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NASA Plans to Smash Spacecraft into the Moon

Posted by samzenpus on from the hit-it-hard dept.

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."

28 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Obligatory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Many Bothans died to bring samzenpus this information...

  2. That's no moon... by rhomboid · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's a space station...

    --
    -Rhomboid
    1. Re:That's no moon... by Workaphobia · · Score: 4, Funny

      Obligatory response: http://xkcd.com/307/
      I find my lack of freedom to do otherwise disturbing.

      --
      Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
  3. Practising... by PinkyDead · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...for another Mars mission, eh?

    It had to be said - even if it is terribly trolly.

    --
    Genesis 1:32 And God typed :wq!
    1. Re:Practising... by martin-boundary · · Score: 5, Funny

      Either that, or the Russians weren't impressed by the recent satellite shootdown, so the top brass want to do one more missile test with a slightly bigger satellite.

  4. Wrong guy surely by 91degrees · · Score: 5, Funny

    Admiral Ackbar led the attack on the second Battle Station. The thermal exhaust port weakness was on the first.

    1. Re:Wrong guy surely by CrazyJim1 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Heh, I'd bet all my mod points that you get modded up for this.
      A: You corrected someone's error
      B: It was Star Wars related
      C: You made fun of someone who thought he was funny, but many people don't.
      D: You dead panned it.

      --
      God spoke to me.
    2. Re:Wrong guy surely by Clay+Pigeon+-TPF-VS- · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's not going to happen now that you explained it to death, and then picked apart its corpse for good measure.

      --
      Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
    3. Re:Wrong guy surely by QuantumG · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually the weakness was on both, that's why they went after the second one.. and it was a trap. In fact, the weakness was on all the big craft of the era. Star Destroyers were just as vulnerable to "Trench Run Syndrome" as the Death Stars. Snub starfighters were so successful at taking out large ships using TRS that the Imperial tactic of leaving small ships to planetary defenses had to be changed, thus creating the Lancer-class ships. Kuat Drive Yards designed and developed the first Lancer-class frigate with twenty quad-laser cannon batteries designed specifically for starfighter hunting. Ironically, the Imperial Starfleet found the Lancer-class too expensive for full fleet deployment. A few frigates made it into various fleets, but most admirals preferred to use, and subsequently lose, their TIE starfighters as anti-starfighter options. As a result, most Lancer-class frigates, like smaller ships before them, were assigned to rear guard operations and planetary defense after all.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    4. Re:Wrong guy surely by MSZ · · Score: 5, Funny

      Life, get you should.

      --
      The moon is not fully subjugated. I demand a second assault wave preceded by a massive nuclear bombardment.
    5. Re:Wrong guy surely by ozbird · · Score: 4, Funny

      Admiral Ackbar led the attack on the second Battle Station.

      Allah'u to his friends.

      The thermal exhaust port weakness was on the first.

      If someone shot a proton torpedo up your exhaust port, you'd have a moment of weakness too.

    6. Re:Wrong guy surely by Eagleartoo · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's not going to happen now that you explained it to death, and then picked apart its corpse for good measure.
      It's even worse, the OP didn't qoute who he was belittling so now his correction stands out there like a naked British royal, and the horsebeater who replied to that also cuts of his nose to spite his face in laughing at this guy's expense because noone knows what the first guy was talking about. You sir, however, have rightly decimated the second party. I will fall victim to your folly as well, for I am criticizing and commenting without having any context of the original idea put forth for comic value.
      --
      -You have been modded appropriately-
    7. Re:Wrong guy surely by Oktober+Sunset · · Score: 4, Funny

      I think the main weakness of the second death star was the huge 'half is missing' hole on one side.

      --
      What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
  5. How long... by Lifyre · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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"
    1. Re:How long... by roguetrick · · Score: 5, Funny

      I blame lunacy.

      --
      -The world would be a better place if everyone had a hoverboard
  6. I didn't know planned failure was okay... by philspear · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  7. Has to be done by FoolsGold · · Score: 5, Funny
    This is Slashdot, so I better get a good old tradition out of the way before someone else does I suppose...

    NASA officials has released a press statement saying the spacecraft will not require any special programming to direct it towards a collision with the Moon. They simply plan to install Windows Vista on the craft and let nature take its course.
    1. Re:Has to be done by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Funny
      Your information is out of date. In simulations Vista slowed the machine down so badly by the time it got up enough speed to crash the moon was out of alignment. In light of these simulations (and do to budget constraints) they have decided to go with plan b-which will consist of a robotic arm plugging a usb scanner into the underlying Windows 98 operating system at the appropriate time. This will result in further savings in hardware and fuel by lowering the system requirements from "need a second mortgage elite" to "cousin cleetus wally world special".


      For further information please see the paper entitled "Using complex instability for positive gain: The use of underlying instabilities inherent in proprietary operating systems with undocumented functions to achieve net gains in proposed Unmanned Procedurally Programmed Missions for Interstellar Scientific Study (UPPMISS) " at NASA.gov

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  8. Unfortunately by TummyX · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Unfortunately by Thanshin · · Score: 4, Funny

      Even more embarrassing would be to fail so miserably that the probe landed on the sea and they spent a year reporting having found water and living organisms on the moon.

  9. Since a certain Mars mission has been mentioned by hyades1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.
    1. Re:Since a certain Mars mission has been mentioned by SeaFox · · Score: 4, Funny

      replace their somewhat embarrassing "Faster, better, cheaper" motto with "Closer, cheaper, deeper"?

      That's even worse. It sounds like the tagline for a porn movie.
  10. Mooninites by roguetrick · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is what happens when you screw with boston.

    --
    -The world would be a better place if everyone had a hoverboard
  11. In other news... by Thanshin · · Score: 5, Funny

    NASA Plans to Smash Spacecraft into the Moon Following NASA's new trend of sincerity, Burger King releases a new set of products under the name "Die fat bastard! Die" and NIKE presents the new AirSlave collection.
  12. Re:Smash a probe, been there, done that! by mr100percent · · Score: 4, Informative

    You may laugh, but NASA did do it before. During the final Apollo missions, they allowed the (abandoned) lunar module to crash into the moon in order to test seismic readings on the instruments left behind.

  13. Right... by rucs_hack · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  14. Re:Smash a probe, been there, done that! by mbone · · Score: 5, Informative

    They also smashed the third stage of the Saturn V into the Moon for every Apollo after 13 IIRC, also as seismic probes. That had
    considerably more kinetic energy than either the LEM upper stages or any of the recent impacts.

    It wasn't just to test the seismometers, it was to map the interior of the Moon, once they found out that the Moon is seismically pretty quiet and doesn't have much in the way of Moonquakes. It was thus a very large scale example of the seismic prospecting that is done frequently in oil exploration.

  15. It rings like a bell by rdawson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.