NASA to crash space probe into moon

[aircooled]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/04/10/moon.mission.ap/index.html


Search for water intended to help future human outposts

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- NASA plans to crash a space probe into the moon in 2009 -- a collision so violent it will be visible on Earth through a telescope, the space agency said Monday.

The moon crash, part of a larger mission that includes a lunar orbiter, is a quest for ice. Water is the key ingredient for supporting future human outposts on the moon, a goal of the Bush administration.

NASA scientists say the collision should excavate a hole about a third the size of a football field and hurl a plume of debris into space.

After the crash of the space probe, the mother ship that released it will fly through the plume and look for traces of water ice or vapor -- similar to NASA's Deep Impact mission last July, which blasted into a comet. (Full story)

The moon collision and orbiter will be the first of several lunar robotic projects before astronauts are sent to the moon, targeted for 2018. The entire mission will cost more than $600 million, with the impactor project cost-capped at $80 million.

The mission is set to launch in October 2008, with a rocket that carries both the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and impactor.

The orbiter will circle the moon for at least a year, mapping the surface, searching for water and scouting for potential future landing sites to send astronauts. The orbiter will pay particular attention to the south pole, which NASA considers a prime candidate for a future outpost.

The lunar spacecraft will target the south pole, too, releasing its SUV-sized impactor probe in January 2009 on a suicide plunge at about 5,600 miles per hour toward a frozen crater believed to contain hidden ice.

If ice is found, it could be melted and the water used to help make rocket fuel or oxygen.

"These resources can make [a] future human return to the moon and future human occupation of the moon much more cost-effective," said Butler Hine, robotics deputy program manager at NASA's Ames Research Center in northern California, which is developing the impactor.

In the 1990s, several robotic probes found elevated levels of hydrogen, a component of water, around the moon's poles, suggesting ice might lie beneath the frozen surface. But they failed to find vast expanses of it.

The 2008 mission won't be the first time NASA has crashed a robotic probe into the moon.

In the 1960s, the space agency launched nine Ranger spacecraft on such a mission, but only three were successful, beaming back close-up pictures as they crashed.

The 1999 orbiting Lunar Prospector collided into the moon, but it was considered a disappointment because it failed to kick up a cloud of debris.

 

[Schadenfroh]

future human outposts on the moon, a goal of the Bush administration.

http://www.weeklyworldnews.com/conspiracies/58987

 

[Whitecloak]

would we see a cat in the plume?

 

[skace]

"The moon collision and orbiter will be the first of several lunar robotic projects before astronauts are sent to the moon, targeted for 2018."

Nice, by 2018 we will be able to go where man already went.


Errr wait, don't we all die in 2014? Damnit.

 

[Scarpozzi]

TO THE MOON ALICE!!!!!! TO THE MOON!!!!

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: aircooled
The lunar spacecraft will target the south pole, too, releasing its SUV-sized impactor probe

Why not just use an SUV? We've got plenty of those

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: aircooled
The lunar spacecraft will target the south pole, too, releasing its SUV-sized impactor probe

Why not just use an SUV? We've got plenty of those

Because SUVs aren't filled with volatile explosives capable of blowing a crater in the side of a crater-filled object?

 

[amicold]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: aircooled
The lunar spacecraft will target the south pole, too, releasing its SUV-sized impactor probe

Why not just use an SUV? We've got plenty of those

Because SUVs aren't filled with volatile explosives capable of blowing a crater in the side of a crater-filled object?

Nice. Made me chuckle in the early AM.

 

[Whitecloak]

what about laser printers?

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: aircooled
The lunar spacecraft will target the south pole, too, releasing its SUV-sized impactor probe

Why not just use an SUV? We've got plenty of those

Because SUVs aren't filled with volatile explosives capable of blowing a crater in the side of a crater-filled object?

ok, send it with a full tank, then!

 

[rh71]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: aircooled
The lunar spacecraft will target the south pole, too, releasing its SUV-sized impactor probe

Why not just use an SUV? We've got plenty of those

God, I'm so sick of anti-SUV bitc.... hey that was fricken hilarious!

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: Whitecloak
what about laser printers?

Those can't even put a mark in a concrete wall, much less the FRICKIN' MOON.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: rh71

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: aircooled
The lunar spacecraft will target the south pole, too, releasing its SUV-sized impactor probe

Why not just use an SUV? We've got plenty of those

God, I'm so sick of anti-SUV bitc.... hey that was fricken hilarious!

It was quite funny.

Is it just me, or have we gotten a little too complacent about government spending? Or maybe we've just been desensitized to big numbers. I know $80 million is pretty low relative to the overall federal budget, but doesn't that seem like a lot of money for a spacecraft whose apparantly sole purpose is to CRASH? It doesn't even have to get there on its own, just crash.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: loup garou

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: aircooled
The lunar spacecraft will target the south pole, too, releasing its SUV-sized impactor probe

Why not just use an SUV? We've got plenty of those

Because SUVs aren't filled with volatile explosives capable of blowing a crater in the side of a crater-filled object?

ok, send it with a full tank, then!

Volatile explosives? How about that crazy congresswoman from Georgia?

 

[swtethan]

will it have JL Gatsby in it?

 

[puffff]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: aircooled
The lunar spacecraft will target the south pole, too, releasing its SUV-sized impactor probe

Why not just use an SUV? We've got plenty of those

Because SUVs aren't filled with volatile explosives capable of blowing a crater in the side of a crater-filled object?

Hire some jihadists and they could solve that problem for us!

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: loup garou

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: aircooled
The lunar spacecraft will target the south pole, too, releasing its SUV-sized impactor probe

Why not just use an SUV? We've got plenty of those

Because SUVs aren't filled with volatile explosives capable of blowing a crater in the side of a crater-filled object?

ok, send it with a full tank, then!

Volatile explosives? How about that crazy congresswoman from Georgia?

Damn, I was gonna say something like that

How about Naomi Cambell? :laugh:

 

[eminemrh25]

They are gonna f*** something up while doing this and the moon will crash into earth..

 

[LordMorpheus]

Originally posted by: amicold

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: aircooled
The lunar spacecraft will target the south pole, too, releasing its SUV-sized impactor probe

Why not just use an SUV? We've got plenty of those

Because SUVs aren't filled with volatile explosives capable of blowing a crater in the side of a crater-filled object?

Nice. Made me chuckle in the early AM.

And with the mileage an SUV gets we couldn't afford the gas for a trip to the moon.

 

[DaiShan]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: rh71

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: aircooled
The lunar spacecraft will target the south pole, too, releasing its SUV-sized impactor probe

Why not just use an SUV? We've got plenty of those

God, I'm so sick of anti-SUV bitc.... hey that was fricken hilarious!

It was quite funny.

Is it just me, or have we gotten a little too complacent about government spending? Or maybe we've just been desensitized to big numbers. I know $80 million is pretty low relative to the overall federal budget, but doesn't that seem like a lot of money for a spacecraft whose apparantly sole purpose is to CRASH? It doesn't even have to get there on its own, just crash.

LOL I was just about to post that. We have hundreds, or thousands of highly educated rocket scientists and the best way that they can come up with to find water on the moon is to crash a spacecraft into it then check the dust? Why not just land on it and drill or something?

 

[mercanucaribe]

Originally posted by: DaiShan

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: rh71

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: aircooled
The lunar spacecraft will target the south pole, too, releasing its SUV-sized impactor probe

Why not just use an SUV? We've got plenty of those

God, I'm so sick of anti-SUV bitc.... hey that was fricken hilarious!

It was quite funny.

Is it just me, or have we gotten a little too complacent about government spending? Or maybe we've just been desensitized to big numbers. I know $80 million is pretty low relative to the overall federal budget, but doesn't that seem like a lot of money for a spacecraft whose apparantly sole purpose is to CRASH? It doesn't even have to get there on its own, just crash.

LOL I was just about to post that. We have hundreds, or thousands of highly educated rocket scientists and the best way that they can come up with to find water on the moon is to crash a spacecraft into it then check the dust? Why not just land on it and drill or something?

It's harder to drill deep than it is to make a deep crater probably.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Originally posted by: mugs
It was quite funny.

Is it just me, or have we gotten a little too complacent about government spending? Or maybe we've just been desensitized to big numbers. I know $80 million is pretty low relative to the overall federal budget, but doesn't that seem like a lot of money for a spacecraft whose apparantly sole purpose is to CRASH? It doesn't even have to get there on its own, just crash.

Don't forget about the $333,000,000 crash on July 4th last year.

 

[LongCoolMother]

don't criticize what you don't know about. I'll give NASA the benefit of the doubt- the mission/equipment is perhaps much more sophisticated and complicated than it sounds. we have the nation's best of the best working at NASA, which i believe is severely underfunded.

 

[zephyrprime]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: aircooled
The lunar spacecraft will target the south pole, too, releasing its SUV-sized impactor probe

Why not just use an SUV? We've got plenty of those

Because SUVs aren't filled with volatile explosives capable of blowing a crater in the side of a crater-filled object?

Neither is the impacter. I would guess that it is going to be made of some dense metal and be akin to a giant bullet.

 

[The Batt?sai]

Originally posted by: skace
"The moon collision and orbiter will be the first of several lunar robotic projects before astronauts are sent to the moon, targeted for 2018."

Nice, by 2018 we will be able to go where man already went.


Errr wait, don't we all die in 2014? Damnit.

die by 2014? what?