How NASA Will Bomb the Moon To Find Water

mattnyc99 writes "A few weeks ago we got first word of NASA's plan to crash a spacecraft into the moon next February. The new issue of Popular Mechanics has an in-depth look at the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite and its low-cost, lightning-fast mission prep — even if delays have pushed it to late February or early March. Quoting: 'Andrews had no budget for an expensive lander to seek water, and conditions in the eternally dark polar craters would kill rovers, with temperatures close to minus 300 F. Instead, Blue Ice and its partners at Northrop Grumman came up with a concept to bring the lunar floor out in the open.... Since engineering precision hardware would break the budget, the LCROSS team had to make existing components work together.'"

Comments

Bomb what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Next they'll bomb Uranus in order to find it's filled with gas.

Re:Bomb what?

[infonography]

Ah, obviously you don't know about the secret Soviet and Nazi moon bases. That's what this is really about.

Oh and the gray aliens have them there too.

Re:Bomb what?

[morgan_greywolf]

It's not as if the spelling 'grey' isn't also commonly used in the United States by the native English speakers here.

Re:Bomb what?

[gfxguy]

I'm still waiting for them to rename that planet to Urectum to stop the stupid jokes.

Re:Bomb what?

[protein folder]

Udamnnearkilledum would also be acceptable.

Re:Bomb what?

[Jonathan_S]

I'm still waiting for them to rename that planet to Urectum to stop the stupid jokes.

I don't know why you're bothering, that renaming isn't for another 612 years.

percussion engineering!

[notgm]

I hit stuff to fix it all the time, why shouldn't they?

Re:percussion engineering!

[shis-ka-bob]

Are you on a LaCROSSe team too?

Re:percussion engineering!

[Notquitecajun]

Good Ol' Emergency Repair Plan A

Re:percussion engineering!

[flyingsquid]

I say we nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Re:percussion engineering!

[slittle]

"Percussive maintenance"

Re:percussion engineering!

[antic]

Ahem, domestic violence!

That Old Mr. Show bit

[Hoplite3]

"The United States can, should, and will BLOW UP THE MOON!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHpX5aa5Lz4

Re:That Old Mr. Show bit

[Tablizer]

Nit: Chimps are apes, not "monkeys". Monkeys have tails.

Re:That Old Mr. Show bit

[ArcherB]

"The United States can, should, and will BLOW UP THE MOON!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHpX5aa5Lz4

NO WAR FOR....water?

Re:That Old Mr. Show bit

[Gat0r30y]

NO WAR FOR....water?

of course not that would just be silly - were after all that delicious moon cheese!

Re:That Old Mr. Show bit

[somnolent49]

Don't bomb our moon, bro!

Re:That Old Mr. Show bit

[ben0207]

I'm not your bro, guy.

Re:That Old Mr. Show bit

[X3J11]

I'm not your guy, buddy!

(Do I get off-topic, troll, redundant or just ignored?)

Re:That Old Mr. Show bit

[Kjella]

<tinfoil hat>Why would the United States blow up their own space station? </tinfoil hat>

Re:That Old Mr. Show bit

[pipingguy]

Anyone else remember Space:1999? I always liked that Gerry Anderson show and it's predecessor UFO for some reason. Oh, wait, now I remember why - it's because I'm old! mumble...off my lawn...uphill both ways...didn't have no Star Wars then...and we liked it...ow, my back...Timex/Sinclair...can't trust a fart...

[Pulls pants back up to armpit level]

Lunar Pun Mission

[Tablizer]

They should call this the Lunar Pun Mission. There are just too many jokes and innuendos with this probe.

First a satelite...

[AioKits]

And now the moon! Ha! We're getting good at blowing things up... Hmmm... *searches closet for asbestos suit* Might need this...

Re:First a satelite...

[lucifuge31337]

And now the moon! Ha! We're getting good at blowing things up... Hmmm... *searches closet for tin foil suit* Might need this...

There ya go. Fixed that for you.

Earth's Orbit?

[coreconcern]

Isn't Earth's orbit intimately mingled with it's moon?? How precise can the potential impact be measured in relation to this fact? I think Earth's orbit is fine where it is...

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[MagdJTK]

Well all mass exerts a gravitational pull on all mass, so yes they affect each other.

Are you afraid this will affect the Earth's orbit around the Sun? The change will be negligible --- the energy we'd need to mess up the orbits dangerously is far beyond us.

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[devil6god7]

I hope none of the evidence left on the moon from the Apollo landings is disturbed by this crash! d6g7

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[larry bagina]

the "bomb" weighs 5,000 pounds (2200 kg). It's most certainly been hit by heavier objects in its lifetime. The mass of the moon is ~ 7e1022 kg. Would you notice if a fly farted on you?

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[Anonymous Coward]

African or European fly?

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[Colonel Korn]

Virtually all of the mass of this mission, except for maybe a little rocket propellant, will stay within the Earth-Moon system, so the center of gravity of the two won't change. In other words, no, this won't affect Earth's Orbit thanks to CONSERVATION OF MOMENTUM!!

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[Tim C]

The mass of the moon is ~ 7e1022 kg

I think you're mixing up 7x10^22 and 7e22 there; the Moon's mass most certainly is not 7e1022 kg. Estimates for the mass of the observable universe, for example, are around 2e52 kg.

That said I agree with your point - this will have an utterly negligible affect on the orbital dynamics of the Moon.

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[jdoss]

Earth's rotation is more closely linked to the moon. Without the moon, we'd complete a day's rotation in something like 48 days instead (Google that to be sure). With such a slow rotation, wind would blow predominantly north-south. But blowing up something on the moon shouldn't be blowing up the moon... unless we're following Armageddon physics all of a sudden.

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[BlackSnake112]

Earth did have a second moon (first moon?).
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/second_moon_991029.html

  It grew up and moved out. Now it just visits once in a while.

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[Anpheus]

Holy cow, 7e1022 kg? So that's where the universe's missing mass is!

Hint: Slashdot will always mess up superscripts, so either do 7E22 or 7e22, or do 7x10^22 or 7*10^22. The 'e' notation takes the place of 'x10^'.

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[roc97007]

> Isn't Earth's orbit intimately mingled with it's moon?? How precise can the potential impact be measured in relation to this fact? I think Earth's orbit is fine where it is...

Sigh. I blame public schooling.

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[gstoddart]

Are you afraid this will affect the Earth's orbit around the Sun? The change will be negligible --- the energy we'd need to mess up the orbits dangerously is far beyond us.

I though it was well within our current power to fuck up the Earth's orbit. Given that the whole time I was growing up we were constantly told we could "blow up the Earth 20 gazillion times over" I was under the impression that we could fairly easily knock it off kilter.

I mean, several tens of dozens of multi-megaton explosions sure as hell sounds like a lot of energy to me. I didn't think it would take much of a 'bump' to basically bugger everything.

Cheers

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[sexconker]

Math. You're doing it wrong.

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[AnomaliesAndrew]

I didn't read this particular article, but I think the idea here is to examine the dust that is ejected, most likely using various spectrometers.

This was done with a comet some time ago, at a far greater distance.

It's similar to the high tech way of identifying mysterious substances in a modern laboratory, just on a larger scale and at a much greater distance.

I would imagine that the "bomb" would be primarily of the kinetic energy variety.

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[gstoddart]

Math. You're doing it wrong.

I'm doing absolutely no maths whatsoever.

I'm legitimately asking (because nobody ever really quantified what "blow up the Earth several times over" means) whether or not we could. Having been around in the 70's and 80's as a kid, you'd think we'd have been able to pulverize the whole planet by now.

I have no idea of how to wrap my head around how much energy would be required to cause a change in orbit, let alone in relation to what we could actually produce.

Let's face it, a large number of megatons worth of denotation, many times over, eventually becomes a pure abstraction you can't compare to anything else.

Obviously, you're asserting we can't, you're just not very helpful either. :-P

Cheers

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[coreconcern]

This is even funny to me.

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[maackey]

People have also been saying that we will run out of oil in *insert a couple more years here*. But the truth is, we've been finding more areas rich with oil over the years, and have quite a bit more than you might be led to believe. People use hyperbole to draw attention to them and drive their agendas. Don't believe everything you hear/read/see/etc...

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[MagdJTK]

Are you afraid this will affect the Earth's orbit around the Sun? The change will be negligible --- the energy we'd need to mess up the orbits dangerously is far beyond us.

I though it was well within our current power to fuck up the Earth's orbit. Given that the whole time I was growing up we were constantly told we could "blow up the Earth 20 gazillion times over" I was under the impression that we could fairly easily knock it off kilter.

When people say we could blow up the entire Earth, they really mean we could cover the surface of the Earth in nuclear explosions. It would kill all of us, but the Earth wouldn't care. It would just keep trundling along as ever.

Some maths: Suppose we wanted to increase the speed of the Earth by 1m/s. Kinetic energy = mass * speed^2, so (as the mass of the Earth is 5.9736*10^24 kg) we'd need 5.9736*10^24 joules. A megaton explosion is 4.184*10^15 J, so we'd need the equivalent of about a billion megatonnes of TNT. That's about one hundred million pretty big nukes (assuming all the energy of the nukes goes into the Earth's movement, which it wouldn't). And that's just to accelerate the Earth by 1m/s. And when you add to that the fact that the Earth's orbit is stable (so we need a lot of movement to do any real damage), you can see how little we could really do.

Hope that makes sense!

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[gstoddart]

Hope that makes sense!

A lot actually. Thanks.

Cheers

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[AeroIllini]

Would you notice if a fly farted on you?

It depends. What's he been eating?

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[MarchHare]

Your computation actually has some errors in it. The amount of energy required to increase the earth's speed from what it is (about 30,000 m/s) by 1 m/s is not the same as the amount of enery needed to increase it from 0 to 1 m/s (which is what you computed, except that you also made a mistake by a factor of 2).

A better estimate (with same mass, but increasing the speed from 30,000 m/s to 30,001 m/s) yields
1.7921e29 joules needed. That's 5 orders of magnitude greater than your solution.

I once computed that to remove the top 1cm of topsoil or water from all the worlds land masses and oceans, and throw them out into outer space at escape velocity, we'd need to perfectly use the energy of 100 billions bombs like Hiroshima's. I wanted to see whether exploding a planet like the Death Star does in Episode 4 was realistic. It isn't. At escape velocity, the chunks of the planets would take 6 minutes to double the planet's volume (so the explosion would look very very slow).

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[Cecil]

Even if we could blow up the Earth several times over (we can't), doing that requires orders of magnitude less energy than actually changing the Earth's orbit. If you blow up the Earth into millions of tiny little chunks, all those tiny little chunks will keep happily orbiting the sun (See: Asteroid belt) at very nearly the current speed and path that the Earth currently travels.

An object with the mass of the Earth, travelling through space at the speed that it is, has an unbelievable amount of kinetic energy. We can divide it up into smaller pieces, but actually changing the amount of orbital energy in the entire mass is rather far beyond us.

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[Perf]

Depends. What was this fly eating?

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[KGIII]

You are both too smart for your own good and have way too much time on your hands. Traits for which I commend you. :)

I kind of like it when people explain the math and then give the (often crazy) ideas that made them do that math. It is too bad that math isn't taught in most schools.

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[KGIII]

I had read that that was a myth - that the boot impressions would no longer be there because the dust moves and settles quite often as things tend to smack into the moon quite frequently.

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[MagdJTK]

Your computation actually has some errors in it. The amount of energy required to increase the earth's speed from what it is (about 30,000 m/s) by 1 m/s is not the same as the amount of enery needed to increase it from 0 to 1 m/s (which is what you computed, except that you also made a mistake by a factor of 2).

er... I was accelerating it radially, at midsummer or midwinter? *wipes brow*

I was actually wondering about this at the time. I took my reference frame to be ours (rather than assuming the Sun is stationary). I have a feeling this wasn't valid, but could someone enlighten me?

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[kmac06]

I concur with your original analysis. I think it is valid to use our reference frame rather than the Sun's, since we would be essentially be firing a huge rocket.

It's like a car vs rocket. The energy it takes to change the velocity of a car depends on it's current velocity, essentially because you're pushing against a stationary object (the earth) while you are moving. The energy to change the velocity of a rocket does not depend on it's current velocity (neglecting air resistance). This is because it pushes against it's own fuel.

If this seems like a contradiction in terms of conservation of energy, consider this. At initial velocity, the fuel in the rocket has some momentum and energy relative to a fixed object (the earth). If the rocket pushes against the fuel to accelerate it, then the fuel has less momentum and energy relative to the fixed object. It is this 'extra' energy that makes up the difference. It's not 'free' energy, because the rocket had to accelerate that fuel in the first place.

For the pushing the earth analogy, you are 'using up' the energy of the nuclear fuel when you use it to speed up the earth, by making the fuel travel slower relative to the sun at the end.

And now to finish confusing people, if you are attempting to slow down the earth rather than accelerate it, you can actually get energy out of that.

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[intercodes]

I was reading an article few minutes backpertinent to this discussion. Check out
http://www.deepastronomy.com/how-to-destroy-earth-with-a-coffee-can.html

To completely vaporize the Earth, you'll need to overcome the Gravitational Binding Energy of all of the atoms that hold the planet together. This amounts to 224,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules. If you are uninspired, as so many evil geniuses are (sorry guys, but you know you are), then you probably went to ThermoNuclear Depot and tried to buy some nuclear weapons to do the job. Stan, the nice guy who works in that department with the bright red vest wearing a button that says 'Get Bent', told you that it would take roughly 107,000,000,000,000 bombs to vaporize the planet (he gets about three guys a week asking for the same thing). He politely and cheerfully sends you to the Special Order department to fill out one of their forms (they don't keep that many in stock, and they are seasonal). Most evil geniuses are averse to filling out forms, so you left. Here's the math: 224,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules per planet divided by 2,100,000,000,000,000,000 Joules per nuclear bomb = 107,000,000,000,000 nuclear bombs per planet.

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[rbanffy]

The one that can carry coconuts, I guess.

Re:Earth's Orbit?

[spiko-carpediem]

I think you're mixing up 7x10^22 and 7e22 there;

There is no difference visible to me between those two numbers except if you mean e as in "e, the Euler's number".

Premptive Strike!

[DarthVain]

See http://www.ironsky.net/site/ for details...

Re:is that a good idea?

[Tablizer]

Currently, the moon is slowing moving away from the Earth. Simple physics tell us that bombing it will push out its orbit... that will affect the tides and wind here on earth... seems like a bad idea.

The moon is smacked by meteors all the time, many much larger than any space probe could ever be. After all, it has a nasty case of acne scars. Most meteors are still usually too small to make any detectable difference. It's probably been hit by some biggies that perhaps could alter its orbit, but the average direction of the smackage either averages out or has a tendency already reflected in its current orbit. The largest impacts that created the round dark sea-like areas appear to have happened fairly soon after its formation.
     

Bombing the Moon for water?

[BitterOldGUy]

You mean liberate the Moon, don't you?

And I find the 'water' reason to be pretty transparent. We all know that there's oil up there and this is yet another neo-con plan that's going to suck us into another war to boost Bush's ratings. But when images of those poor Amazon women up there start coming back, it's jut going to blowup in their faces like Iraq did, and further depress our economy.

Re:Bombing the Moon for water?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have mod points, but I don't know whether to rate you -1 Off Topic or +1 Funny

Hopefully someone else can make the proper call as I do a quick search for Amazon moon women.

Re:Bombing the Moon for water?

[Yvan256]

A quick search revealed this.

Re:Bombing the Moon for water?

[Enoxice]

No need to worry about the Cat Women, though, they live inside a cave with its own atmosphere. They'll survive and repopulate the moon. And life will go on

Re:Bombing the Moon for water?

[DeadDecoy]

Actually, the NSA has discovered that moon men have been secretly stockpiling yellow cake, and not the kind your mother makes. We're really going there to eliminate any potential threats which may project terrorism from long distance. If they don't do this, how can we sleep soundly at night?

Re:Bombing the Moon for water?

[rbanffy]

But weren't them insect-like life forms living underground? To have any measurable effect on the Moon's orbit, one would have to cover parts of it with cavorite. That's way beyond our current technological capabilities for the foreseeable future.

Ralph Kramden - A Man Before His Time

[strelitsa]

Bang! Zoom! Right to the Moon!

Re:Ralph Kramden - A Man Before His Time

[MikeXpop]

"He wasn't an astronaut! He was a TV comedian. And he was just using space travel as a metaphor for beating his wife."

Re:Ralph Kramden - A Man Before His Time

[natgry]

"We're whalors on the moon, we carry a harpoon, but there ain't no whales so we tell tall tales and sing our whaling tune!"

Re:War is declared ...

[philspear]

Where is the "Whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag? If this article had ANYTHING to do with biology, it would have been up already.

Re:The Time Machine

[Tablizer]

In that movie, construction was starting on the moon. To kick off the construction, a large bomb was set off. The result, the moon cracked in half and people eventually started to eat each other.

Geez, a plot like that'd make me crack the DVD in half and eat it.
     

Re:Wasn't this the plot of that Time Machine Remak

[MyLongNickName]

My God. Has the IQ of Slashdot dropped twenty points in the last fifteen minutes?

Crash Test Dummies

[jhines]

Where won't they go next!

Fahrenheit?

[oldspewey]

temperatures close to minus 300 F

1850 called. They want their unit of measure back.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[ShadowRangerRIT]

You know, while I'm generally in favor of the metric system over imperial, I've never cared nearly so much about the Celsius v. Fahrenheit debate.

Fahrenheit makes more sense in day to day contexts. 0 is very cold, 100 is very hot (both from a human experience point of view), and you have more precision on the temperatures in between. Now in this particular case it's so cold that it doesn't really matter; if I told you it was -184 C, or -300 F it wouldn't really change the fact that you can't conceive of the temperature as anything but "really, really cold".

Besides, who are you trying to chastise? The temperature was given in a quote from the article. Would you prefer Slashdot editors mangle quotes to conform to your prejudices?

Re:Fahrenheit?

[Evildonald]

Slashdot would upgrade to Celcius but it'd cost them 8 Shillings and twelvepence to upgrade their Internometer.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[BeerCur]

Yes I totally agree. We all should use the human temp scale; so lets see.... -300 F ~ -3.055 HT. Gee that's cold.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[MyLongNickName]

But don't you realize the having a decimal system based around the temperature of water freezing and boiling at a very specific atmospheric pressure makes the most sense? I mean CLEARLY that is better than the Fahrenheit scale which ignores this. And all those goofy fractions. Do you really like 32 9/16 degrees? Or would you rather have 0.3125 Celsius?

Clearly the Celsius scale is superior.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[Guppy06]

Yes, how dare they use a scale that's rigidly defined in terms of kelvin! Godless metric communists!

Does 160 degrees Rankine make you happier?

Re:Fahrenheit?

[afabbro]

Fahrenheit makes more sense in day to day contexts. 0 is very cold, 100 is very hot (both from a human experience point of view), and you have more precision on the temperatures in between.

Fahrenheit is a superior unit of measure. Each degree corresponds to the difference in temperature a human can sense. Celsius is arbitrary and much less precise.

The metric system got everything right except temperature.

Now in this particular case it's so cold that it doesn't really matter; if I told you it was -184 C, or -300 F it wouldn't really change the fact that you can't conceive of the temperature as anything but "really, really cold".

As the old story goes...a professor was lecturing that the Sun was 10,000,000 degrees. A student asked "Is that Celsius or Kelvin?" and he replied "What does it matter?"

Re:Fahrenheit?

[sznupi]

It only makes sense because you're used to it.

In Celsius 0 is also very cold, but at the same time more meaningfull ("what will happen to water today?" or "what can fall from the sky today?"). Same with 100, also very hot, and usefull even in the kitchen. (and both 0 and 100 can be easily calibrated on Earth). And no, 100 Fahrenheit isn't very usefull medically - it's a temperature of somebody with severe fewer; if it would be "normal"/"border one" - I would agree with that one.

As for precision - BS, even Celsius scale has way more precision than we need in day-to-day life; people usually think in terms such as "it's around zero today", "it's just above zero", "it's around 5", "a bit below 10", "low dozens" and so on...

PS. All this critique from somebody who's compatriot of Daniel Fahrenheit...

Re:Fahrenheit?

[Tubal-Cain]

I use the Kelvin scale, you insensitive clod!

Re:Fahrenheit?

[argStyopa]

Actually, the 21st century left you a message in return. It mentioned that the guys using that crappy old measurement system successfully landed men on the moon repeatedly nearly 40 years ago. It asked how many 'metric system' countries can say the same?

Re:Fahrenheit?

[oldspewey]

Since TFA is actually about smashing things into the moon rather than landing softly, I'm gonna pick the USSR as my winner.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[idontgno]

In Celsius 0 is also very cold

You're probably Western European to say something like that. 0c is mildly cool. "Cold" is when dry ice starts forming frost on the ground. 8)

No, sorry, at least for those in the northern 2/3 of North America, Fahrenheit works better for day-to-day considerations of human comfort (and perception of environmental "hot" and "cold"). 0 degrees F is painfully cold on exposed flesh. 100 F is dangerously hot (unless you're in one of the freakishly-low-humidity regions and you're hydrated well enough to not die of dehydration trying to sweat off the heat.)

("what will happen to water today?" or "what can fall from the sky today?")

What happens to water today is a factor, too, but that makes only the bottom end of the 0-100 scale relevant to daily experience (unless you experience storms of boiling steam where you live). And whether water falls out of the sky as ice or water is secondary to whether water falls out of the sky at all, which is only indirectly related to temperature (i.e., dew point).

As to the precision issue, you can't dispute that 1 degree Celsius is a broader temperature differential than 1 degree Fahrenheit. So, for as little as it matters on a day-to-day basis, 1/10 degree is more precise in Fahrenheit than Celsius.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[MozeeToby]

There's a very simple and accepted way to adjust quotes to accurately reflect what a person was saying. you simply put the adjusted/added words within brackets or an elipses within brackets if you are removing something. This is done by... well by basically every major news organization in the english speaking world. So now, I don't "prefer Slashdot editors mangle quotes", I prefer that they adjust them to make their meaning clear.

As an aside, 0 F being very very cold and 100 F being very very hot might work for some places. But I have walked to school when the wind chill was in the -50s F and the true temp was in the -20s F. I've also had the pleasure of experiencing 114 F (same location). So when the actual temperature range is 64% larger than the range the system was designed for, that makes things a little more difficult. Of course, Celsius has the same problem on the negative end, but I'm just saying.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[frooge]

As the old story goes...a professor was lecturing that the Sun was 10,000,000 degrees. A student asked "Is that Celsius or Kelvin?" and he replied "What does it matter?"

Celsius vs Kelvin doesn't matter when talking about 10,000,000 degrees, as they only differ in the zero point by a few hundred degrees, which is not significant on that range. 10,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit on the other hand is only about 5.5 million degrees Celsius which *is* a significant difference (almost 50%).

Re:Fahrenheit?

[Solandri]

Farenheit is stupid and abstract. Celcius makes so much more sense, and anybody can calibrate a thermometer.

0 - water freezes

100 - water boils

Those temperature points depend on the salinity of your water, and whatever the atmospheric pressure happens to be that day at your current altitude.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[vux984]

No, sorry, at least for those in the northern 2/3 of North America, Fahrenheit works better for day-to-day considerations of human comfort (and perception of environmental "hot" and "cold").

As someone from Canada, and formerly resident of Manitoba, I find Celsius works just fine.

0 degrees F is painfully cold on exposed flesh. 100 F is dangerously hot (unless you're in one of the freakishly-low-humidity regions and you're hydrated well enough to not die of dehydration trying to sweat off the heat.)

0C is chilly, not 'mildy cool'. -10 is cold, -20 is very cold. -30 is damn cold. -40 is I'm not going outside.
+10 is cool, +20 is warm, +30 is hot, +40 is "I'm not coming out the shade/water/airconditioning."

As to the precision issue, you can't dispute that 1 degree Celsius is a broader temperature differential than 1 degree Fahrenheit. So, for as little as it matters on a day-to-day basis, 1/10 degree is more precise in Fahrenheit than Celsius.

Other than when taking my own temperature I don't care about the decimal point. Hell, for day to day living, I don't even care about the exact degree. I live by ranges. To me, 12C is pretty much the same as 14C. 21C is pretty much the same as 23C. Etc.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[AceofSpades19]

Would you prefer Slashdot editors mangle quotes to conform to your prejudices?

You mean they don't?

Re:Fahrenheit?

[Sockatume]

Indeed, the Fahrenheit system was based on the coldest (0F, ice and salt) and hottest (100F, armpit) temperatures that Fahrenheit could concoct from his immediate surroundings, without resorting to extremes like fire. Therefore it's a comfortably human-sized temperature scale. I've only been on this side of the Atlantic for 2 months and I'm already adapting to it nicely.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[Guppy06]

"what will happen to water today?"

Before or after the salt trucks come through?

"what can fall from the sky today?"

Because it's not possible for different layers of air to be at different temperatures?

"Same with 100, also very hot, and usefull even in the kitchen."

No, it's not. When was the last time you stuck a thermometer into a liquid on the stove in the process of cooking? Does your range have temperatures on the burner controls? Boiling water isn't useful in the kitchen because it's "exactly 100 degrees Celsius" (which it isn't), but because it's at a constant temperature, regardless of what number you chose to associate with it. And even then, stovetop recipes have to be adjusted for altitude ("How high am I above sea level?" is a question asked more often than "What temperature is this boiling water?")

"(and both 0 and 100 can be easily calibrated on Earth)"

No, they can't. Celsius is defined as a linear offset to kelvin, period. At a "standard" atmospheric pressure of 101 325 Pa, water boils at about 99.974 C (and this is a mathematical approximation based on experimental data). So even if you had a barometer that was accurate to 1 Pa absolute, arbitrarily declaring the saturation temperature in the room at the time as "100 C" is no more accurate than declaring it to be "212 F" (and at least there the approximately 180 F temperature difference between freezing and boiling is easier to subdivide geometrically).

As a linear offset to thermodynamic temperature, no mere mortal has the equipment to properly calibrate their thermometer (Celsius or Fahrenheit) in their kitchen.

"And no, 100 Fahrenheit isn't very usefull medically - it's a temperature of somebody with severe fewer;"

With respect to measuring human body temperature, Fahrenheit is useful medically by simple virtue of being more granular. Assuming a normal body temperature of 98.6 F (37 C), a fever of 100 F is still less than 1 C above normal. 38 C is 100.4 F.

"BS, even Celsius scale has way more precision than we need in day-to-day life"

Then the adjustments on your thermostat are marked only to the nearest 5 C? If it's more granular than you need, then put your money where your mouth is and set your thermostat up another 2 C.

"it's just above zero", "it's around 5", "a bit below 10"

So the "metric" temperature scale is one that people "feel" in units of 5 rather than 10? In Fahrenheit, that would be "in the 30's," "in the 40's" and "in the 50's," respectively.

 

Re:Fahrenheit?

[sdpuppy]

And no, 100 Fahrenheit isn't very useful medically

While 100F body temp isn't considered normal, it isn't severe - it is low grade fever. You're usually not bed ridden at the temp. Once you're above 102 to 104 - that is considered moderate fever. Above 105 F it is pretty bad and much above 107F you turn into an average anonymous Slash dot poster. http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/pa/pa_feverpho_hhg.htm

Fahrenheit has approx. twice as many divisions between water freezing and boiling, so in effect given the same number of significant digits, a temperature in Fahrenheit is more "precise" than one given in Celsius, but your point that this precision is more than what is needed in everyday life is quite valid. Also, given the ease of conversion between Celsius and the even more useful (in scientific circles) Kelvin scales, Celsius has the edge.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[Fred Ferrigno]

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but Fahrenheit is a decimal system based around the temperatures of water freezing and boiling at a very specific atmospheric pressure. 32F is defined to be the temperature at which water freezes and 212F is defined to be the temperature at which water boils. It's exactly the same thing as Celsius except for where the two points are placed.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[jbeaupre]

By -40, do you mean F or C?

Re:Fahrenheit?

[jbeaupre]

You're forgetting that Atlantis might still uses F. Maybe he meant side to be below the surface.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[Fred Ferrigno]

the true temp was in the -20s F. I've also had the pleasure of experiencing 114 F (same location).

I tend to think of this as a positive aspect of Fahrenheit rather than a negative one. Temperatures below 0 and above 100 are not unheard of in nature, but they are about as common. You were 20 below the scale on one end and 14 above the scale on the other. It's close to being symmetric.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[vux984]

By -40, do you mean F or C?

Both. Obviously. ;)

Re:Fahrenheit?

[sexconker]

It was 40 below on my birthday last year.

(I'm not telling you which scale I'm using though.)

Re:Fahrenheit?

[BlackSnake112]

Which wold rather go out in?

0 degrees Celsius or 0 degrees Fahrenheit?

Both are cold but one is more cold the the other. Same can be said on the hotter temps.

It really comes down to the people you are dealing with and what you are talking about. If you are dealing with sceince people and talking about the temps of space the deep ocean use Celsius. If you are talking to your kid sister/brother (or other non science people) and talking about the temp outside use what they know.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[MyLongNickName]

Yeah, just a joke, really.

I agree with that the metric system is superior than imperial. However, this is simply because of the base 10 conversions.

When someone turns their nose up to Celsius vs. Fahrenheit, they are just being snobbish. There is nothing intrinsically better about either system. The freezing point of water isn't even remotely close to a universal standard, but both do well at conveying the idea of whether to wear a jacket or not outside.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, yes -- exactly the same thing except for where the two points are placed. Unfortunately that means that both the meaning of "zero degrees" changes (obviously), and the magnitude of one degree changes, which pretty much means it's not the same thing at all. The only thing they share in common is the thing they express in units (temperature).

Re:Fahrenheit?

[LessThanComma]

What about the heat index? Or the wind chill? Arent they going to tell us how cold that "feels" like my TV weatherman does? I prefer my weather forcast in subjective terms I can understand.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[RJFerret]

It only makes sense because you're used to it.

In Celsius 0 is also very cold, but at the same time more meaningfull ("what will happen to water today?" or "what can fall from the sky today?"). Same with 100, also very hot, and usefull even in the kitchen. (and both 0 and 100 can be easily calibrated on Earth). And no, 100 Fahrenheit isn't very usefull medically - it's a temperature of somebody with severe fewer; if it would be "normal"/"border one" - I would agree with that one.

As for precision - BS, even Celsius scale has way more precision than we need in day-to-day life...

Actually, Fahrenheit makes even more sense imo, 0 is the freezing point of a brine, 32, the freezing point of water is 1/3rd of the way to body temperature. The boiling point of water is just over six times.

Imagine the dial of a clock, freezing of saline is at the top, water at 2:00, body temp at the bottom (6:00) and boiling water all the way around at 12:00. (Room temp would be around 4:00.) How elegant?

Human habitable nicely scales between 0 and 100, with the logical average of 50 having a certain balance to it. (It's about 10 in Celsius, with the range from -20 to 40...)

Even the sun's surface is just under a round 10,000 Fahrenheit, how much nicer can you get? (It's 5526 in Celsius.)

Metric is so much nicer for other measurements, especially when scaling, but that just doesn't seem to apply to centigrade for temperatures.

PS: I totally agree in terms of precision, people generally can't discern a different of four degrees Fahrenheit, whereas Fahrenheit multiplied Romer's original scale times four.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[AliasMarlowe]

In Celsius 0 is also very cold...

Wow, you must live in one of those perpetually warm places I've heard about - the French riviera or Florida, maybe. I live at latitude 63 degrees North, and can assure you that "very cold" begins at around -30C. In fact, 0 Celsius is regarded as quite a warm day in winter here.
I can also assure you that there is a palpable difference between -20C and -30C, and a similarly palpable difference between -30C and -40C. If you go outside (properly attired) at -30C, there is no chance of thinking mistakenly that it's -40C or -20C.
OK, in summer 0C would be cold, but we had several days in June and July this year when it did not go above +10C.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[markjhood2003]

The Fahrenheit scale was specifically designed to be useful for describing climatic temperatures, 0 being about the coldest and 100 about the hottest temperatures experienced in the temperate climate zones on planet Earth. It makes a hell of a lot more sense for that purpose than Celsius. It gets a lot colder than 0 Celsius in most parts of the world, and never gets as hot as 100, so the useful range for describing today's current weather is rather restricted in Celsius.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[Fred Ferrigno]

"Zero degrees" also changes when you talk about Kelvin but no one has a problem with that. The magnitude of a degree in Celsius is set by how many degrees you want to put between boiling and melting: 100 in the case of Celsius or 180 in the case of Fahrenheit. There is no real benefit to picking 180 instead of 100 or vice-versa.

Contrast both Fahrenheit and Celsius with the foot, which was originally just the size of the foot of the person doing the measuring. Eventually it was standardized to be a specific length more or less pulled out of thin air. The foot then subdivides into inches in base 12, which isn't commonly used for anything else except imperial measurements.

Fahrenheit shares the benefits common to metric units, being independently replicable and subdivided in base 10. It could have just as easily been a metric unit as Celsius.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[camperdave]

I agree with that the metric system is superior than imperial. However, this is simply because of the base 10 conversions.

It's more than using base 10 instead of fractions. Practically every imperial measurement requires two units of measure. Short lengths are in feet and inches. Weights are in pounds and ounces. Plus there are conflicting standards for these measurements. For example, a pound of gold weighs less than a pound of sand, but an ounce of gold weighs more than an ounce of sand. A mile on a map measures 5280 feet, 1/8 inches if you measure by ruler. Why? Because precious metals are measured in troy pounds and ounces and ordinary materials are measured in avoirdupois pounds and ounces. Distances on maps are measured in survey feet and inches, which are different than standard feet and inches.

The really dense thing about all this is that all of these weights and measures are DEFINED in terms of the metric system. A standard inch is 25.4mm by definition. A survey inch is 25.4000508 mm by definition (technically one inch U.S. survey measure is defined so that 39.37 inches is exactly 1 meter). The pound avoirdupois, which forms the basis of the U.S. customary system of mass, is defined as exactly 453.59237 grams.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[DerekLyons]

Same with 100, also very hot, and usefull even in the kitchen.

No, it's not. When was the last time you stuck a thermometer into a liquid on the stove in the process of cooking?

About 15 minutes ago. I'm not a professional chef - but they do it hundreds of times a day.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[sznupi]

Summing up your last paragraph - like I said, just a matter of what you're used to.

BUT - don't you agree that using the same scale no matter the situiation makes more sense?... (heck, I'm basically "fluent" also in Kelvins thanks to beeing used to Celsius scale)

Re:Fahrenheit?

[sznupi]

When it comes to climatic usage as in "usage by climatalogists", well...I'd put a wild guess that they don't have any issues with Celsius.

As for day-to-day usage - one could still argue that 0 in Celsius is still quite adequate; tells you when you should start to dress really warm. And at the point of -18 degrees Celsius/0 Fahrenheit you should be not only dressed warm - you should start to be carefull. So Fahrenheit is sort of borderline here again, just like with 100.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[sznupi]

Actually - central Europe. Extremities I witnessed were 37 degress C in summer and -28 in winter (daytime). By "really cold" I meant more "start to dress properly" (or alternativelly - "you might start to think about dressing more lightly" in pre-spring), sort of borderline temperature which sends a clear message.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[sznupi]

Thanks for explanation, it might start to make more sense to me... (right now I basically only know how much is -40 and 100; when communicating with somebody using F it's usually Google calculator for me...)

But as to making more sense - what's easier to aquire, brine or simply water? Freezing point of water is of course quite easy - but why use something different than in the first case (brine) and why put 32 degrees between those two points? Temperature of human body...not necceserilly straightforward. Boling water - piece of cake.

So...take on of the most abundant substances on Earth, freeze it, boil it, divide by 100. Makes sense.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[sznupi]

Well, I look at 37,7 (and even somewhat lower) as "requiring attention" already... (TBH this perception of mine might be influenced by the thing that due to medical reasons I was carefull in the past about high temperature)

BTW, temperature of human body, when measured in C, is ALWAYS given with first decimal number. So it's actually quite precise.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[RJFerret]

Hmm, around here that's what we put on the roads in the winter, well, we put the salt part, nature puts the water part. Above 0 Fahrenheit the roads are safe to travel, in the negatives, icy... Ice melt products work above 0 on the sidewalk, below 0 you are just wasting time.

I've never really had use for the freezing point of water. I mean, below 50 I need a sweatshirt, below 40 I need a jacket.

Oh, and for the most abundant substance on Earth, have you tasted the oceans recently? Try freezing it! ;-)

And I apologize for going back to the earlier post about what falls from the sky, 32 degrees (or 0 as the case may be) doesn't affect what is falling from the sky. It was 90 degrees here the other day when ice fell. The upper atmosphere circulation conditions in no way relate to down on the ground. I have been in liquid rain below 30 degrees (which froze in my hair) and had snow up to 36, which promptly melts.

Lastly a friend in Canada has a stereotypical joke for any differences in language, clothing, culture, "double it and add 32"--might save a trip to google's calculator! Heh...

Re:Fahrenheit?

[Darren Foong]

I've no idea why the difference between the freezing and boiling points of water are divided into 180 divisions, unlike the Celsius scale. To me, 100 is much more "natural"...

I never understood the Fahrenheit scale; the Celsius scale is straightforward. It's like percentages. 0 C is "cold as ice", 100 is "hot as boiling water", and negative temperatures are way too cold.

Introduce the scales to a three-year old kid. He'd probably be more used to the Celsius scale.

And obviously the thermodynamic (K) scale is too big for normal purposes....

Re:Fahrenheit?

[toddestan]

Perhaps I'm used to Fahrenheit, but it seems more natural to me. The point where water boils isn't really meaningful to me on a day-to-day basis, as my body really can't differentiate 80C from 100C from 200C, as those are all well within the "you're going to get burned" territory. If instead, you were to make a scale where you put the outside air temperature where it starts to get dangerously cold at 0 degrees, and where the outside air temperature starts to get dangerously hot at 100 degrees, you'd pretty much have the Fahrenheit scale. That's why it seems more natural, especially since temeratures much outside of that range simply become "damn hot" and "damn cold" to the human body. I would guess that a three-year old would find that more natural too, as most three year olds aren't really going to have a good concept of how hot boiling water is (and depending on where they live, how cold ice is too).

Re:Fahrenheit?

[toddestan]

Actually, Fahrenhiet is easier to calibrate. Mix salt into a water/ice mix until the solution is saturated. That's 0. Measure when water freezes, that's 32. Now measure your body temp. Call that 96. Now, you have a thermometer with marks at 0, 32, and 96. You'll note that these are 32 and 64 degrees apart, or nice powers of 2, so you can keep splitting the difference in half to fill out the scale with whole numbers. The boiling point of water is at 212 degrees, or 180 degrees away from the freezing point, which is another convienent number to divide.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[sdpuppy]

BTW, temperature of human body, when measured in C, is ALWAYS given with first decimal number. So it's actually quite precise.

Same with Fahrenheit - where I grew up, 98.6 F is "normal" temperature.

But then the accuracy all depends on calibration of the thermometer - doubt if a C reading is calibrated any closer than a F thermometer. :-)

Re:Fahrenheit?

[MikeBabcock]

Whereas instead of very cold, 0 degrees Celcius is the coldness that causes water to freeze. And instead of very hot, 100 degrees Celcius is the temperature at which water boils.

God forbid we change from pretty cool inaccurate comparisons to accurate chemistry based ones.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[MikeBabcock]

Last I checked we had decimals (you even used them in your degree values). My thermostat has .5 degree increments which gives me plenty of accuracy.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[Guppy06]

"Last I checked we had decimals (you even used them in your degree values)."

As does the Fahrenheit scale. SI and its ilk don't have a monopoly on decimal numbers.

But the point is that there are always applications for which one particular measurement system is ill-suited; where 1 is too big and 0.1 is too small to be useful. In the example of human body temperature, a fever of 1 C would leave you bed-ridden while 0.1 C would hardly be noticed. Measuring on the Fahrenheit scale gives you a middle ground between "healthy" and "flat on your ass" without the need to go down a whole order of magnitude.

"My thermostat has .5 degree increments which gives me plenty of accuracy."

I'd wager that Celsius isn't the only temperature scale your thermostat can use, then.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[camperdave]

No, the system was NOT DEFINED in terms of metric.

I agree that they did not start off that way, but since the Mendenhall Order of 1893 the fundamental standards of length and mass of the United States changed from the customary standards based on those of England to metric standards.

Re:Fahrenheit?

[Guppy06]

"In Celsius a normal human temperature is NOT 37 degrees, but 36.6 or 36.7 depending on a country."

And that changes the fact that 1 degree is too large and 1 decidegree is too small to be particularly meaningful units of measuring that temperature how?

"And since most current weather forecasts give a range of temperatures"

Because they're forecasts. The numbers given are as precise as they can predict at the given time.

"I highly doubt there's a single human in the world that can detect a difference between 27-29C and 77-82F."

Then I'll issue you the same challenge I issued the parent: bump up your thermostat 2 degrees Celsius. It's August and oil is expensive; provided you're not in the southern hemisphere, you'd be saving a few kW h by increasing the temperature in your home by an amount you claim you cannot detect.

Risk of retaliation

[dkleinsc]

The good news is that the Loonies can't do anything about it. I mean, all they could do is throw rocks at us, and what good would that do?

Re:Risk of retaliation

[ShadowBlasko]

I've got a botnet keeping ol' Mike busy for awhile.

He'll be lucky if he can get a packet out, let alone get those rocks in the catapult on target.

TANSTAAFL!

Re:Risk of retaliation

[Prof.Phreak]

The moon sure is a harsh mistress.

Re:Risk of retaliation

[deadmantyping]

depends on how big the rocks are

Re:Risk of retaliation

[bill_kress]

Fair Dinkum observation

Re:Risk of retaliation

[Tetsujin]

+1 Heinlein

Well, you won't get my mod points for a "+1 Heinlein" unless you include a couple chapters of preachy soapboxing through sock puppet characters...

Re:Wasn't this the plot of that Time Machine Remak

[ColdWetDog]

My God. Has the IQ of Slashdot dropped twenty points in the last fifteen minutes?

It's a bit hard to tell but I'm afraid you're on to something. We seem to be getting more "whoosh" posts before the joke.

Re:Have they exceeded their authority?

[GigG]

What the hell is going on here? Did all of you people click the link for stupid pills offered in a spam e-mail?

Re:Have they exceeded their authority?

[ColdWetDog]

Should NASA really be pursuing things that could ultimately fuck all of humanity up by breaking our tide?

If you are indeed worried about this, perhaps a remedial course in physics is in order. You might start a couple of books before the ones on orbital mechanics.

If you're funn'in us - well, sorry - not quite enough caffeine here.

Re:Wasn't this the plot of that Time Machine Remak

[rhyder128k]

You obviously don't know much about the science behind how they invented the moon. Because there isn't gravity on the moon, any small knock, no matter how small, could send it flying off into outer space. This ACTUALLY HAPPENED in a TV series called Space 1999.

Look up gravity on the internet, if you don't believe me. I don't like the idea of loosing the moon just for sake of an experiment.

Re:is that a good idea?

[petermgreen]

Simple physics tells us that bombing it with any bomb we currently have or are likely to have in the forseeable future will make no measurable difference and probablly a lot less difference than the various natural rocks that have hit the moon over the centuries.

Re:Wasn't this the plot of that Time Machine Remak

[MyLongNickName]

Seriously. I saw an AC make the same comment first. I wrote it off as a troll attempt. Then I see three logged in users making the same point. I was about to make a reasoned retort, but couldn't get past the "How Fricking Stupid Do You Have to Be!?!?" shock. Very similar when I have to explain something technical to the COO.

Re:Wasn't this the plot of that Time Machine Remak

[Darkness404]

Ummm... The "bomb" is small. If you look at the moon you can see craters from very big things that crashed into it previously.

sounds like a warped 60s slogan

[circletimessquare]

"stop the nukes"

"yeah yeah right on!"

"save the whales"

"you got that right brother!"

"bomb the moon"

"right... i mean, what?"

"bomb the moon with love, man"

"oh right, right, bomb the moon with love!"

"nuke the whales"

"ummm..."

Re:sounds like a warped 60s slogan

[Oktober Sunset]

Nuke a gay whale for Jesus!

Re:sounds like a warped 60s slogan

[Gilmoure]

Nuke the gay whales.
The get all the best parking spots!

Re:Wasn't this the plot of that Time Machine Remak

[Bemopolis]

The parent post is a perfect example of why, for the sake of my own sanity (and liver), I had to stop teaching science in college.

P.S. It's "lose", not "loose". And that's why I never even considered a career teaching English in college.

Better name...

[lazycam]

How about Lunar Crater Creating Observation and Sensing Satellite.

Re:Wasn't this the plot of that Time Machine Remak

[MyLongNickName]

His post was a joke. Totally a joke.

And, technically, his use of "loosing" works in the sentence. It is certainly not what he intended, but it also works in a bizarre, funny way.

Re:Wasn't this the plot of that Time Machine Remak

[Yvan256]

I find it's a shame, with all the old classics remakes we've seen for the past decade or so, that they missed the chance for a remake of Space 1999 (as a movie) in 1999.

Or maybe they're waiting for a remake called "Space 2099".

Re:Wasn't this the plot of that Time Machine Remak

[rhyder128k]

For God's sake man, why do you think that they had to send more than one Apollo mission? It was to balance things out. That jack-ass Aldrin started jumping up and down in his heavy space suit for the cameras. Before they had time to radio him to stop, much of the damage had already been done.

That other guy who dropped a hammer onto the surface had to drop a feather at the same time for the same reason.

Thank you.

[BitterOldGUy]

I have mod points, but I don't know whether to rate you -1 Off Topic or +1 Funny

Hopefully someone else can make the proper call as I do a quick search for Amazon moon women.

That's decent of you. I wish more folks would do that. When I first started, someone gave me a -1 Troll for what I thought was something quite funny. Well the deal is, even if I have a +5 Funny, modding me -1 whatever gives the comment an overall score of -1. And if you're just starting out, well, you post from then on at 0 or -1 if another didn't get or didn't like the joke.

Re:Apparent issues

[BattleWolf]

AFAIK Red Mars with that particular plot line is written by Kim Stanley Robinson...

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Mars-Kim-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0553560735

Re:Apparent issues

[ContraMatter]

The Author was Kim Stanley Robinson, not Ben Bova. And the space elevator wrapping around Mars had no connection with water. We could nuke the moon with everything we got and it wouldn't do jack to our eco-system. I really hope these kinds of comments are sarcastic, noodley one help us if they aren't.

This is Awesome

[areReady]

Somehow, this mission strikes me as one of the coolest things NASA's done in a while. It's a struggling unit of the organization, working with spare parts from scrapped projects, jury-rigging a satellite together that will tow the spent upper stage of a rocket to the moon and smash the chunk of metal otherwise slated to be space debris into the closest heavenly body to send an Earth-visible (with a decent telescope) plume from one of its poles. Finally, it will analyze the plume to figure out if there's ice there.

Totally. Awesome

Re:This is Awesome

[Sockatume]

NASA are crazy MacGuyverish bastards, it's true. You wouldn't think you could correct for a damaged tape reel or radiation defects in your LEDs over the end of a million-mile radio link, but somehow they pull it off.

Re:This is Awesome

[goodmanj]

Yes, it's a great "Little Engine that Could" story, but I'm going to wait until they actually *DO* it before I give my congratulations.

Low budget, jury-rigged parts, inexperienced designers, rush job = very high chance of total failure.

Good luck, Ames!

Re:This is Awesome

[bar-agent]

This is all a set-up for the next Pixar movie

Does it have a happy ending?

"*sniff* Mommy, why did the satellite have to die?"

Yes. i need then

[BitterOldGUy]

What the hell is going on here? Did all of you people click the link for stupid pills offered in a spam e-mail?

Yes. It's the only thing keeping me from fire bombing in this political and economic climate.

Tricky shot

[HangingChad]

Apparently to make this work NASA will have to hit the opening of a thermal vent that's less than 2 meters across at the end of a canyon lined with defensive gun placements.

Many NASAians died getting us this information.

Re:Tricky shot

[natgry]

why, that's no bigger than the womprats I used to bullseye in my T-16 back home...

Re:Wasn't this the plot of that Time Machine Remak

[rhyder128k]

A moon based disaster-adventure would be pretty cool. Even with near future tech, you don't need as implausible a premise as the Space 1999 one to isolate a group and place them in danger.

Actually, as a Hollywood studio made that Val Kilmer Mars movie, where they discovered that there was air on Mars after all, perhaps audiences would go for it?

Polluting the moon

[teko_teko]

That day will mark the day human started polluting and slowly destroying the moon.

This reminds me of a series of Calvin & Hobbes strips, where they went to Mars because earth was too polluted.

Sigh...

[afabbro]

...did we learn nothing from Godzilla!?!?

If there is one thing that NASA is good at...

[Nadaka]

It is crashing into planets (and other bodies). Look how well we did with the Mars Polar Lander and Mars Orbiter!

Re:If there is one thing that NASA is good at...

[Higaran]

I'm giving 4 to 1 odds that they miss the moon entirely. Because if the thy to land they crash, so if they try to crash, its never going to happen. They did it once, I'm thinking that was a fluke. So who is with me?

Re:If there is one thing that NASA is good at...

[sexconker]

Once?
Retard.

This operation will be called...

[vivin]

Like OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom), this one will be called Operation Moon Freedom (rated G for everyone), or OMFG.

Re:The Time Machine

[k1e0x]

That is what I was thinking.

I heard a conspiracy theory that the renewed interest in the moon by NASA at the direction of George Bush was due to the discovery of Helium-3 there.

Helium-3 is a non-radioactive isotope http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3

My understanding of this is that this means is you can have fusion without radiation only dealing with heat and actually raw electricity as a by product. So it seems the energy generation is far greater than other forms of fusion. ... Or in other words.. Bush is invading the moon for a new kind of "oil".

Nasa finally listened to Frank J!

[slapout]

A Realistic Plan for World Peace
a.k.a
Nuke the Moon

http://www.imao.us/docs/NukeTheMoon.htm

Mission diagram

[Chris Pimlott]

NASA has released a diagram detailing the planned trajectory.

Re:Have they exceeded their authority?

[GigG]

Orbital Mechanics, I don't need no orbital mechanics. Just ask yourself, the last time a jumbo jet crashed did it cause the earth to change its orbit?

no sharks?

[Numbah One]

couldn't they use some frickin' sharks with frickin' lasers instead?

Re:no sharks?

[Naked Jaybird]

Due to budget constraints, we must use the mutated sea bass.

Re:Wasn't this the plot of that Time Machine Remak

[Tubal-Cain]

I blame idle.slashdot.org

Another "Shock-and-Awe"

[idontgno]

demonstration of Aerospace Dominance, followed closely by a search for WMD*.

*Water of Moist Dampening

Re:Another "Shock-and-Awe"

[LanceLungstrong]

I'd have to disagree, if they were trying to show aerospace dominance they would have gone with the plan they had 5 years ago where they wanted to send a bunker buster into the crater. Sadly that would have cost a good 500 million dollars. This project only even came to be because nasa didnt have any delta 2 rockets and the delta 4 rockets they did have had a lot of extra power that could be used.

Re:is that a good idea?

[Ortega-Starfire]

You are in fact wrong. Not only are there significant amounts of natural rock that are radioactive naturally on earth, but the rocks in space have been bombarded by cosmic radiation for eons.

Fools!

[Oktober Sunset]

What are they doing? What will happen when the moon men retaliate? They need have an exit strategy before they start bombing!

Re:The Time Machine

[Notquitecajun]

If that's the case, I ain't complainin'. That's the type of conspiracy I could live with.

Re:Wasn't this the plot of that Time Machine Remak

[FooAtWFU]

What exactly do you think they can do to the moon which will affect the Earth?

The Moon provides a) gravity and b) moonlight. I don't see either changing.

missile testing?

[h2k1]

looks like someone is testing the capability of controling extraplanetary missiles.

Re:missile testing?

[DerekLyons]

You mean the well tested and proven capability we've had since the 1960's? Being laughably paranoid is one thing, but at least learn WTF you are talking about.

Re:missile testing?

[h2k1]

yes, but today we can also maintain a moonbase and deploy there the "red button" control centre.
i guess you didn't RTFA.

Seeing LCROSS 1st hand

[LanceLungstrong]

Haha funny thing is I saw the LCROSS sat just yesterday and got the complete run down of its mission from on of the lead engineers over at Northrop Grumman Space Tech in Redondo Beach.
It's actually a 2 part system. (Which is expected to be launched in March, but will crash into the moon some time in July, hopefully the 4th according to my source.)
It targets the crater and then detaches one of its rockets that which carries a camera and spectrometer on it. It gets about 4 minutes behind the impacter and then watches the impacter hit and takes data from the cloud, but the cool thing is that it eventually flies into the debris and samples it directly peering from the inside out.
All in all its going to be a terrific mission if it works but after talking to the guys that have been building this thing, they have done everything they could to make this successful.

To paraphrase Saruman

[Naked Jaybird]

The Americans delved too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in, the darkness of the Moon. Shadow and flame.

Re:War is declared ...

[owlnation]

It does have something to do with biology...

WON'T ANYONE THINK OF THE WHALES?

Stop the bombing! Save the moon whales!

Come on, Slashdot.

[Rod Beauvex]

120 comments, two pages thus far, and -still- not even so much as a "thatsnomoon" tag?

that's nice...

[Snotman]

How does the rest of the world feel about this? After all, it is not Americas moon - it is the world's moon and America is considering crashing something into it because they do not have the budget. Too bad - get the budget.

Re:The Time Machine

[k1e0x]

Oh I have no idea if its true or not..

But it does raise the question of "Who owns the moon?" It's perfectly fine to say, nobody.. or all people.. or whatever when nobody can get to it.. but a valuable resource that you can get to and use.. I don't expect governments around the world to be ok with "community" ownership for very long.

Initially the wars in space will be pretty cool I think though.. lol

maybe they got mixed up

[BlackSnake112]

Remember the articles about how Earth could be saved from a collision with a asteroid by putting a small satellite and changing the orbit enough to miss Earth. Perhaps they are thinking that this will do the same to the moon.

Or maybe they think that movies actually follow the laws of physics instead of the laws of what will get people into the seats.

Re:Wasn't this the plot of that Time Machine Remak

[Gilmoure]

Is everyone taking crazy pills?

Dudes! (and dudettes. Won't discriminate on ya'll. I figure there's some goofs on your side as well)

What's the freaking fear with the word Bomb? We set off bombs all the time on the earth? No one's complaining about those. And this isn't really even a bomb but more like a big rock, designed to turn the soil.

Sit down and shut up, Francis!

NASA Will Bomb the Moon

[Illbay]

That'll teach them damn' MOONIES!

Re:The Time Machine

[GodfatherofSoul]

To kick off the construction, a large bomb was set off. The result, the moon cracked in half and people eventually started to eat each other.

Wow, I think this is the Webster's definition of non sequitur. WTF does the result have to do with the cause?

NASA Sends George Clinton To Bomb The Moon

[Hoi Polloi]

NASA has released more information on their plan for finding water on the moon, "We are sending in George Clinton and his Parliament Funkadelic Mothership to the moon where he will be DA BOMB!". NASA expects Mr Clinton to kick it out and lay down a funk so powerful that any water hidden in the moon's crust should be revealed. "He is gonna kick it like he's never kicked it before." said chief NASA engineer Richard Bogus. Mr Clinton later said "I don't forsee any problems unless I get a last minute request from the citizens of Alpha Centuri. That is the center of hypergalactic soul funk!"

Re:NASA Sends George Clinton To Bomb The Moon

[R3d M3rcury]

He's gonna drop the funk bomb on it.

Gandolf misquotation

[ambrosius27]

He who bombs a thing to find out what is in it has left the path of wisdom.

Re:Wasn't this the plot of that Time Machine Remak

[sexconker]

And with gravity so low, that heavy jumping had an extreme effect on the moon's orbit!

Re:War is declared ...

[Ortega-Starfire]

Good. The US can now legally declare "The War on Loonies" now.

resource usage

[drDugan]

so NASA want to "bomb" the moon. Nice. Aside from the obvious destruction and violence quips - another concern comes to mind.

FTA: "because it can be broken down into oxygen for lunar bases and fuel for rockets".

Kind of like what we did with all that oil, right - find it and use it all up like spoiled children with candy? It was 500 million years of energy, collected and compressed by biology, burned up in about 200 years, and in the process significantly altering the systems that made the biology possible.

I hate to break the really bad news, but we're all alone out here in a cold, dark and most unfriendly-to-life corner of the Universe. Getting to Mars is just a step - the REAL prize is making it possible for humans to journey outside our solar system, to other life sustaining places. This is a 20 thousand year project. Without that, humans remain a just a radio footnote in this dark corner. If humans take the same long-term approach to resource discovery and utilization with the rest of the planets and moons in the Solar System that we have with Earth, we will surely fail.

Aim carefully

[longacre]

It would suck if they accidentally knocked down the flag Buzz Lightyear planted up there.

Re:is that a good idea?

[spyder913]

Granite contains Uranium. Get a geiger counter and test the nearest granite countertop and be amazed!

Of course, it's not *dangerous*, but it is definitely radioactive.

Re:NASA will be gone in about ten years.

[dtolman]

Given this reality, NASA should concentrate only on projects that can be completed with useful results within a short time frame. Certainly no more than five to ten years total. That means no more fantasies about moon bases and Mars manned missions. If NASA commits itself to these hugely expensive but largely symbolic projects, they will most likely find themselves cut off from funding in the middle of the 20-30 year projects. With no lasting results to show for the expense.

You're still too ambitious - if what you're saying is true, NASA should only concentrate on projects that can be completed in 5-10 days total. I propose a mission to the dry cleaner and back. On foot (since gasoline will be gone). With guns (to fight off the cannibals).

Re:Apparent issues

[lymond01]

Right...keep getting those two authors confused. Thanks for the factcheck. While I didn't read Blue Mars, I was under the impression the cable had broken open a bunch of underground watersheds...I figured that would play into the "blueing" of Mars.

And yes, everything was tongue-in-cheek. It hurts a little inside to suggest you'd think otherwise (Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers? Sheesh.).

I wouldn't bomb it because...

[danieltdp]

thats no moon.

Re:Apparent issues

[ContraMatter]

The series is actually quite brilliant if a bit long winded, but most of the water came from icey commets and rocks they divert to burn off in the atmosphere. Some water comes from underground sources. My appologies, I sometimes take things too literally, and have met too many people in the past who's education in certain areas are sadly lacking. Here's to our amazing education system! Woot.

We're doomed

[aaaaaaargh!]

They will awake the Man in the Moon.

Blue Ice?

[Dark_Gravity]

Seriously, Blue Ice?

Cheap and easy

[g16n]

"I think that people are apprehensive about it because it seems violent or crude, but it's very economical," said Tony Colaprete, the principal investigator for the mission at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. I think that was the thinking when relating to this whale: http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=6ebjsqssjt

Then we'll use complex physics . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Simple physics tells us

. . . and point the Large Hadron Collider at the Moon . . . that will get it to talk, and tell us where the water is . .

Ugh. Can we not quote Popular Mechanics?

[Fantastic Lad]

Those guys are the geek equivalent of deep South monster truck aficionados.

-FL

America will Blow Up the Moon

[otis wildflower]

Mr. Show ftw..

TIA

Remember what happened in 1999!

[tverbeek]

Those who do not learn from the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

Re:is that a good idea?

[isomeme]

Most of the radioactivity in stone and ceramic building materials is from potassium 40 decay, not uranium.

Alien Condos

[Nom du Keyboard]

And if there are aliens living down there where the water is available who are using it as an observation post to watch over planet Earth, boy are they going to be pissed (that's American pissed, not British pissed).

To quote The West Wing...

[Landshark17]

Toby: They think if they crash into it hard enough they can get to the center?

Sam: Yes.

Toby: That's not a theory of physics pretty much disproved by Wile E Coyote?

Well ya know ...

[yodleboy]

they coulda saved a lot of money if they'd just read Rocket Ship Galileo first!

What is NASA thinking!?

[CrapmasterFlash]

How soon we forget the lessons from 2002's prescient "The Time Machine". Remember what happened to the jerks who tried to blast out the moon to build luxury condos?... For all of you out there who think this is a great idea: don't come crying to me when the only public technology left is a sheet of glass with a talking hologram of Orlando Jones.

Re:War is declared ...

[Aerynvala]

What did Canadian money ever do to the US?

Sure, that's it... we'll bite

[Lord Flipper]

A few weeks ago we got first word of NASA's plan...blahblah.."

Sure, water, right. Look, if the last sixty years has taught us anything, it's that, obviously, the US must have found some labor organizers and such, with no air defenses and a society, or so-called 'sovereign nation', that is too impoverished to defend themselves.

Re:The Time Machine

[rbanffy]

Well... They did that to poor H. G. Wells...

And his grandson directed the movie.