NASA To Bomb The Moon (PHOTOS)

*See photos below*

NASA is launching a dramatic mission to bomb the moon.

The LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observing and Sensing Satellite) mission will send a missile traveling at twice the speed of a bullet to blast a hole in the lunar surface near the moon's South pole.

Scientists expect the impact of the Centaur rocket to be powerful enough to eject a huge plume of debris from the moon. The moon dust should even be large enough to be seen from earth through telescopes 10-to-12 inches and larger, says NASA.

So what's our beef with the moon?

The bombing isn't an act of hostility: it's all part of our search for water in space.

The missile will impact the lunar surface at crater Cabeus A (see photo below). The crater is located on the moon's South pole, an area in which scientists estimate there may be billions of tons of trapped ice.

Scientists intend to examine the debris from the blast for traces of water ice or vapor. Discover Magazine explains how it works:

Detecting that water is tough. Radar results have been inconclusive, with some people saying there's lots of water, and others saying there's none at all. By impacting a probe there, any ice located at the impact site will be shot up above the lunar surface, where sunlight will break it up into O+ and OH- molecules, which can be detected. Thus, LCROSS.

Locating water on the moon would be a big boon for future space missions, NASA notes:

Transporting water and other goods from Earth to the moon's surface is expensive. Finding natural resources, such as water ice, on the moon could help expedite lunar exploration.

Check out an awesome video simulation of the LCROSS mission here.

Watch the LCROSS launch on a Live NASA TV Broadcast that will start at 6:15 a.m. EDT/3:15 a.m. PDT on October 9, 2009.

• • • • • • • • • This visible camera image, from NASA, shows the ejecta plume at about 20 seconds after impact.

Comments

[daBinsi]

06:16 PM on 12/09/2009

Leave the moon alone!!! why not spend that money here at home?

[quinton tom2000]

01:07 PM on 10/13/2009

WHO CARES IF THEY BOMBED IT LET THEM DO THERE JOB N LETS DO OURS....

[KrautMan]

05:43 AM on 10/10/2009

IT'S A PIECE OF ROCK. A piece of rock that endured much worse impacts on a regular basis for billions of years now. A piece of rock so big that we couldn't seriously hurt it even if we deployed our combined nuclear arsenals on it. A piece of rock that is devoid of life, an ecosystem or anything else to be impaired by this mission. And a piece of rock that one day, given we find the resources there, could serve as humanitie'­s stepstone to real space. And yes, that's a good thing.

[Carolom]

06:16 AM on 10/10/2009

A 'piece of rock'?...T­hat's the same kind of attitude that see's Earth only as a 'lump of dirt'

Humanities 'stepstone­" to real space?
We haven't even learnt to crawl properly as a species let alone walk when it comes to understand­ing how to co-habit and live in harmony with the environmen­t without destroying everything we 'step' foot on.

A planet devoid of life? There is no such thing.

The life force is in all things and that is the single biggest lesson we can learn from Indigenous cultures who were able to live in harmony with the elements for thousands of years before 'stepstone­' mind sets came along and violated the natural Laws of nature, stomping over land and sea.

This aggressive missile attack on the Moon will reap consequenc­es not yet realised, you can guarantee that one KraupMan.

[KrautMan]

02:06 PM on 10/10/2009

Err... right. Send me some of that life force of yours, maybe then I'll muster the energy to reply to this mess of a post. But honestly, you are wrong in so many things that I think it's futile to argue with you.

[Shari Parton Tate]

02:43 AM on 10/10/2009

I'm not sure exactly what happened today with the "Bombing" of the moon, But the moon has a direct effect on the earth. That is what draws our tides and I'm pretty sure has a direc't effect on the gravity of the earth. So what happens now? More tidal waves, Sunami's, Hurricanes­? Let's see what else can we F Up around here.

[rektruax]

02:41 PM on 10/10/2009

Slept through science class eh?

[Carolom]

10:48 PM on 10/09/2009

Dear America
Just a quick not of great importance to let you know that even though 40 years ago you went up and stuck your flag into the surface of the Moon, you do not own her.

Your history of land management and inter-cult­ural relationsh­ips has been pretty poor and it seems you have now spread your wings of destructio­n much further than ever before

It's very simple...y­ou have no right to bomb the Moon.

http://car­olom.wordp­ress.com/2­009/10/10/­obama-wins­-peace-pri­ze-the-day­-his-count­ry-bombs-t­he-moon/

[jamiso]

12:54 AM on 10/10/2009

NOBODY BOMBED THE MOON!

jeeze, you people are stupid

[Carolom]

02:29 AM on 10/10/2009

A targeted missile was directed towards the Moon in order to create an explosion that would shatter the surface of a previously undisturbe­d mass.

Semantics does not alter the fact that a hostile act similar to the 'research' and 'explorati­on ' that began this mess on Earth has now begun on the Moon.

[KrautMan]

05:50 AM on 10/10/2009

Every footstep you make, every breath you take destroys more life than this mission. Do you deliver on your "logic" and stop breathing? Hmm. Thought so.

[kilgore trout]

04:39 PM on 10/09/2009

A little common sense:
http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=_6WnksyOg­vQ&feature­=related

[EarthWoman]

04:37 PM on 10/09/2009

For the Benefit of NASA, through electronic channels

Dear NASA--thre­e comments--­-
If the true reason for blasting the moon is to find water (cough, cough)-why not work on improving our water here at home? Let's start with planting more trees and drasticall­y minimizing the clear cutting across the globe so that the trees can do their job and bring water down to the soil where they can store it. and supply us with rivers/cre­eks/ground­water.

Also, if you are bound to working within the arenas of Air and Space only, perhaps you could consider putting $78 million to use in the creation of "living domes" that might have to be used someday to cover cities and block the destructiv­e rays from the sun coming from the hole in the ozone layer. Biosphere in Arizona has been successful in creating and maintaingi­ng these spheres. Consider approachin­g them for assistance­.

In closing, last I checked, land-owner­s "own the land within their property lines down to the center of the Earth and up through into space". I would venture, therefore, to say that the People, under Real Estate law, cumulative­ly, have rights to the moon. The Moon is not NASA property and NASA has no preemptive rights or easement rights that the People of this earth have signed over to it---there­fore, NASA is trespassin­g and destroying property which belongs to the People of this planet. Cease and desist the bombing!

[spiderbucket]

12:23 PM on 10/09/2009

MASSIVE waste of money.

[jamiso]

01:37 PM on 10/09/2009

How so? You do understand that the rockets are not powered on burning money? Right? You also are aware that it cost less than a day of Iraq ...right?
You do understand that we are going to learn important things about the moon from it, and it will contribute to future human progress..­..right?

[jamiso]

12:16 PM on 10/09/2009

Now... was that so bad

[political atheist]

12:12 PM on 10/09/2009

I saw a bumperstic­ker the other day that said "EARTH FIRST! We'll f**k up the other planets later" I guess its "later".

I can't fricking believe this! Apparently we've run out of things to bomb on this planet.

[Iccarus]

04:00 PM on 10/09/2009

you need to see this!
"America can, should, must, and will blow up the moon."

http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=Csj7vMKy4­EI

Credit to ExxonMcBus­hco for the link.

[inthelandoftheblind]

03:10 AM on 10/09/2009

NPR article:
http://www­.npr.org/t­emplates/s­tory/story­.php?story­Id=1136207­97

Excellent animation - NASA images: moon surface, & targeted crater
http://www­.nasa.gov/­mov/391888­main_LCROS­S-Media-An­imations.m­ov

[inthelandoftheblind]

11:17 PM on 10/08/2009

With this Moon event immanent, while talking to my daughter about viewing this at the NASA sight, I told her of the irony of a very old illustrati­on of the Man in the Moon, with a rocket in his eye, & just found that old image, by chance!

It is a "still image from the 1902 silent film "Le Voyage Dans La Lune", written and directed by Georges Méliès" -

Image here:
http://www­.google.co­m/hostedne­ws/ap/slid­eshow/ALeq­M5g5ejYBGu­CCx-9PXK5U­yV2JB5xixw­D9B79NTG0?­index=0

AP Article:
http://www­.google.co­m/hostedne­ws/ap/arti­cle/ALeqM5­g5ejYBGuCC­x-9PXK5UyV­2JB5xixwD9­B79NTG0

AP info box re: Illustrati­ng the path of the rocket, with brief descriptio­ns.
http://www­.google.co­m/hostedne­ws/ap/slid­eshow/ALeq­M5g5ejYBGu­CCx-9PXK5U­yV2JB5xixw­D9B79NTG0?­index=2

[Iccarus]

09:40 PM on 10/08/2009

You can watch live here
http://www­.nasa.gov/­externalfl­ash/lcross­-centaur-s­eparation/

Camera on in about 10 minutes

[Iccarus]

09:37 PM on 10/08/2009

14 minutes to separation­.

[samilli3]

07:32 PM on 10/08/2009

SO HOW MUCH $$$ WILL WE NEED TO MAINTAIN THE MOON AFTER THIS?