Moon Launch: NASA Sends Unmanned Rocket (VIDEO)

(The Associated Press)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA launched its first moon shot in a decade Thursday, sending up a pair of unmanned science probes that will help determine where astronauts could land and set up camp in years to come.

The liftoff occurred just one month and two days shy of the 40th anniversary of the first lunar footprints. The mission is a first step in NASA's effort to return humans to the moon by 2020.

Watch the launch:

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Scientists cheered as the Atlas V rocket carrying the two spacecraft blasted off in late afternoon, ducking through clouds and providing an exhilarating start to the $583 million mission.

"It was amazing," said John Keller, a deputy project scientist.

The two spacecraft should reach the moon in four to five days _ or by early next week. One will enter into an orbit around the moon for a mapping mission. The other will swing past the moon and go into an elongated orbit around Earth that will put it on course to crash into a crater at the moon's south pole in October.

NASA expects the dramatic moon-impacting part of the mission to be "a smashing success." It's a quest to determine whether frozen water is buried in one of the permanently shadowed craters. Water would be a tremendous resource for pioneering astronauts.

"We're going to be doing some lunar prospecting, if you will, excavation style," said project manager Dan Andrews.

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It's an unusual two-for-one moon shot.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will provide a high-precision, three-dimensional map of the lunar surface. It will circle the lunar poles and, via its seven science instruments, provide a new atlas of the moon as well as a guidebook for future explorers.

When it comes time to launch astronauts to the moon, NASA wants to avoid putting them down on an uneven surface, near boulders or in a crater.

"The Apollo program accepted risk and was able to have safe landings," said Richard Vondrak, project scientist for the orbiter. "But we want to return to the moon, make repeated landings in some areas, and be able to go there with a higher degree of safety."

The second probe, called the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, will be aiming for a spectacular smashup that should be visible from the United States.

"How do you get something that's been in the dark for maybe a billion or 2 billion years out to study it?" said Anthony Colaprete, the principal investigator.

Answer: Impact the bottom of the shadowed crater with the satellite's spent upper-stage Centaur rocket, more than 5,000 pounds of dead weight careening in at 5,600 mph.

LCROSS, pronounced L-Cross, will drop the Centaur into the targeted crater. The impact will send a plume of ejected material up into the sunlight, vaporizing any ice and exposing any traces of water. Previous spacecraft have detected hydrogen in these craters, which could be evidence of frozen water.

The plume of ejected material _ more than 350 tons of soil and rock _ should rise as high as six miles.

The trailing LCROSS will fly through the plume, take measurements, send the data to Earth, then crash into the surface four minutes after the Centaur, creating a second plume of debris.

The impacts and plumes should be visible to observers in the United States, west of the Mississippi River, using 10- to 12-inch telescopes. The Hubble Space Telescope will monitor the event, as well as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, still circling the moon.

In a novel touch, NASA has a song to go with the impact mission, "Water on the Moon," written and performed by deputy project manager John Marmie, a song-writing engineer who once considered a music career in Nashville, Tenn. The rock 'n' roll tune begins with a short countdown and the sound of a launching rocket.

The moon shot _ NASA's first since the 1998 launch of Lunar Prospector _ should have gotten under way Wednesday. But the space agency wanted to give shuttle Endeavour one last crack at taking off on a space station mission; a recurring hydrogen gas leak halted the countdown.

___

On the Net:

NASA: http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission(underscore)pages/LRO/main/index.html

Comments

[AuntiepoppyCock]

NASA Don't leave me here! I don't want to BE on earth with subhumans anymore!!!

[jsarets]

The spent Centaur upper stage has now passed guidance control to LCROSS, which will carry Centaur as its payload in a unprecedented role-reversal. LRO has already separated on its translunar injection orbit. This successfully concludes the launch phase of the dual-manifested mission.

Congratulations to NASA Launch Services Program, Goddard Space Flight Center (LRO), Ames Research Center (LCROSS), and the United Launch Alliance (Atlas V) on a spectacular launch and, with the exception of the weather problems, a flawless pad flow and countdown.

L-4 days to lunar orbital injection (LRO) and flyby (LCROSS). Impact event for LCROSS will be October 9. The lighting conditions will be optimal for observation from anywhere in North America with a 10-12" telescope. LRO and Hubble will capture the impact as well.

[stavros]

What a horrific waste of money.
We know nothing about the rock we live on,
and yet we continue to explore the unknown.

[jsarets]

Learning about other worlds leads us to discover new things about our own. We can't just buy the discoveries we want a la carte. Discovery happens when the conditions are right, when people are following the right trains of thought, and then several independent people may discover the same thing at the same time.

One of the most unexpected aspects of the Apollo Program was that although we saw the moon from a completely new prospective for the first time, the most fascinating and iconic imagery we produced was a view of earth from a completely new prospect: earthrise over the lunar horizon.

Yes, we should be directly studying our own planet with much greater intensity, particularly the oceans, but discovery demands exploration, and what we discover isn't always directly related to what we were exploring at the time.

[HekmabaJuzimax]

Or maybe they launched two defense satellites using the money allocated to the moon mission.

[vippy]

Let them send a rocket. The first one did not go to the moon, we don't have the capacity to sustain that cold weather there. I hope the Chinese will find out sooner or later.

[jsarets]

The Chinese already completed a successful EVA using their own space suits. They're basically at the same level as we were at the end of the Gemini Program.

The idea that space suits can't withstand the temperature of space is patently absurd. Shuttle and ISS crews routinely execute EVAs that last as long as 8 hours. Yes, space suits are extremely complex. The EMU weighs almost 200 lb on Earth. The Apollo moon suits weighed almost 250 lb on Earth. But they can handle the temperature and pressure of space.

[NYC07]

I'm waiting for your post where you tell us how this whole Sun centered galaxy thing is phony and that everything revolves around the Earth and the planets and the stars are painted on a crystal sphere which surrounds the flat Earth.

[SonofLiberty1]

Vippy, guess what?

When you make statements like that without a smiley face, it means you really do
believe the baloney you are typing here.

I sure as heck hope you are kidding because if you are not it means that..

Either you are a nutty 15 year old or you haven't graduated from High School or College.

At any rate it shows you haven't learned anything.

[NYC07]

and yet we continue to explore the unknown.

Isn't that the whole point of science ?????????

[eternalkerri]

Ok everyone LISTEN UP!!!

As of now, we will stop all lunar exploration, all space telescope missions, all geological inquiry, and all archaelogy until we absolutely know the exact number of variations of sea cucumbers.

That is all.

[SonofLiberty1]

Like getting up in the morning and being able to tell if it's going to rain or not?

DUDE...EVER HEAR OF A WEATHER SATELLITE?

GUESS YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW THAT SOME OF THE SATELLITES WE LOFT LOOK

DOWN AND ARE ABLE TO LOOK FOR RESOURCES TOO!

[mjeffn]

Single payer Now!!!

[SharonWantsToTalk]

And reduced carbon emissions! It really is simple when you put it into perspective. Lets spend as much money on the lives and life of THIS planetary body.

[AurigaRa]

well by all means lets find places astronauts can CAMP while folks are dying without proper medical care down here

Nothing against NASA, but c'mon.

[shockmagog]

It's ALWAYS a bad time for scientific discoveries.

Always.

[cruzy]

No one is lacking healthcare because some money is allocated to NASA. NASA's percent of the national budget is rather tiny.

Also, the issue is not a lack of money to provide healthcare to those who need it, but a lack of will and misplaced priorities. Hundreds of billions are spent annually on a still ongoing unecessary war, hundreds of billions are lost each year simply because of lack of enforcement of EXISTING tax laws (that's right, EXISTING tax laws), hundreds of billions more go to corporate tax breaks which could be pared back, etc. The money is there, and it's not going to NASA. Moreover, even if there was a desire to rellocate all this "lost" money (money lost to wars, lack of tax law enforcement, etc.), there would remain what I think is the biggest obstacle to universal healthcare, a strong insurance and healthcare lobby, and huge amount of opposition in Congress to anything that smacks of "socialized medicine."

So, now that you know the real obstacles, let's stop with the melodramatic postings.

[jsarets]

NASA has shrunk to less than 0.5% of the federal budget.

[NYC07]

Here is a shock for you , People will alway be hungry, People will always be poor , People will always be without medical care. Should we just forget about knowledge ??? Should we supress and desire to know ? Perhaps outlaw it ??

[eternalkerri]

Quiet you. Thats too pragmatic and realistic for this place.

[Pleneras]

as long as we have people who think like you in government it will be true, but it does not have to be. It is only because you let it be.

[bccmeteorites]

To all those who think the lunar landings were a hoax. We conducted an intensive investigation using hard copy (lab data resources) and many other resources and issued the following findings.

A) We found substantial valid evidence to show that NASA landed humans on the Moon in July of 1969.

B) Have not found the necessary evidence to confirm any lunar landings after July of 1969, or the evidence is scant, flimsy, or non-existent. This is based on a finding of scientific misconduct and censorship by agency officials from 1998 to the present, with one major case going back to 1967. (Dr. Nininger found lunar samples in the US-Canadian border but NASA denied it so as not to disturb the Apollo program).

It appears to us that the main reasons for lunar landing activity in 1969 was political, to deflect attention away from the massive body count coming to us from Viet Nam. It further appears that the civil unrest, rioting, chaos, murder and mayhem on the streets, cities burning, was not diverting the cameras in NASA's direction sufficiently to sustain such a costly program therefore they had both motive and opportunity to fake the post 1969 landings. As a matter of fact, James Michener wrote in his novel "SPACE" , what he witnessed at NASA while led him to believe a filmed stage production, looked so real he actually thought they landed.

http://www.bccmeteorites.com/misconduct-planetary.html

http://www.bccmeteorites.com/KOROTEV.html

[shockmagog]

Why would anyone think that man landing on the Moon was a hoax?

Just curious.

[BobWills]

Why would anyone think that 19 guys brought down the twin towers?

[vippy]

Hahahaha! Who believes we sent people to the moon. What clothing would they have had to sustain that kind of cold? We have nothing of the sort. Never had, still don't.

[jsarets]

Huh? Astronauts did 8-hour spacewalks during the Hubble servicing mission. The EMU suit is thermally insulated (like a flexible vacuum flask), and the undergarment has tubing woven into it for liquid *cooling*. Otherwise body heat would build up inside the suit.

[ConfuciusSay-]

This is good news. Humanity needs more projects they can collaborate on, for the universal greater benefit.

[Daadee]

Adventure camp for nerds, no practical purpose other than making morons like Bush think they are accomplishing something. Try the bottom of the ocean, I've heard there is actually life down there and we've explored like 1%.

[cruzy]

Honey, Bush is no longer President. Let's move on.

And, contrary to your silly posting, there are numerous practical technological and scientific advancements which came about as a direct result of space exploration.

In any event, this is what is being done. The contracts are signed, the money spent, so stop whining. Or, better at least pick something which you can actually have an impact on to whine about.

[whiteconch]

can we have universal health care on the moon?

[NPA]

No but we will be able to get free cheese for life!

[jsarets]

NASA will cover astronaut health care. But for every human we put on the moon, we create thousands of jobs here on earth, and that pays for a lot of health care.

[NWBrunette]

Actually those jobs create oodles of monetary benefits for insurance company executives, but precious little in the way of health care.

[TheMellowFellow]

If we sent men to the moon 40 years ago, why do we have to wait till 2020 to do it again?

Maybe we didn't do it last time.

[jsarets]

Because Nixon killed the Apollo Program even though there were three more missions worth of hardware already built, and thousands of engineers that were working on Apollo and Saturn were laid off. It took six years for the Shuttle Program to come on line, and by that line, most of the skilled workforce we'd built up had moved on.

[NYC07]

You also forget a shocking truth, the American People had become bored with going to the moon , many of whom I suspect post on this board. Without the public excitment the politicians felt they were not getting their bang for the buck with their voters and it became fashionable to trash the program claiming it was wasteful and the money could be better spent on more "important" things like keepingthe Vietnam War going.

[DataPoint]

"The poor people will NEVER be able to get us here! MUAHAHAHAAaaaa..!"

[Collielady]

Here's something that's met with fury when I talk about it, but I think I can write it here. In my opinion the space program is a huge waste of resources.

Why do we keep sending stuff off to a huge, lifeless rock when there's lots of life here on earth that needs all the help it can get.

[Mikesacola]

Why do we keep sending stuff off to a huge, lifeless rock when there's lots of life here on earth that needs all the help it can get. ??
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Answer: Helium 3. Comes from the sun. Impacts on the moon and Mongo. 30 tons would fusion power the USA for a year. Have to go to Moon because Ming The Merciless won't let us land on Mongo. No kidding. Look it up on Wikipedia.

[NYC07]

here are just a few
The most accurate topographical map of the Earth. This data is used to develop safer navigation techniques and better communication systems.
Ultraviolet protection suits for people with rare intolerance to UV light, known xeroderma pigmentosum.
Heart pump based on technology of space shuttle's fuel pumps. It's two inches long, one inch in diameter, and weighs less than four ounces.
Efficient autos and planes benefiting from NASA wind tunnel and aerodynamic expertise.
New metal alloys based on research for the space station program.
Thermal protection blankets used in everything from fire fighters suits to survival gear for cold environments.
Robots and robotic software with wide-ranging uses that include auto-assembly plants, hazardous material handling, monitoring in dangerous environments, distribution and packaging facilities, etc.
Lightweight composite materials that benefit cars, airplanes, camping gear, etc.
Perfect protein crystals grown in zero gravity; used for more pure pharmaceutical drugs, foods and an assortment of other crystalline-based products including insulin for diabetes patients.
Better understanding of the Earth and its environmental response to natural and human-induced variations such as air quality, climate, land use, food production as well as monitoring quality of our oceans and fresh water.
Commercial space communication systems for personal phones, computers, video transmissions, global positioning satellite systems, etc.
Improvements in energy use efficiency.
Smoke detectors .
Air purification systems used to by hospitals to provide pure oxygen for patients.
High-bandwidth and optical communications systems.
Technology for cordless tools
Shall I continue ?

[Collielady]

I've heard such reasons, but I continue to wonder, couldn't we do these things without venturing into outer space? Just wondering.

[YewNeekId]

Collosal waste of money. There are Americans without food and shelter and this is much more important than a bunch of people afflicted with the Peter Pan Syndrome.

And thanks, but keep the 'we need to do science in space' malarkey. I spent a lifetime doing science on terra firma and it worked out rather well.

[jsarets]

Maybe some of those struggling Americans would like high-paying jobs as aerospace technicians?

Or we could just given them handouts and pretend that we're helping them in the long-run.

[cruzy]

Then, by all means donate your money to help those people who need food and shelter. Also, strange you get worked up about NASA, when it's ENTIRE budget is much smaller than how much money is lost every year to big corporate tax breaks, the stupid and still ongoing war, and amount of money the IRS lets slip away because it lacks the resources and will to enforce EXISTING tax laws.

[Catfish1968]

stop all funding to NASA.

[UncleMilo]

Stop being an idiot, Catfish. Really, just stop it.

[CrazedSurfer]

I'm on the other side of that, I would prefer if they would double the budget or more. IMHO, one of the few bright spots of our combined human effort over the last 50 years. Drives tech that has helped everyone.

[jsarets]

Every dollar we spend on the space program creates $7 of GDP. This is the highest multiplier of any government spending program. Also, investments in space exploration continue to stimulate the economy for decades after the funding is discontinued. The economy is still riding on a wave of engineering talent that came of age during the Apollo Program.

[Klimb]

Why do you think you are able to use satelites...internet, mobile phones, GPS? B/c of NASA!

[KLordsha]

Does anyone know if the GOP was on the flight? Anyone??

[jsarets]

Gaseous oxygen propellant is continuously vented from the launch vehicle. The boil-off keeps the liquid oxygen at cryogenic temperatures.