Mr. Show- America Blows Up The Moon - watch more funny videos
Here is an animated video from NASA to explain why they are bombing the moon
This is a Popular Mechanics Pro-BOMBTHEMOON article
On October 9, a kamikaze spacecraft will crash into the moon’s Cabeus-A crater, kicking up a 6-mile-high debris cloud that a follow-on craft will surf through, using infrared spectrometers and video cameras to determine how much—if any—water ice exists. A series of space-based and terrestrial telescopes will also examine the plume.
So it appears the mission is on track, but it’s been a tough summer for LCROSS. For several weeks in August, the spacecraft suffered from a strange software malfunction that caused it to consume too much fuel. After two weeks spent in an emergency mode, mission planners last week returned operations to normal. While this 240,000-mile reprogramming was underway, a chorus of online readers of mainstream science websites were rooting for the mission’s failure. These armchair space critics call LCROSS crude, violent and silly. But even a cursory look at the mission reveals a clever, scrappy mission that should be cheered instead. Here’s why we like LCROSS, and are looking forward to its date with Cabeus-A.
1) It’s a cheap, creative and scrappy mission. This is what many people want NASA projects to look like in the future.
LCROSS is a Class D mission, denoting one with the highest risk of failure. Once-in-a-lifetime missions and those with human passengers are considered Class A missions, and carry a high cost in time and money to ensure that the equipment won’t fail. The extra testing, custom-built gear and redundant equipment drives up costs to levels that give even members of Congress pause. NASA could launch more risky missions like LCROSS instead of just a handful of marquee ones, and reap more rewards even if some fail.
The cost of LCROSS is about $491 million—cheap in the spaceflight world—and its planners delivered it on budget and on time. The engineers adapted available parts and technology for their craft: commandeering an empty fuel tank for its mass, crafting an internal fuel tank from a communications satellite and copying avionics from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is to be delivered into the lunar orbit on the same ride as LCROSS. (The impactor mission is hitching a ride on the Lunar Reconnaissance Obriter’s launch.) LCROSS’s skeleton, an aluminum ring that looks like a section of sewer pipe with six portholes, is leftover from an Air Force project designed to release multiple satellites from a single rocket. The moon-bombing engineers cobbled these parts together to make a cheap spaceship in just two years. Some risks are worth taking: LCROSS is one of them.
2) It will have conclusive results.
So many space missions leave people scratching their heads. Sometimes the science is obscure, or simply a preparation for some other event that may or may not occur in some future decade. For example, LRO will provide ground-breaking images of the moon, and will support any return by America, but people can rightfully ask, “Don’t we have images of the moon? And are people really going to return in 2020?” LCROSS has a specific scientific mission and a payoff that is almost immediate. In 1998 a probe called Lunar Prospector spotted tantalizing signs of hydrogen in craters at the lunar poles. But no one’s entirely sure if the hydrogen is the chemical signature of water ice, possibly deposited by comets and meteors. LCROSS should not only confirm that water-ice is on the moon, but in what quantities. Any future moon base would rely on this water, so love or hate lunar aspirations, the information will be useful.
3) The scar will be very small.
LCROSS will create a 6-foot-deep crater inside another crater on the south pole. The moon has suffered much worse from the cosmos, and this latest gouge pales in comparison. Note that there are no explosives on board—the mass of the impactor alone is enough to create a plume. Also, the craft will be empty of all fuel before impact, to keep results uncluttered.
4) Humans have been crashing things into the moon—not to mention leaving trash behind—for a long time, so what’s one more if it actually gleans some data?
There is nothing pristine about the moon. It’s lifeless surface is cluttered with spent probes, landing craft, seismic sensors and moon buggies. Every time an Apollo mission took off, the crew threw out all unneeded equipment to save weight on the return. The idea that the moon will somehow be ruined by LCROSS is bizarre. Besides, even if a fraction of previous impacts hit the moon in the future, any human traces will in time be pulverized. So the moon will recover, you thumb-sucking Luddites!
- By Joe Pappalardo | popularmechanics
There is some dissent among the pro ET groups
The planned October 9, 2009 bombing of the moon by a NASA orbiter that will bomb the moon with a 2-ton kinetic weapon to create a 5 mile wide deep crater as an alleged water-seeking and lunar colonization experiment, is contrary to space law prohibiting environmental modification of celestial bodies. The NASA moon bombing, a component of the LCROSS mission, may also trigger conflict with known extraterrestrial civilizations on the moon as reported on the moon in witnessed statements by U.S. astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, and in witnessed statements to NSA (National Security Agency) photos and documents regarding an extraterrestrial base on the dark side of the moon.
If the true intent of the LCROSS mission moon bombing is a hostile act by NASA against known extraterrestrial civilizations and settlements on the moon, then NASA and by extension the U.S. government are guilty of aggressive war which is the most serious of war crimes under the U.N. Charter and the Geneva Conventions, to which the U.S. is subject. The U.N. Outer Space Treaty, which the U.S. has ratified, requires that “ The moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all States Parties to the Treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes. The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military manoeuvres on celestial bodies shall be forbidden.” 98 nations have ratified and 125 nations have signed the U.N. Outer Space Treaty.
Well Im not sure who to believe, but NASA was formed by imported NAZIs and the Pro ET community is speculative at best, so this will be interesting and I can't imagine there being any accurate information immediately available, but at least I can tell my kids that I remember what the moon used to look like !
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