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Front Row Seats To NASA's Lunar Impact
itwbennett writes "Tomorrow morning at 7:30 EDT, NASA is going to crash a probe into the moon as part of its LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observing and Sensing Satellite) mission, the main purpose of which is to discover if there's any water on the moon. 'If you happen to have a 10-12" telescope (or larger) then you might be able to see the plume from your backyard,' says blogger Peter Smith. 'For the rest of us, the impact will be streamed live over the web in a few places. NASA will have a feed, beginning at 6:15 EDT. The NASA feed includes live footage from the spacecraft itself as well as expert commentary and other goodies. Astronomy service SLOOH is offering a double-shot of earth-bound feeds, with one feed from New Hampshire and the other from Arizona. The SLOOH feeds start at 6:30 am EDT.'" Update: Matt_dk adds a link to a viewing guide to the impact, writing that "Amateur astronomers need a 10-inch or bigger telescope to make observations."
NASA have set up a webpage for the LCROSS Observation Campaign: http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/observation.htm
By the way, it is at 11.30 UTC for those who don't know how far their timezone is from EDT.
It's a pretty safe bet that the impact of the Centaur module will awaken some ancient lunarian race which will immediately begin waging a campaign to subjugate Earth once and for all, so it would behoove you to watch one of these feeds in order to be prepared for the inevitable.
... GORDON .....
Flash!!!
They are going to be pissed! http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f308/jimmyisgay1/mooninites.jpg
I wish that the "Mythbusters" guys would fly the probe into the Moon with one of them screaming, "I wanna see something blow up!"
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Is it really so hard to set up an excavation robot on the moon that we have to keep dropping things on it?!?
Also...
Trying to get rid of mental image of Man on the Moon wearing a blindfold while smoking a cigarette.
NasaTV Feeds at different resolutions:
100k/s, 320/240
200k/s, 320/240
500k/s, 480x360 (I think)
100k/s, 640/480
All Windows Media format
Real media format
Quicktime
For those of you who need to watch it in absolute realtime, I've found that all the yahoo feeds (windows media) whilst being the best video quality are generally about 1-2 minutes behind realtime. Realmedia is normally about 5-10 seconds behind realtime.
I just saw this video on CNN
There are also a bunch of videos on you tube
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
But they really missed an opportunity with this one: LCROSS was sent to find RUGBYs (Remote Underground BaYous of course)
Super Number One, a podcast about all things geek
Maybe we should think twice before launching an attack against an Utu-class planetoid?
Mutineer's Moon
http://www.webscription.net/10.1125/Baen/0671720856/0671720856.htm
TomB
"You can't take the sky from me..."
Looks like NASA has launched a large white glass plate and placed it in near earth orbit. It is sitting exactly in the line of sight from Earth to moon. People normally see through this the real Moon. But at the appointed time, NASA will project an image using lasers and create an illusion of a spacecraft crashing into moon, and then turn off the projection. Ha, haa, NASA, we got you. We got you all figured it out. Your jig is up. We will not be denied our meal ticket no matter what you do.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
NBC Announced this morning that they will be airing the coverage of the impact live on the Today Show.
When that probe hits deep within the crater, it will finally puncture the Moon's skin and we all know what happens to a water balloon!
Come on now, we all know that the moon is filled with cheese.
So NASA found some lunar aliens on the moon in a crater to play catch with? Awesome!
Don't feed the trolls, but how about moderating them?
This particular program, like most NASA programs, was funded and largely paid for a long time ago. To put a stop to this project simply because of a problem in our economy today would erase the benefits of these sunk costs, and instead only eliminiate a small portion of costs that remain - the launch and analysis. That'd be like building a car, and then driving it into a lake simply because you couldn't afford the gas. Sure, it makes sense on the surface that you can't drive it, but why throw it away?
BTW, I know that with the car analogy you could leave the car in the driveway. Apparently NASA projects aren't exactly like that, and have huge startup and shutdown costs, plus the issue of getting the timing just right.
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
whatcouldpossiblygowrong? This reminds me of the scene in the 2008 whatever version of the Time Machine where the moon was blasted on to make condos or someshit and it went horribly wrong.
Seriously guys, is it our right to bomb the moon? and permanently scar her chi forever? Rather than being passive observer's of this horrible Astrological act of Terrorism by the evil U.S. Government we should all be contemplating the beauty of the moon, and focusing compassion towards her to help her through what will surely be a difficult and painful time for her. Join countless others on this date in a movement of group meditation to help mend the scars that our less compassionate brethren will bequeath upon the heavens!
/sarcasm
In all seriousness, I am really excited about this. Hopefully if we do discover large concentrations of water it will be an ass kick in the space industry to get our act together and get onto building a colony =)
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Don't forget that if you're laying off everyone working on the project you're increasing unemployment and decreasing the amount those people are spending -- while I don't usually take that as a good argument for maintaining federal programs, maintaining useful programs that happen to maintain peoples employment seems like a decent idea, particularly for an administration that takes a fairly Keynesian view.
Of course, I'm a spacecraft engineer and not an economist so my view may be a little skewed.
He'll save every one of us!
[UID-HeinzIntel]
you suggest that it's not worth finding out.
Frankly, you're oversimplifying my point. To reiterate, what I'm suggesting is that it's not clear to me what the point is. We know right now that it would be difficult as hell to get water. We know right now that it would be difficult as hell to get equipment up there. What we know right now is that it's going to be expensive.
If it's expensive and its worth it, fine. But I wonder: what is the point? I don't see the point. Tell me.
Give me a a cohesive, comprehensive vision for space exploration and then we can fund it or not instead of framing the argument on a "Gee whiz" footing.
I know this impact will be very small compared to the total momentum of the Moon in its orbit with the Earth. But it will have some effect. How much more quickly (or slowly) will the Moon and Earth escape each other's pull and travel apart, ahead of (or behind) the original schedule?
--
make install -not war
Now, let us see if someone made a math error, and they miss the moon entirely.
It raises the question of why we're spending any time at all on the moon. It can't be lived on, it's unlikely to harbor life, its geology has already been explored. Someone tell me what the point is...
Its surface geology has been explored, but not what's beneath. As for why to explore it, it's the closest heavenly body to the earth, so it's a good place to start. It's cheap and easy to get to, and a good stepping stone to future missions. Do you think the Viking or Mariner missions would have been successful if not for the Surveyor moon missions? If we ignore moon science, we make all future space missions more difficult and expensive.
If you don't think astronomy isn't important, then you must hate science. If you think the moon isn't important, you're just not thinking practically.
Of course, the reason for using a satellite impact is because it's cheaper and easier to determine if there is any water at all (which scientists aren't sure of). If there isn't, we saved ourselves a bunch of money by not sending up an expensive excavator robot. If there is, then we can determine how best to determine the geological significance, and what that means for the history of our solar system and potential future moon missions.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
Mankind is something of an odd creature. Our inquisitive nature allows it explored areas that are too hostile even for us to survive. We do this exploration and observe what happens in order to satisfy our other primary curiosity, knowledge. From this knowledge and experience, we gain valuable insight that helps make out lives a bit easier, safer, and perhaps more challenging at the same time. It's in our nature to push the limits of about anything in order to achieve a goal or satisfy a challenge. This is one thing that distinguishes us from most other life forms we know of.
That being said, we do it because we can and be we can means that we will be able to do other things later which may or may not benefit society. So far, crashing a probe and analyzing the debris is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to satisfy the question of Ice on the moon. If it's there, the next challenge would be to make it accessible and usable to man for whatever out needs are. Now this tech could be really interesting because it could help irrigate deserts or provide emergency water in catastrophe situations. It could also help us in determining much more about the moon and develope technology to make missions possible to other planets which may or may not yield more information or technology that makes human life easier/better.
In short, the point is to simply expand our knowledge. The point is to satisfy some of the very basic human traits.
We're actually gonna nuke the moon!
http://www.imao.us/docs/NukeTheMoon.htm
...and other places. Viewing parties across the country in fact.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/impact/event_index.html
f u cn rd ths u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgmng
It would really suck if the lunar substrate turned out to be far more rigid (what with the cold of space) than we thought, and this impact set up a resonant frequency that shook all the surface lunar dust OFF, and the Earth's gravity drew it all in, causing the Ultimate Lunar Winter. It's The End Of The World As We Know It.
Holy crap! I think I just invented the next Michael Bay movie!
I do hereby claim 25% of the movie revenue. If only to make it too unprofitable (to stop the madness).
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
The site linked to in this story doesn't appear to support OS's other than windows and mac for streaming video.
Maybe (hopefully) I'm not looking hard enough but at first glance their is no linux support.
Good thing I have a telescope.
"we don't know if there was any effect on Earth as a result of large impacts on the moon."
Large impacts? What do you mean, large impacts? The probe is the size of a car, man!
here.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
As is the norm for 99% of all astronomical events like comets, meteor showers, space station flyovers, etc. this one, too, will be obscured by dense cloud cover for anyone living in the Chicago area. (Argh!)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Yours is 14 inches in diameter?! Wow, that's... something, I guess. I would say "sorry for your inability to have sex, ever", but I doubt that your girth is the primary obstacle.
The enemies of Democracy are
I seem to recall a large world nearby with plentiful water supplies that could be shipped in... It isn't as if lunar settlers would completely cut off from supplies from Earth, the Moon isn't THAT far away. Add that with even a half-decent water recycling system, and water shouldn't be a problem.
The Gish Bar Times - Blog covering Jupiter's moon Io
According to The Register, it's "Treehugging, possibly lycanthropic web-2.0 campaigners" - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/07/stop_nasa_bombing_the_moon/
"lycanthropic web-2.0"? Who gave the furries their own Internet? I won several Internets on a forum, I want an Internet!
I think I am going to be screwed in South America where i live. The days are getting longer, so it will still be day light out even though I am in that EDT time zone.
Living in Chile
Apparently I can't be called kooky or a greenie, but just a troll looking to start a flame war.
Obviously, this means that I am alone in thinking that smashing shit into our moon is a good idea.
I am reminded of endoftheworld.flv with this story. I know this rocket we're sending to the moon isn't all that powerful, but imagine... the shockwave from the blast being strong enough to change the orbit of the moon around earth by even 1/10th of a degree could possibly mess up the oceans so badly that we have just killed ourselves... and then it wouldn't matter if the kangaroos survive the nukes...
Shit guys!! We r fuct...
:( my Japanese telescope only 3 inches :(
Nearly 90% of the US films end up in an explosion, either it is a building, or a ship, car, mountain, some people, but something always to be exploded.
I was in the USA and I noticed there other strange things. It is considered to be shameful to walk. The sidewalks are narrow, the green light for pedestrians light up just for about 10 seconds, so that one has nearly to run to cross a street. Automobile roads look like the rivers of steel, like a new geographical phenomena.
If one does not spoil nature, does not pollute badly, does not explode something big time, he/she is a sissy.
I am not trying to bash the good old USA, but this feature of the US culture comes to the front line of human civilization, as the US becomes the only world "super power". We will see more and more "magnificent" explosions. Now even on the moon! Didn't you hear about drilling?
If billions of people on our planet start to reproduce this way of life, as what seems to be happening already to some degree, not only our planet will not bear it, but the whole planetary system will collapse.
Because its cheaper to take stuff from the moon into outer space than it is from Earth, by virtue of its much lower gravity and nearly non-existant atmosphere.
Perhaps actually living on the Moon's surface won't ever be feasible, but there's no reason why you couldn't just, dunno, grab a chunk of it then process it in your theoretical spaceship.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Remember, this is not a bombardment, but a "police action"
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oh ye gods that just made my friday. Treehugging trolling werewolves.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
The boffin-hyped"plume" wasn't visible with ten inch nor twenty inch amateur telescopes. It wasn't even visible with 200 inches telescope that Palomar Observatory has! PR nightmare, bwahaha.
No, this is the redneck center for NASA - it's par for the course down there.
The reason it doesn't make sense is that it's not the way we(they) usually do things. However, this is a cheap way of doing it. Instead of comping up with a bunch of mechanisms, they're going just doing it on a macro scale. I suspect - but have no proof - that someone made the conjecture if we could observe a small asteroid hitting the moon, we could observe the debris and get data from a good depth below the surface. Somebody else suggested not waiting for an asteroid, since we're already pretty good at high velocity impacts. The up side is that it's cheap, the down side is that you only get one shot.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The problem isn't water, it's energy. It takes a lot of energy to lift anything out of Earth's gravity well. Getting water to the moon in large volume is energetically too expensive to make it worth the trouble. Finding water on the moon makes a moon base a lot cheaper.
This brings me to the next step. Water on the Moon isn't valuable because it's water. Water on the Moon represents energy. Using solar power, it can be split into hydrogen and oxygen, and then burned back into water vapor (or just used as separate gases; oxygen can obviously be used for life support and hydrogen can be used as a thrust medium, since you're venting it into an essential vacuum so there's no risk of ignition). The value behind this is that hydrogen/oxygen is cheaper to move around, which makes it a lot more useful for fueling machines than batteries driven directly from solar power. Therefore, we'd be able to start constructing much better vehicles and engines on a moon base than if it was all electrical. The presence of water locally is what makes a moon base economically more feasible, so it's important to know if it's there.
Virg