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NASA Plans to Smash Spacecraft into the Moon
djasbestos writes "NASA is planning to smash a spacecraft into the Moon in order to look for hydrogen deposits in the poles. More notably, it will impact with significantly greater force (100x, per the article) than previous Moon collisions, such as by the Lunar Prospector and Smart-1 probes. Admiral Ackbar was unreachable for comment as to the exact location and size of the Moon's thermal exhaust port."
Many Bothans died to bring samzenpus this information...
It's a space station...
-Rhomboid
...for another Mars mission, eh?
It had to be said - even if it is terribly trolly.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
it's easier this way as one does not have to worry about those pesky "landings".... just smash it to smitereens and call it a day! :)
Admiral Ackbar led the attack on the second Battle Station. The thermal exhaust port weakness was on the first.
It's a trap!
before someone tries to blame high tide, beached whales, and global warming on us crashing shit into the moon?
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
They'll probably miss...
I am planning on failing my midterms. I expect to fail this midterm by significantly more points (100x per my plans) than previous failures. I am doing this in search of hydrogen deposits in the poles.
well now, lets hope they have better luck looking for hydrogen deposits then the Beagle Martian impacter of a few years ago...!
I mean, seriously, we can get two robotic rover probes on Mars for >3 years but are reduced to slinging a dumb mass to the moon?
NASA needs funds right? So they should sell the right to name the new crater on ebay.
Unfortunately, due to a failure to perform a metric/imperial conversion, the mission failed when the probe performed a perfect soft landing on the moon's surface.
may I suggest that NASA replace their somewhat embarrassing "Faster, better, cheaper" motto with "Closer, cheaper, deeper"?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
If there's anything that would get the public interested in space, it would be something like this. Why aren't they soliciting the public to name THIS noble craft? But I shouldn't kid myself: to really capture general interest, it would be needed to launch many crafts to bore holes such that, viewed from Earth, a person's name were to be spelled out. "Come," we could shout, "be the person to be remembered forever as having put the first and surely forever largest man-made eyesore upon the moon!"
This is what happens when you screw with boston.
-The world would be a better place if everyone had a hoverboard
So, this spacecraft is going to be built by Apple? Funny name. I don't predict a good future for it.
Max.
The overall energy of the impact will ... kick up 1,102 tons of debris and dust.
...and suppose water is a limited resource, and they just blew away/polluted a significant proportion of that reserve?
Take Nobody's Word For It.
I'll get my coat.
-- Jared Earle | "There is no spork"
So we've gone from landing on the moon to crashing into it? Truly the mark of progress...
Russian Spaceships Fly Yo....
Oh wait, that's actually true..
Are you sure this isn't an audition for Disaster Area.
"Let the commencement...beginulate!"
This will be very cheap research, they already had their extensive results of crashing stuff upon the moon.. ...so they'll hardly have to change any parameters for this mission!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Which insensitive clod tagged this story Beagle3?
This entire thread will be kept behind until whoever did it owns up...
Come on, I can wait all day if necessary.
to get us to the goal... http://roboeco.com/Economia-Robotica-Sin-Salarios
The Future is already here, just unevenly distributed... THE ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY NOW! http://RoboEco.com/slash
The Man in the moon will be sad.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/04/Le_Voyage_dans_la_lune.jpg
If they hit the moon REALLY hard, they might knock the moon out of orbit and we'd have "Space 1999" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_1999
I would have thought it was a (slightly tasteless) joke. This guy "Admiral Ackbar" sounds an awful lot like "Allahu Akbar", which some people, I imagine, might be shouting as they crash flying machines in to things.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
Pogo style
nobody told nasa that its made of cheese did they?
We have the technology, the time is now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHpX5aa5Lz4
Well at least if NASA claim that they're going to smash it into the moon, and it actually lands, then they may just get some of their credibility back!
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
shouldn't the title read "NASA plans to *deliberately* crash a probe into the moon" ?
The first country to hit bull's eye on Tycho's crater wins the giant teddy bear!!!
Metric vs. customary? Oh shit... -er, we meant to do that!
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
... and the Mars engineers have some of the best experience in the world with smashing objects into objects in space.
It may work better if they don't tell them it is supposed to crash into the moon, just have them plan another mission to Mars.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
...when the moon blows up? On a serious note, do we really know what we are doing here? Whose to say that our bomardment won't release rock and dust from the moon into space, where it becomes a threat to satellites. Or perhaps we could hit some sort of undiscovered fissure, driving a spike into a crack. Either way, this has the potential to do more damage than good.
Well, in Korea, only old people fly spaceships.
Wait...why is it that I can see a spaceship, flying down the left lane at well below the speed limit with its left blinker on the whole way?
My blog
The moon's poles can't repel firepower of that magnitude!
TWO BRICKS BEING SMASHED TOGETHER!
I'm sorry sir, but that's offtopic. Try Again, please.
I'D LIKE TO SEE... A ROCKET SMASHING INTO THE MOON!
That's more like it. And now for something completely different...
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
can you please just stfu? that meme is so stinking old and used so frequently that it's lost all of it's true meaning. talk about beating a dead horse.
...a moonshot?
Can't we all just get along. Too soon, too soon
Can I bum a sig?
One Small Step for Man,
One Big *SMASH* for Hulk!
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Toby Ziegler: They know it was on course traveling at a rate of 15,400 miles per hour, which it was supposed to. Somewhere during its descent it was also supposed to release two probes - each about the size of a basketball - firing them deep into the ground as part of the mission's search for evidence of water under surface.
Josh Lyman: We think if we hit the ground hard enough, we can make it to the center of the planet and find water?
Toby Ziegler: Yeah.
Josh Lyman: That's not a theory of physics pretty much disproved by Wile E. Coyote?
Nasa person number 1 "Hey I know the moon is kind of important for us but lets thrust stuff into it and see what happens" Everyone else "OK!"
Now a moon, NASA's gone mad with power...
Bastards. It's all a cover story. They've declared war on The Clangers.
Is NASA so angry at not being able to visit for 30+ years that they're lashing out at their mistress now? Or is this just a game of interplanetary darts? NASA's so rusty at this game, the Chinese ought to watch out that their manned expedition isn't hit by mistake.
Bah... NASA bores me. I'm looking forward to commercial lunar colonization, hopefully in the next decade.
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
Lucas saved a ton of money on makeup costs by casting Tori Spelling to play Admiral Ackbar. It's a fact--look it up.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
And they say that 40-odd years ago men stepped on the moon? Or was it Santa?
Put $50bil of gold and valuable metals inside the rocket, and launch it to the moon. The first one to bring it back keeps it. That'll give private industry something to strive for!
And yet despite this horrendous waste, it would still be the most efficient use of tax dollars in any space program, to date.
Does Chairface Chippendale run NASA now?
.... trap!
This is the same as planning a car crash because you still haven't learned how to drive... No darling, I wasnt reverse parking, I've been actually planning this accident for months....
All right then, Slashdot taggers, do tell us:
What could possibly go wrong?
What possible reason is there to use this crypto-Luddite tag?
It's Admiral Akbar cereal!
Mark Anthony Collins
oh wait!
They're using their grammar skills there.
The moon men will probably try and shoot it down. You know, what with the full tanks of hydrazine and all.
The Moon, A Ridiculous Liberal Myth.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
It's really useful fuel for fusion reactors.
"My God! It's full of cheese!"
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Let's see... piss away a few BILLION dollars, or use it for something useful like research into something like breast cancer.
Who cares about the moon anyhow, everyone likes boobies though.
Every time you call tech support, a little kitten dies.
Or the alternative:
In Soviet Russia, moon launches spacecraft to smash into YOU!
Didn't these people read Flash Gordon. The Great Sorrow will follow!!!! earth=mongol
A small red spacecraft breaks through the cloud cover of Mysterio system planet 6! At the controls, it's none other than our fearless hero, Spaceman Spiff! Piloting over the lifeless world, he reflects on his unusual mission...
...to somehoe crash planets 6 and 5 together!
...breaking orbit, planet 6 picks up speed, hurling towards planet 5!
QUIZ
1. 6+5=
In a scientific mission to discover what happens when two planets collide, Spaceman Spiff drops anchor! The anchor catches on a hillside! Spiff downshifts and guns the motor! Imperceptibly at first, the planet slowly moves, towed along by our hero, until...
Pulled by Spaceman Spiff, planet 6 is about to collide with planet 5! With no time to lose, our hero cuts loose the anchor and flies to safety! The planets crash, grinding and shattering with awful force! Planet 5, being smaller, is crunched to dust! Only 6 remains!
6+5=6.
Of course taken from Bill Watterson. Sorry, Bill.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
You're only supposed to blow the bloody crater up!
"On July 4th of this year, America will blow up the moon."
"We have the technology; the time is now; science can wait no longer; children are our future. America can, should, must, and will blow up the moon."
"Yes, and we'll be doing it during a full moon, so we make sure we get it all."
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kHpX5aa5Lz4
Yeah....when the ESA did something like this the Americans were all up on their ass making retarded comments like "lolololo u cant brin skykrafft bak!!lolo" and now Nasa is doing it, no doubt everyone is going to be like "Yeah this is a great idea, God those guys at Nasa really are geniuses."
oops, I'm sorry, they didn't mean to.
my bad.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Just because NASA hasn't gotten into outer space yet doesn't mean they can take it out on the moon. It's not its fault...
Absolutely ridiculous. >.>
We should consider something like this..."
Too bad we turned off the Apollo ALSEP package, the seismometer experiments. I had the joy of working with the data team, and on one of the lunar missions they crashed the Apollo S4-B stage into the moon. The seismic event lasted for an hour. The moon is a homogeneous sphere, no core.
The moon's easy enough for a first target, we'll get to Wolf-Biederman skill levels after a couple of years!