In a little less than 18 hours, NASA will bomb the Moon.
Well, technically, they’ll crash two spaceships into the Moon. Ostensibly, the purpose of this exercise is to create a “plume” of debris, then analyze the debris from afar to see if it contains water. If that doesn’t work, though, I’m pretty sure Dick Cheney will torture the debris to find out what it’s hiding, at which point we’ll learn that there are Weapons of Mass Destruction on the Moon, after which, at long last, Frank J.‘s dream of “nuking the moon” will become a reality.
But I digress. The opening salvo of our War on the Moon will supposedly be visible from Earth tonight — shock and awe, baby! — to anyone with a “mid-sized backyard telescope” with a “diameter of 10-12 inches or larger.” If you don’t have one of those, you can attend a public viewing near you. Or you can just sit in front of your computer and watch live on NASA TV. The broadcast will start at 10:15 UT/6:15am EDT/4:15am MDT/3:15am PDT.
The actual impacts will occur at 11:31:19 UT (5:31am MDT) and 11:35:45 UT (5:35am MDT), with the expected “plumes” appearing in the minutes that follow. That means the attack show will occur during darkness west of the Mississippi. Here’s a page with detailed tips on amateur observing of the bombing experiment, including where on the Moon’s surface to look:
Here’s more:
When the plumes emerge from [the creater] Cabeus, they will be illuminated by sunshine streaming over the polar terrain. The crater itself will be in the dark, however, permanently shadowed by its own walls. “That’s good,” says Day. “The crater’s shadows will provide a dark backdrop for viewing the sunlit plumes.” …
The LCROSS team hopes many people—amateurs and professionals alike—will observe and photograph the plumes. “The more eyes the better,” says Day. “Remember, we’ve never done this before. We’re not 100% sure what will happen, and big surprises are possible.”
And here’s the LCROSS mission homepage.
It’s gonna be two small explosions for man… two giant BOOMS!!! for mankind.
If men actually landed on the moon, and they didn’t, I’m pretty sure this ‘bombing’ wouldn’t really be necessary. Amazing, it was so easy to go to the moon with the technology of 1969, which we all have access to today, but neither NASA nor ANY OTHER COUNTRY can get to the moon to run tests that could benefit modern society here in the year 2009.
I’m not sure if your comment is intended seriously or tongue-in-cheek, Sandy, but FWIW, we obviously do have the technological ability to send men to the moon today — we just don’t have the motivation to spend the enormous sums of money that it necessarily involves. Whereas in 1969, we did have that motivation. I believe the technical term for it was “proving America has a bigger penis than Russia.”
We also weren’t so damn risk averse.
Very true.
Just remeber, that in Soviet Russia, moon bombs YOU!
I’ll be here all week. Well, on second thought, I’m going to slip out the back door before I get a lot of free vegetables.
Incidentally, anyone who buys into the whole “the moon landing was faked” garbage loses all credibility in my book.
Yeah, even the MythBusters shot that one to hell.
The moon landing hoax is so obvious, it’s humorous actually to see so many people still believe we landed on the moon. For one thing, Russia, China, and other nations are spending hundreds of Billions of dollars to send a manned mission to the moon and they can’t do it with the technology of 2009, but you’re saying the US could do it in 1969 with technology that is basically less advanced than what you would find in a desktop calculator?
How can the mythbusters prove people landed on the moon? We have telescopes that can find new galaxies and planets a hundred billion lightyears away, but we can’t see the jeep that was left there by the first astronauts?
The “moon” rock that was given to the Dutch and put in their museum by the US after the Apollo moon landing was discovered to be a fake.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8226075.stm
Almost every test subjects/monkey sent into space by NASA died during the test flight or shortly after landing, do you really think the US government is going to send human beings into space when they have a 10% success rate on animals?!?!
It really takes the least basic critical thinking on this matter to realize that the moon landing never happened. NASA taped over the nearly 2,000 videotapes they had allegedly made from the 1969 moon landing. If that doesn’t seal this charade’s illegitimacy, I don’t know what more evidence you bozos need.
How about accurate evidence not proposed by wingnuts without a basic understanding of physics, science, etc.
Getting to the moon is not that hard technically. The orbital mechanics are pretty straightforward and the 1969 technology was more than sufficient for the task. Take some physics courses before you start spouting off about something you clearly don’t get.
Frankly Sandy, I’m goign to take the word of the people WHO WERE THERE over some random person on the internet. I have no reason not to believe them. I have every reason not to believe you after some of the things you’ve posted here.
Regarding mythbusters, they demonstrated a number of things people claim wouldn’t happen under lunar conditions actually would happen. Without proof that the moon landing didn’t happen or was faked, i’m going to go with the proof it did. Television footage, first hand accounts, etc.
DK, I’m glad to hear it’s not difficult to get to the moon. You should forward your post to China and save them a couple hundred billion dollars because they say they won’t be able to get to the moon until no earlier than 2017, and the US said they will “return” to the moon in 2018. Man, it’s just so easy to get there though I don’t know why it would take 50 years for any other country to man a mission to the moon.
I’m not really asking you to believe me, but I’m the only one with no motive to lie to you. I’m not getting hundreds of billions dollars a year to fund a space program. I’m not in a “space race” with Russia. I don’t work for the government. I’m confident that the truth will come out in the end. We already know that NASA decided that the video footage of the most significant landmark in the history of mankind was so important that they “taped over it”. The moon rocks that have been given to Prime Ministers (at the time) have proven to be fakes, but you cry that there is no evidence, and that no other country has been able to send a human being 10 miles outside of earths orbit without having them burn to a crisp. But hey, I have a lot of motive to lie about it.
Sandy,
Why would a Democrat-dominated Congress have allowed the newly-inaugurated, and deeply hated, Nixon administration revel in the “U-S-A! U-S-A!” vibe from the moon landing in the summer of 1969? The Chicago Democratic Daley machine translated votes from dead folks into keeping Nixon out of the White House in 1960 – why did they later allow him to walk away with the PR triumph of a phony moon landing?
If Obama could channel that PR vibe 6 months into his Presidency, you know he would.
The moon landing hoax is so obvious, it’s humorous actually to see so many people still believe we landed on the moon.
Oh wow. You aren’t kidding. I totally thought you were. Wow. I mean, wow. Where to begin…
You do realize that the Japanese have images of our leftover moon trash, right?
OK, Sandy, I just can’t buy that the moon landing was faked. There is a crazy amount of proof, and the it was possible with the technology available then. Especially when you consider that it did take a long time to get from the start of the space program to the moon landing – they spent a ton of time perfecting the technology and technique.
We’ve had a bunch of people who went to the moon that have talked about it. To this day, pictures of the moon HAVE THE STUFF WE LEFT THERE.
Anyways, I’m done.
You know, there’s another interesting aspect to the meme that the newly-inaugurated Nixon was allowed to walk away with the moon landing triumph:
The guy before Nixon was in the VP seat during one of the more famous Presidential assassinations. Some people suspect that guy’s involvement in the assassination, in part for the obvious Shakespearian motives, in part because he hated the Prez, in part because he had both the national and local connections that would have been necessary.
All that said, if the moon landing was a giant fakery inaugurated by Kennedy in the early 60s to funnel money to NASA, how in the world did Johnson, presiding over a failing Presidency in the mid-to-late 1960s, and as deeply connected to the gears of power as any President ever, allow the (faked) signature event of the space race to slip away from him?
Perhaps someone like a President Palin might not have been connected enough to control the timing of a staged moon landing. But not a failing Lyndon Johnson. No. way.
(In fact, LBJ being LBJ, and things spinning out of his control by midway through his one term, one can imagine that classified, urgent memos were sent by LBJ to the head of NASA saying ‘For God’s sake man, can we get a move on?’
You gotta believe that if the moon landing were done entirely on a sound stage in New Mexico, a move would have been gotten on).
One other reason, Sandy, why I am absolutely certain that the moon landing is real: a couple of guys from around the way were having dinner at a restaurant in the Sea of Tranquility when Armstrong and Aldrin stopped in for a beer after the Eagle landed.
These guys mentioned that the food was really fabulous in that restaurant, though to be fair, the place had no atmosphere.
LOL…I love that there’s an argument on this blog over whether the moon landing was faked.
There isn’t. There’s just someone who’s willing to believe suspicion over science.
Mike Marchand, the Irony here is that everyone here who believes we landed on the moon also believes God created the earth.
How is that ironic? I believe God created the universe. I also believe in evolution and science and the moon landing.
You on the other hand apparently believe the moon landing was faked, probably as part of some conspiracy by the Shadow Government that runs the world (which in case you didn’t know is in cohoots with aliens who are plotting to take over the earth and have promised those in power their saftey in return for their cooperation). I saw it on the internet so it must be true!
Also, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are really the same thing!
I’m not really clear on what your point is Sandy, re: belief in god creating the earth and landing on the moon, but I do not believe god created anything.