pull a stunt that'll result in some group of people suddenly dropping to their knees and praying.
Why do I ask? I was watching some show on Discovery or History Channel several years ago. They said that in the 1600's or so some monks prayed for a sign, then they looked up at the sky and saw the moon on
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Looks like they're aiming for another Mad Science Award.
I guess this will finally disprove the theory that the moon is made of cheese.
Nuke The Moon A realistic plan for world peace.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Some may also find it useful to link to the actual Deep Impact project page instead of to a Wiki.
Assuming they do find water, I can't help but wonder what the quality of it would be. Would it be drinkable? Would it need to go through a 24 stage modern filtration system? What about the posibility of consumers of the water getting moon cooties? You gotta be careful about moon cooties...>_>
Hero of Allacrost, a FOSS RPG for *NIX/*BSD/OS X/Win
The parent expressed what is arguably one of the least-informed opinions yet presented on Slashdot.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Phase II = MoonRaker!
And if that doesn't clear things up, well, we'll send in MoonLeafBlower!
The project, called "Deep Orbital Water Sensing Emitter" or DOWSE, is NASA's most ambitious project in years. Current plans call for the capital-Y-shaped vessel to be finished and ready for launch in early 2007 and while the execution may be complex, the basic idea is simple. Engines in the craft's stems will propel it toward the moon, while the actual navigational commands will be issued from the hollow body of the vessel. "What will be in that half-mile long tude issuing these complex water-seeking commands," you ask? As much of the US's growing psychic population as NASA can cram in, comes the almost predictable answer. And while the psychics will certainly be killed on lunar impact, NASA feels that this will more than offset the cost of what is almost certain to be a failed mission.
why not just go there and dig?
They're using their grammar skills there.
But that is what is so great about it, if the message is so far out of place, if it doesn't make anyone laugh, then yes, it will be modded down...situation solved.
NASA tried this impact project with Lunar Prospector in 1999. But it did not lead to any substantial ejection of water vapor off the impact point. No water vapor was observed with the Hubble/STIS (spectrograph). I believe (have not RFTA) that NASA wants to do it right with a proper impactor at this time.
...planning to crash a two-ton probe into the moon."
:D
To ensure the probe actually crashes I suggest we use MS Windows.
COuldn't resist
I love humanity, it is people I hate
can they not just send someone with dowsing rods?
Poorest logic yet! You are clearly not familiar with the precepts of guerrilla warfare. Kill one, terrify a thousand. They counted on a predictable response and we have not needed another "lesson."
Those pesky terrorists who "hate our freedoms" haven't HAD to do anything. Your gov. has taken away more liberties and freedoms than terrorists could have hoped to. The War on Terror has obviated the terrorists' need to conduct any attacks. They got the desired effect with almost no effort! Classic guerrilla tactics.
How many more White House, Pentagon, State and intelligence officials must come forward for the remaining minority (thankfully) of Americans to accept what is so obviously true?
Or you could just look around you at any measure of "quality of life" you care to. Education: in the pooper with funding continuing to plummet. Economy: Avg income dropping, savings rate is negative, Federal surplus has become record deficit, wealth gap continues to widen, job creation at lowest rates in 50 years (though a recent upswing), etc. 7 years ago, would you have ever thought election fraud would become an important issue in the US? Times, they are a'changin'....
Or Iraqis could examine the "quality of life" in Iraq as I got to see first hand for 3 years. Sure, most thought Saddam should be overthrown. Duh. But now after more than three years even the major cities don't have the same level of utility serive as before, employment is a fraction of what it was, 60-80% of schools and universities are still closed, access to helath care is even worse than before (coalition efforts have builkt only 23 of the 147 planned clinics), etc.
Maslow and his heirarchy of needs tells us that it's hard to focus on abstractions like "democracy" when you have no idea how you'll continue to feed the family (and can't help but think about how you could before the US came....) I only pray that they can collectively hold on. Iraqis are a wonderful people.
Face it: there is no evidence that ANY of it has worked - every metric you choose points to an unmittigated failure.
Is that Moon pounds or earth pounds? cause 2.2 million pounds on the moon is a lot more mass than 2.2 million pounds on earth....
Damn, you're a fucking moron.
sarcasm This is just old-fashioned pork barrel politics. Except, now they're not even pretending: instead of saying a $2,000,000,000 "bridge to nowhere" serves an actual purpose they are just going to outright spend $73,000,000 with the explicit purpose of making a pile of debris on the moon. I bet they name it after Senator Ted Stevens(R-Alaska) or Bill Frist(R-Tenn). At least Bill Frist has some experience on conducting science at a distance. "Frist Water-Seeking Mission to the Moon" sounds kind of catchy. Kind of. Maybe? Ok, no. /sarcasm
Which reminds me... Why not send a witch? If she drowns then you know there's water.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
See, things like this are why I am just not that impressed with science...
If the objective of every mission is to crash, then NASA CANNOT fail. What does it take to work for NASA again (I have much experience crashing objects ;)
Here's a chemistry challenge. What do you have on the moon which can be converted to water and oxygen?
(Shhh. Nobody tell him about the politics section.)
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
They think if they hit the ground hard enough they're going to go all the way down and find water? That's not a theory science pretty much disproved with Wyle E. Coyote?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Setting off a nuke on the moon. Just think of the kind of crater you can make with a nuke, the kind of dust plume you could create, and all the advertising you could get.
."
"This year's moon-nuke detonation has been brought to you by. .
Dude, that was weak! Seriously, that's the best rebuttal you got?
Free tip: all analogies are contrived to some degree by design, otherwise they would be a purely literal reference of the original topic and add nothing in the way of perspective. Their logical and argumentative value is in their measured departure from the point at hand.
For what it's worth, it was actually a good analogy; large expenditures on a good or service designed to prevent something with an small a priori probability of occurrance. Though I am not a W basher, it was actually spot-on, if simplistic.
I'm pretty sure I could make something from a few car batteries and a thousand bucks at the hardware store that would do the job better than a $73M small bomb, provided they supply the rocket to send it up. Is this really the best we can do? Heck, why bother with the probe if it's just going to crash? Surely the rocket alone would be much cheaper.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
if they make the probe with 2 tons of ice =)
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
Maybe they should mount a dowsing rod onto the guidance system...
And the brethren went away edified.
What if they miss the moon, and it slingshots round the moon, just misses earth, then slingshots round the sun, picking up an amazing amount of speed, then bam! smacks straight back into earth, at approximately 4:25:14am EST. Tuesday
Oh, excuse me. I didnt mean to get in the way of your oh so important reading.
Ok, this sound like fun and games until someone gets hurt. When they wake up Godzilla, I think he might be pretty pissed off, kindof like Napolean returning from Alba or something!
At the risk of sounding like a freak, I wonder if anyone has considered the possibility of finding life underground on other planets. Not nessisarily intelligent (but specifically in the case of the moon) perhaps microscopic life that sealed off a little bit of air/gas in underground caverns, plumes of debris including a few hundred thousand years of evolution?
We just seem "hole punching happy" these days in terms of alien bodies. How pissed would aliens be if a giant, overly expensive missile, bearing the US flag landed in thier roof? Its a moot point for now, but what happens when we get slammed with a weapon sent from klendathu?
An they will *accidentally* crash the probe on the Apollo 11 landing site. Then listen to the conspirationists...
According to this CNN article, it's actually a $600 million mission. The probe itself is capped at $80 million, yes, but the entire mission's cost also includes getting the probe and its mother ship into lunar orbit, dropping the probe, and getting the mother ship to fly through the plume and search for water vapor.
I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
The folks at NASA, obviously looking for new ways to explore the universe, are planning to crash a two-ton probe into the moon
Crashing probes! Whatever happend to all the nuclear bombs?
--
http://nirnimesh.blogspot.com/
What about slashdot start using SI units on the front page? Every country in the world minus one or two uses them. You are legacy!
And it's even worse when you mix them, "two-ton" and "pounds" in the same post...
Lame.
And most peoples feet aren't of the same size. One meter is pretty exact though.
Farmers...
Yeah except that a nuke in a vaccuum is a pretty mundane event. Think mini-star. The plume effect and shockwaves all come from superheating the air -- which wouldn't work up there. I imagine a nuke on the moon would look like a great big stadium light for about one and a half seconds, and then just leave some nice radiation-cooked moondust near where it was.
From TFA: NASA astronauts visited the moon during the late 1960s and early 1970s under the Apollo program but have not returned.
Those astronauts, who sacrificed so willingly, sitting up there all alone on the Moon for thirty years...
[/sarcasm]
I hope the LCROSS doesnt hire a BLKSTRIPR. That tends to turn out badly.
What if the dust cloud sends the moon into a vicious cylce of Lunar Warming???? Is it not bad enough man has destroyed the earth atmosphere, now we must ruin the moon as well? I hope they can live with the blood of the Man on the Moon on their hands. The GreenHouse effect will surely make the moon uninhabitable.
Those kids at N.A.S.A. love comedy. Mr. Show season 3 episode six. "America will blow up the moon" This will be the best 4th of July ever!
No it is not a good analogy.
The point of the war isn't to prevent terrorism at all, terrorism was the tool
used to convince the public it was a good idea. The point of the war is to keep
control of the world oil markets.
Do you think that the administration is so misguided that they would start a
war in Iraq to prevent terrorism?!? You give them too little credit. Anybody
with half a brain can tell you that the war will breed terrorism, and money
would have been far better spent increasing border and port security,
intellegence, and promoting goodwill throughout the world.
A better analogy would be that I tell you I used your $10000 to buy you a
lightning protector. Actually I'm spending the money on something completely
different, but you don't really know or care what that might be.
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next
time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment
rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough
to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when
they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the
address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed
at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night?
Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent
nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that
particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear
reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting
trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members
of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the
country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
(Hey, I've seen enough people plagiarize this piece over the years, I thought I might as well post it myself for old time's sake.)
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Actually, I thought the Empire State Building analogy was fairly good. The sizes are kinda irrelevant; neither the building nor the probe will destroy Wyoming nor the moon, and both would look pretty cool. ^_^
DATABASE WOW WOW
No, they are just turning the moon in a thing I call ''Death Star'' (*moves fingers*)
if anything it should be:
In Soviet Russia, moon bombs you!
The joke is on whoever bought the lunar real estate but forgot to secure the water rights.
Yeah, but we did get the DMCA. Sooo... tie?
What do you have on the moon which can be converted to water and oxygen?
Water + energy (electricity)=hydrogen + oxygen
I give up, what can be converted to water and oxygen?
Blank until
Yeah, and after the 1993 World Trade Center attack, there were no further attacks from Islamic extremists on U.S. soil for the remaining eight years of the Clinton presidency. What is your point, Clinton-lover?
Aliens have a base on the Moon and told us in no uncertain terms to get off and stay off the Moon.
r in
http://www.anomalous-images.com/astroufo.html#Ald
Why don't they just use two bent sticks?
i'd say he just got red flagged by the NSA. and now i just did, too.
i disable sigs
Witches won't drown even if there is water.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
These are some facts I have witnessed and learned through my employment. Take it at face value, believe it or don't believe it, because I'm not providing corroborating pictures, details, or evidence beyond my own testimony.
Homeland security buys in bulk and at great premium millions of dollars of useless personal appliances from China, such as rice cookers, nose hair trimmers, massage wands, and heating pads, boxes them up, and buries them in railroad shipping containers in the Arizona desert for no reason whatsoever other than to spend its budget and prevent sub-agencies from getting the funds. I suspect that the money goes to a middleman in order to secretly siphon funds into foreign organizations which we can't support over the table, but this is just me trying to find a justification for this massive and intentional government waste.
Donald Rumsfeld needs to wear iced underwear because of some medical condition, and he has his secret service detail hold his spares. He was recently getting uncontrollable long-term erections and had to change up his medical treatments. The underwear and the erections is why he uses a standing desk, not because he is some super-man. He also wears nylon stockings, not because he's gay, but to control some vascular problem with his legs which causes him intense pain.
President Bush uses anti-depressant medication, a lot of it, at a stupendous dosage, and he is hiding it from the American public. This is the real reason he stopped drinking. Because of the dosage, he is also impotent.
Tom Ridge carries 20 credit cards with him at all times, each one with a very low limit. I have never heard of him using one, ever, but he has them. He also wears his socks inside-out, and will flip the fuck out and walk strangely if he is forced to wear them properly, because it drives him crazy. All of his socks must be laundered right side in and then turned inside out before they are returned to him. He gave specific instructions about handling his food, and not allowing his vegetables to touch any other food item on the plate. His utensils must be steamed over boiling water. He will not eat soup which hasn't been boiled within the past 20 minutes or which he has not prepared himself. If any of these rules are violated, he flies into a rage, turns beet red, and will not eat a single thing. He has his personal attendants confirm over and over that the food is as he likes it. He also shaves his forearms and hands because he can't stand the idea of body hair on his arms. He demands that his bedsheets are bleach white and changed fresh every night and he sleeps in a separate bed in a big, tight, body-length nylon sleeve, with a fan blowing over him at full power. He is terrified of animals which have fur or hair longer than one inch, and will not go near curly hair of any kind, even on people. At one time he ran from his office and demanded that someone look under everything for a rodent which did not and could not exist, then he had the entire place wiped down with disinfectant and vacuumed twice. While this was done he couldn't even bear to look at the door, or come within 20 feet of his office. He was in hysterics.
President Bush, when dining at the white-house, does not eat any item of food which has not been first sniffed by a trained dog before being prepared. Think about that.
Word among the staff is that Cheney was drunk when he shot that lawyer, and secluded himself for a day to sober up and avoid felony firearms charges. I don't have any direct information on this because the guys with him at the time are not talking. This is totally unconfirmed, but I think it is plausible.
Dick Cheney has chronic gum problems and his breath smells like shit as a result. He is also a CLOSE TALKER. He keeps a small bottle of diluted hydrogen peroxide which he rinses with every hour on the hour, and he swallows it instead of spitting. He also picks his nose vigorously (violently) and hums loudly and tunelessly to himself while taking shits.
There is a sealed roo
They use a damn big 2 ton divining rod!
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Don't they remember what happened almost 6 short years ago??? Always remember the heroes of 9/13!!
n g?v=nnbPcmLfWYE&search=space%201999
http://www.youtube.com/w/Space-1999--year-1-openi
http://www3.youtube.com/watch?v=jFMah8kKg2A
Thanks,
Mike
this probe will probably land, begin running experiments and set up a biosphere before quietly and uneventfully returning to earth
This technology was first [1993] published as "Artificial Meteorite Strike Spectroscopy" to seek water at the poles of Mercury, now NASA will do it on the Moon. This paper referenced Bruce Murray et al. hypothesizing water at the Lunar poles. HUMAN AND ROBOTIC PRECURSOR MISSIONS TO THE POLAR ICECAPS OF MERCURY Proceedings of The High Frontier Conference XI: Bringing the Vision of Space into Reality, 11th in a series formally known as the Space Manufacturing Conference, Space Studies Institute, Princeton, NJ, June 1993 [and see also the reference to this in "The Ball-bearing Bowling Alternative: Wild Strikes for Polar Ice", Mercury Messenger, Issue 6, July 1994, p.4] Jonathan V. Post, "Mars Polar Cap and Mercury Polar Cap Manned Science Missions", unscheduled talk at Mars Session, Session co-chairman Willy H. Sadeh, AIAA 30th Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit, Reno, NV, 7 January 1992 [included 1st detailed public presentation of manned Mercury polar mission proposal] Jonathan V. Post, "Lunar Farside, Mars Polar Cap, and Mercury Polar Cap Neutrino Experiments", Proceedings of Space 92 (3rd International Conference on Engineering, Construction, and Operations in Space), pp.2252-2263, ed. Willy H. Sadeh, Stein Sture, Russel J. Miller, 31 May - 4 June 1992, Denver, CO, AIAA/American Society of Civil Engineers, New York [included 1st publication of manned Mercury polar mission proposal]
Environmental Impact Study of the LCROSS Spacecraft on the Moon
Environment: None.
Impact: About two tons.
They should just get a shovel and dig, instead of blowing up half the moon. Lazy americans.
A bit of caution should be exercised. If NASA explodes a large enough object, or for enough instances, the moon could be set thrown off its currect orbit around Earth by a few degrees. That could very well alter the tide flows and lead to catastrophic effects. This reminds me of the Outer Limits episode where aliens launch a quantum singularity at the moon.
I bet this thing crashes into the Apollo landing site, conveniantly destroying all traces of its existance (or non existance).
NASA:"Opps, you will just have to take our word for it now and stop asking us to prove it"
I wonder what the effect tons of debris flying from the moon will have... Oh wait, I know! The rocks will be aiming for: Earth. So that means George Bu-, I mean, NASA will shoot down our climate monitoring satellites so we can all sell our souls to the devil without knowing better. All we have to worry about is some of those WMD that terrorists have hidden on the moon... Boy, is it just me or is it starting to get hot on this planet?
I have always been under the impression that the moon was too close and too bright for Hubble to look at.
or (shudder)
In Soviet Russia, bombs moon you!
But it would be 5 times as expensive, and 10 times more likely to fail. NASA can't afford either of those at this time. You also get to point way more instrumentation at the result, and almost the entire technology is already tested with the 'deep impact' probe.
As for 'trashing' the moon, that's rather like saying that a mosquito is trashing my arm -- except that my arm has had far fewer mosquitos.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
JUST NUKE THE F*****
The $270B could have gone into research (including NASA) and other more useful things.
Instead it's essentially being used to create a bunch of smaller, far less productive holes in the ground -- some filled with bodies; some filled with nothing.
Some geeks are reasonably upset about this -- including some with friends and family members filling some of these expensive holes. I say let them vent, and go on to the next comment.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
"He who breaks a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom." - Gandalf the Grey
Be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted.
I think that this is the first post I have seen yet which accurately describes the theory of guerilla tactics as operated by Che and Mao. The tactics are intended to turn your enemy (the US Government) into a worse oppressor than you could hope to be, so that the people will begin to see you as their saviour and protector.
The thing that suprises me is that this theory has been well known for ages. It was standard reading for UK (and, I supose US) Security Services in the 1960s. So the next question arises - why have we fallen for it?
i can only see two possibilities.
a) Our leaders and security specialists are too stupid and ill informed to know what was common knowledge a generation ago..
b) They know, but actually want the result.
This last is the most worrying possibility. At the end of the Cold War a lot of government security staff had no clear job any more. Now they have new work, and the promise of it stretching into the far future.
Perhaps it has worked better than you think.
When the main character doing the time travel in the 2002 adaptation of the H.G. Wells classic goes into the future, doesn't he end up in the midst of mass panic due to the orbit of the moon having been disturbed by resort construction that used explosives or something?
"the time machine"? u know were the time traveller is trying to
find out why he cant change the past? he lands somewhere in the future on
his quest just to find that earthling have blown up the moon?
If you're going to crash a 2 tonne probe into the surface, why not just send a block of concrete? surely cheaper.... :-)
Personally i think its quite disturbing.. a 2 ton object into the moon.. What effect does this have on it trajectory?.. etc. and whats next a 50, 100, 1000 tone object? We should stop them they dont own the moon!! Heck i think we should drop a 2 tone object from out of space in NASAS back yard and see what they have to say about that.
www.orionsimracing.com
....countries to bomb and so now starts interplanetry war with a defenseless and large unpopulated orbiting body. Next, we'll have NASA missions to bring democracy to the other planets.
What if the moon is destroyed ? Hm, they should watch the movie ... Timeline once more :)
Somethings should be left alone, the rainforest, Iraq, North-Korea and the Moon. Once you start fiddling with it you may expect the unexpected.
The Clangers will take it as an act of war and start nuking us from orbit.
Look like dodgy units conversions to me. What's the betting that it's really a five metre hole and a one-gigagramme plume of debris?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
planning to crash a two-ton probe into the moon.
Well that's one way to really piss off the man in the moon...
I'm viewing only posts of +3 and above, and your post is the only one to mention B*sh.
:)
Change your settings and drop the subject, and you're set.
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
Just as I was about to carve my name on the moon with a laser, they have to go and smash the damn thing, the insensitive clods!
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
LithoBreaking, Its not just for Mars anymore!
Perhaps that should be caseibreaking? (stopping by use of cheese)
meh
Caveman 1: "What is it?"
Caveman 2: "Don't know, let's throw rock at it, see what happens..."
Many years later...
NASA Manager: "We need to find water on the moon. What's the best approach?"
NASA Engineer: "Well obviously we should throw tax payer money at it and see what happens!"
All those impacts that the moon has had over the years with craters and all, and we have to make a few more?
"... it is expected to create a hole 16 feet deep and send up a 2.2 million-pound (998,000-kg) plume of debris"
I think they're most likely ballpark figures for a 5 metre deep crater, and 1000 tonnes of debris. Convert these to imperial measurements and back again without thinking too much, and you gain many significant figures of accuracy!
The parent was modded +5 Informative?!? It's a joke, people. You don't gain any significance by changing units. If the final exclaimation mark wasn't enough of a giveaway, the phrase "without thinking too much" might have been a clue.
Funny, perhaps, but not Informative. Oh well, at least the author is probably laughing.
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
That might also put an end to the Microsoft monopoly ;)
Won't be much of a plume to watch now, will there.
What liberties have been taken away? What freedoms? You are full of shit! You are obviously observing American society from afar -- probably assuming what you are watching on TV in Smellistan is an accurate depiction of life in the States.
All of the "metrics" you provide are completely flawed. Much like most macro-measures they all leave critical factors -- leaving the amateurs to blindly apply them.
Meanwhile, our ememies all run to Iraq like moths to the flame. Much better to fight over there than in my backyard.
But I'm sure you have all the answers sitting somplace that benefits from my country's protecction.
It's always been easier to be a terrorist than to be a civilization. It's always been easier to tear down rather than to build. So what is your point? Yes, what we are trying to do -- rid the world of terrorism -- is harder to do than to kill someone with an IED.
That's just an amazing insight you've stumbled on.
Why do I get the feeling that the correct number is 1 million kg? I suspect that the original figure was 1 million kg, which then got translated to 2.2 million pounds for the non-scientific American audience. Then it got translated back to kilograms for the international audience, with some rounding errors. Even more interesting is that the number of significant digits went from 1 to 3 in the whole translation process.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
What if the collision, via a quantum anomaly, creates a microscopic black hole, which will fall to the center of the moon, and oscillate back and forth, finally eating up the entire moon?
[quote] The $272 seems to be working so far. Look ma! No planes hitting buildings![/quote]
You're right! Terrorism is way down.
The Spanish-English dictionary is out of ink.
Wow, while we are at it let's see how much it will take to knock the moon off of its rotation and send us into chaos. Is NASA just running out of ideas? I thought the Mars thing was pretty cool and they are doing some other scheduled things that look good too. I just don't understand why they would do this, especially when people are doubting whether NASA should exist anymore.
~Bryan
Space.com has the following photo of the Aiken Crater on the South Pole. Pretty colors.
Of course if they do find water up there, we'll be exploiting it. Reminds me of the song from the Moon theme park in Futurama: We're whalers on the Moon! We carry a harpoon! But there ain't no whales, so we tell tall tales, and sing our whaling tune!
"22 astronauts were born in Ohio. What is it about your state that makes people want to flee the Earth?" Stephen Colbert
I believe NASA previously tried to do this by impacting space shuttle Columbia on Earth, but like all NASA missions
MISSION FAILED
Otherwise it will never get off.
If MS Windows is used for this mission, the probe may crash just a couple of seconds before actual it must and what will we have then? A probe, hanging there 150 meters above the Moon serface totally crashed... We must supply the probe with a reset button, but if the probe reboots, will it return to Earth for a relaunch?
You can't handle the truth.
how about an easter brain hunt, preceded by a ceremony of chicken and egg ingestion, in no specific order, white, milk or dark!!?!
^^^ That is what we should be doing. Forget crashing a tiny craft into it, we should be nuking it.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Think how big a crater they could make if they had a real gravity well to work with, such as Earth's. Betcha didn't know that Iran has some of these probes.
Is is that hard to drill 16 feet? If their weight budget is two TONS, surely they could build a drill to dig at least that far. I would think a small sample from 30 feet would be more valuable than a large sample from 16 feet.
Not that this wasn't entirely predictable.
On Google news, the first story (that I saw on Google news) was from ABC News: Probe Will Be First to Reach Lunar Surface Since Apollo ABC News - 19 hours ago By NED POTTER. April 10, 2006 -- NASA announced today it will send a rocket to crash into the moon, an early step to delivering the ...
I seem to recall we did this before in 1999:
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast03sep 99_1.htm
Maybe there's a new conspiracy theory that we never went to the moon (again).
...what I want to know is if they mean Earth-pounds or Moon-pounds!
Yet another reason to discard geocentric units of measure.
Since they didn't specify, I assumed they were using lbm (pounds mass). The fact that you saw something describing the size of a cloud and immediately assumed it was lbf (pounds force) leads me to worry significantly about the rate of deteriorating education in the world today, as I wasn't in school that long ago, and even the greatest idiots in my classes knew the difference. Seriously, why would you measure a quantity of rock by a force?
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
Ignignokt and Err will be releasing a statement tomorrow.
an episode of "The Tick" I'm reading about....? Did Chairface succeed?!
Since the article posted on Slashdot doesn't really explain why scientists think there might be ice on the Moon, I think your questions deserve a decent answer. Some recent unmanned missions like the Lunar Prospector have made spectroscopic measurements that suggest there are higher than normal concentrations of hydrogen near the Moon's poles. This could indicate the presence of water ice, or hydrogen tied up in the molecules of the rocks on the Moon. They did try crashing the Lunar Prospector into the Moon at the end of its mission, but the experiment didn't work out as planned. The reason why they are looking in deep craters, is that parts of the deepest craters near the Moon's poles may be permanently in shadow. Sunlight never reaches the bottoms of these craters, so that water ice might be able to exist there in a sort of permafrost layer. There is some evidence for water ice in deep craters near the poles of the planet Mercury as well. If I understand the new NASA mission correctly, they are basically going to do a more sophisticated version of the Lunar Prospector experiment. Even if this new mission finds evidence for water, it doesn't mean the water is necessarily in a form that could easily be used by astronauts - it could be bound up chemically in the rocks, making it difficult to extract.
Maybe they can't use emission spectroscopy the way most people think about it, but there are other spectroscopic techniques that can be used by orbiting satellites to study the Moon's composition. Check out this page about the instruments on board the Lunar Prospector mission. This mission was launched in 1998, and crashed into the Moon in 1999.
My actual question is why, after decades of neglect, is our first big public attempt at re-invigorating moon exploration something as negative as slamming meteors into it? Yes, there are ways to belittle people who think we should approach scientific discovery with a little more finesse. Belitting critics will just turn people away from science.
Has anyone at NASA noticed that students are systematically rejecting science as a career path? When science is presented as something elegant and beautiful it draws in inquisitive minds. Today, when science is presented with such arrogance and hubris, students and the public at large turn away from science.
Yes, you have an argument that science is not necessarily elegant. Neither is it necessarily arrogant. Slamming celestial bodies into each other might be fun, but it will not result in the same public support as elegant science like the Mars rovers. We have the technology and public support to engage in elegant exploration. Why not chose that over exploring with hubris?
Anyway, have fun belittling all the people who disagree with you. I realize that I am in the minority who believe that both science and math are intrensically beautiful. I am quite certain that this thuggish approach will reinforce world opinion that American science is arrogant. Unlike the Mars Rover, it will turn public sentiment against science.
A campaign where NASA scientists belittle people opposed to the experiment will probably work in selling this project, but it will turn public sentiment against NASA and drain the pool of students thinking of science as a career.
I realize that this would likely evaporate any water vapor that would be ejected, but i wonder how big a dust plume one of the US's nuclear bunker busters would make, and what we could learn as a result...
The television will not be revolutionized.
You heard it from me first on slashdot.....they are looking for Helium-3. They must have found something on the last meteor we smashed hoping to find "water" and pixie dust. The government/military wants in on this cashcow Helium-3. Our natural resources is going fast and that's a fact. So lets literally "shoot the moon" hoping that the earth's gravity will not be affected, but that a risk we are willng to take. If you can sell a few grains of this stuff for millions would you shoot the moon? http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_0006 30.html/
Didn't they do that in 1999 near Moonbase Alpha?
http://www.space1999.org/
Fight Spammers!
This is a post a little off-topic to ask for an help from you. I'me new to Slashdot and I don't understand how to open a new thread; the way is the "Submit a Story" form or there is another page to enter a new thread? (probably it's very simple but I've not seen it!) The argument of the thread I wish to open is about my proposal to build an SLV (with MANY advantages) for VSE moon missions insted of CLV/CaLV as explained here: http://www.gaetanomarano.it/articles/004.html/ Can you say me if there are other threads on Slashdot about VSE rockets where I can post my opinions about? Thank You.
http://www.ghostnasa.com/ http://www.gaetanomarano.it/articles/articles.htm
Another little help from you that are expert users of Slashdot: Since english is not my mother language I've made some grammar errors in my previous post. How can I edit my Slashdot's post? Thank You again.
http://www.ghostnasa.com/ http://www.gaetanomarano.it/articles/articles.htm