Posted on 10/07/2009 6:50:05 PM PDT by advance_copy
An enterprising robotic explorer will smash into the lunar frontier Friday in search of water ice hidden deep inside the darkest corners of the moon, spewing hundreds of thousands of pounds of dust high above the surface in a celestial event visible from Earth.
Just four minutes will decide the outcome of three years of preparations, four months of space travel, and a $79 million investment put into the bold mission.
Four minutes is the time that nine science instruments on the LCROSS probe will be able to directly study a cloud of dust thrown high above the moon by the impact of an empty Centaur rocket stage.
LCROSS is "a very exciting mission culminating in a real crescendo event," said Dan Andrews, the project manager from NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif.
The sensors will scan the debris for the chemical signature of water, providing definitive proof for a decade-old hypothesis that ice exists on Earth's inhospitable companion.
The Clementine and Lunar Prospector missions of the 1990s sensed elevated levels of hydrogen at the moon's poles. Scientists believed the hydrogen was from trapped water ice. The high concentrations were centered on permanently shadowed craters, lightless meteor impact sites that are unimagineably cold.
"And by cold, I mean cold," says Tony Colaprete, the mission's principal investigator from Ames.
(Excerpt) Read more at spaceflightnow.com ...
We are doomed.
More to follow at 11.
Moon probe knocks moon off its orbit. Moon heading for collision with earth.
Obama says we must pass health care IMMEDIATELY.
And what about the carbon footprint of the rocket to the moon? What about the money that was spent? It could have been spent on education and health care and Democrat priorities. Who planned this? Sounds like a Republican plan to send a rocket to the moon. Good Democrats would never agree to an explosion on the moon. Such a violent act. Tsk tsk.
“...CRASHING INTO EARTH!!!! We could be DOOMED!!!”
Women and minorities hardest hit.
Well, advance, that would mean the Mayans were off by three years and that Caligula’s Reign of Terror would end.
2/3rds, have you been in on this?
More likely the impact will throw up water as well as residual organic carbon compounds. These were left behind by the 3.5 billion year’s ago intergalactic mining operation that used the Moon to launch loads of organophosphates toward the asteroid belt where they could be picked up and added to the fleet’s stores for use in producing food.
What if it takes three years for the Moon to crash down and all the blowing up water to block out the Sun? What about that?!?!?!?
Hopefully this will happen while I'm on the other side of the earth.
That’s a laugh. So, the moon is going to blow! Well, did you know that it is the moon that helps cause the tide? Did you know that the moon had to be created the same time as our planet in order for life to even exist here? Without the moon this planet would be nothing more than volatile rock.
This is always good for a diversion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtuIVM61nKE
Then stall on your car and house payments.
It could have been spent on education and health care and Democrat priorities.
Acorn moon office to close.
Reports of moon maids for hire,
greatly overblown says Head Lewis.
There are no moon pimps!
She declares.
Thanks for the vid . . . I think.
Nope.
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