NASA’s Moon Blast a Public Relations Disaster
It maybe happening in space but people are still screaming. NASA’s mission to fire a high velocity “impactor” rocket into the moon to search for water is being widely criticized in the blogosphere.
The moon’s big bang
If NASA’s plans go ahead as forecast for an October 9 launch people have got just two more opportunities to watch a full moon before the planet is subject to what many consider mightily unneighbourly conduct.
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The plan, or the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission, is to fire a Centaur rocket into a crater at the South Pole of the moon which will act as a “heavy impactor” sending a debris plume over 30 miles high (or nearly 50 kilometers).
A second sensor satellite will then drop down into this plume analyzing its contents in the hope of finding water. The success or otherwise of this search will ultimately determine how realistic a full-time base on moon can be.
The upper stage of the launch vehicle (about the weight of a large SUV) will hit the Moon at over 5,600 mph (9,000 km/h), which is roughly twice the speed of a bullet. And this impact will excavate a crater about 1/3 of a football field wide and about the depth of the deep end of a swimming pool.
NASA boasts: This crash will be so big that we on Earth may be able to view the resulting plume of material it ejects with a good amateur telescope.
But the moon has friends:
The perception that the experiment is overtly aggressive and destructive has rankled many. The far majority of follow-up comments to reports on the LCROSS mission in Scientific American and Siliconindia, to name just two, are highly critical of the mission and its aims.
Ragaroiox’s comments are typical:
This is the stupidest idea I have ever heard of. These are the “greatest minds of our generation.” Yeah right.
And Eddy Rose poses a teaser:
Keeping in mind the tidal influence of the moon on Earth, remember also that our bodies are composed of the same percentage of water. What if this sudden disturbance sends everyone (and everything) living on Earth crazy?
“5,600 mph (9,000 km/h), which is roughly twice the speed of a bullet.”
Not to nitpick… but not all bullets can achieve ~ 4000 fps, 5600mph is about 8200 feet per second.
I’m disappointed - this unimpressive post is a far cry from what I like to see on Cleantechica. For one thing, I’m a space scientist myself, so I appreciate the interest in space news- but this doesn’t seem all that related to clean energy.
But far more importantly, this just plain isn’t a good article! The fact that many commenters online dislike something is *far* from a reasonable statistical sampling of public opinion. Online comment boards often draw only those who feel most strongly about an issue, either positive or negative, and miss out on the vast silent majority who might care a bit either way, but not enough to bother writing.
Finally, the two comments that you’ve picked to highlight are utterly unworthy of the attention. One is an ad hominem attack with no informative capacity whatsoever, and the other displays an almost complete ignorance of the relevant physics. Please don’t provide a platform to this sort of ignorance, unless you’re going to immediately debunk it with sound science. The media’s portrayal of fringe, unscientific fearmongering as equivalent to rational thought and empirical facts is deeply troubling today, and I hate to see it here. Please take a look at Phil Plait’s recent post on this topic: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/09/08/the-mainstreaming-of-evil/
Haha, it took me a while to realize the sarcasm in this post, nice one Ross.
Next, NASA plans to blow up the worlds oceans.
I don’t think it takes a genius to realize that this is a stupid idea. This is a massive impact we are talking about and planets are not meant to be hit so hard. What if this knocks the moon off of its gravitational field. We sure will look stupid then.
Really, knock the moon off it’s gravitational field?!? Do you realize how big the moon is and how many times it gets hit? The moon is not a planet, it is a satellite and many planets get hit worse than this with little problems (I believe it was comet Shoemaker-Levy that hit Jupiter). 1.6195×10^23 lbs is the mass of the moon, average SUV’s are 5000-7000 lbs. That makes the moon 2.6991×10^19 times larger than an SUV. It is like a pebble being thrown at you if you where 90ft tall. Don’t you think people a little smarter than you might have thought of some of this or maybe people who know about astro-physics might just realize that this is nothing and not worry about it, but thank you for your educated opinion.
Knock the Moon off its gravitional field? More like we will throw a bunch of dust up and obscure a few full Moon nights.
Why are we looking for water? If any long term missions to the Moon or Mars are to be successful we must be able to figure out the water problem down here on earth first… meaning we must somehow manufacture water artificially in space.
I may not be a ‘rocket scientist’ but isn’t the earth made up of 75% water, I just don’t see the reason to attack the moon in search of water..seems kinda silly NASA! Not to mention all the other issues ‘here on earth’ that should be addressed first.
This article about a “public relations disaster” is a joke right?
Otherwise, I wasted the last 60 seconds reading it.
well i dont get it.. what is the use of impacting the probs on the surface. NASA needs a place to land and LRO is doing the job. Plus i think japanese did a really good job with their Kaguya probe which really captured some amazing HD footage including earth rise.
http://astroaviator.com/2009/08/28/the-hd-moon/