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Has a hyperactive five-year-old taken over as the director of NASA? It sure seems like it. On Friday morning, an unmanned spacecraft launched in June will crash into the moon's surface. On purpose.
Anyone not named Michael Bay is likely to ask why. Here's the answer: NASA wants to know if the twin impacts of the Lunar Crater Observation and its Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) will reveal any ice or water under the moon's surface.
Finding out shouldn't be an issue. When the twin crafts hit the lunar surface at around 6,000 mph, NASA expects "plumes of moon dust — perhaps full of ice — (to soar) 6.2 miles high above the moon's Cabeus crater."
Anticipation among the earthbound is running high. Lookups on "nasa moon bombing" are scorching the search box. Related queries on "nasa.gov" and "NASA moon mission" are also rocketing skywards. More than a few folks are wondering how much the soon-to-be-destroyed LCROSS costs. Answer: $79 million, according to Christian Science Monitor.
Clearly, this is one of those cases where a picture is worth a thousand words. We're gonna go one better and show you a video from NASA. The animated clip shows what NASA expects to happen. The entire sequence looks a bit like one of Dr. Evil's satellites crashing into the Death Star. In other words, it's awesome. See it for yourself below.
Yup, it was time for another awful article. And again, while the article is interesting, it pales in comparison to the comment section.
Notice that the writer makes no mention at all about all the work LCROSS did orbiting the moon, and that NASA are essentially crashing it after it has completed its mission with flying colors. Not to mention that they did so to insure that it would perform one last mission even in destruction. But they make it sound like this crash was the only thing the seventy-plus million dollars were used for.
On to the comments. Let's see, a baker's dozen of comments:
$79 million? Meanwhile, Social Security is going downhill and millions are living in poverty.
will it mess the man in the moons face up "
NASA is the biggest money drain on this country. This stupid crash is just more proof.
ok i might be crazy but i have seen alot of movies lol about something going wrong or i always thought you need a plan "B" just incase something goes wrong i have a few questions
1.What kind of bomb is this?
2.What would everyone do if the "misson" doesnt go so well?
3.What if they "bomb" the moon and it crashes into a million pieces and comes straight to Earth?
4.Why all of a sudden they want to "bomb" the moon?
Nice to know we've got that kind of money to throw away. If we flushed it down the toilets we'd at least be able to recover it. What kind of investment is this? What will we learn by crashing a craft on the moon? It will be like watching a clip from Jackass: the NASA edition.
How dangerous is that for us? Hope they don't through it out of orbit. What are they thinking?
The moon is not owned by the United States so I wonder how we'd feel if another country were doing this. NASA wasting our hard earned money again. Why not? We've got plenty, right?
this is so stupid. what if the moon falls out of orbit and crashes in to the earth and we blow up? i mean really. we could all die tomorrow. so make 2day your happiest day. =]
I Agree with the people who are not Happy about it.
We should put time and money on problems we have on our planet.
Bombing is not the Answer!
Paper to print for the bankrupt USA while CEO of Banks, RE Investment Firms, etc Goldman Sacs become billionaires and USA citizens-slaves become BODY PARTS for GLOBAL CATALOGUE
What a government in the hands of sick EVIL TRAITORS
are we still going to have a moon
my thoughts exactly, have these idiots thought about what this will do to the moon? im not a nature freak (is the moon even considered nature?) but they are ruining something that shouldnt be touched. and if we all happen to die because of this idiotic test, im leading the mob to nasa
whats the point??? if they want to crash something into something play with legos video games dont mess with our moon what happens if something bad happens an they cant fix it or control then were f ucked big time
OK, I don't want to sound elitist or anything, but in this case it can't be helped while remaining honest. These people shouldn't be worried about money being mis-spent on NASA, they should be worried about it not being used effectively in the public education system.
I mean, this is just... wow.
It's less "science" per se and more "how does the public understand/react to science".
I guess, though there are a few channels with sensible people on YouTube. I usually keep to those few ones with sensible material (they also tend to have less asinine comments than usual).