NASA's Moon Bombing is Complete
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: NASA, Moon, Bombing, success | Themes: The Internet
NASA's mission to crash things into the moon was successful but altogether anticlimactic.
At 04:31 a.m. PT (or 07:31 a.m. ET), NASA crashed not one but two spacecraft into the moon. Unfortunately not too many people saw the event, despite NASA broadcasting the whole thing on its website.
Here's a quick a recap, in case you missed yesterday's article: NASA is looking for water on the moon. The plan was to crash a rocket into the moon and in the process, kick up a huge cloud of moon dust that would hopefully contain some water or ice. The LCROSS satellite was to analyze the dust cloud made by a bigger rocket (which also helped the small satellite get off the ground). Once it was done, LCROSS would also crash itself the surface of the moon, creating another plume of dust, this one about a third the size of the first one. Not something you'd want to miss, right?
I was awake to watch the whole event (at 12:31 p.m., quite a reasonable hour here, so thank you NASA) and figured I had missed the whole thing. Where was the smoke? I was promised PLUMES, man. After about 10 minutes, I closed my NASA TV tab, assuming I had somehow missed the main event. However, according to the AP, no one watching saw much of anything:
But the big live public splash people anticipated didn't quite happen. Screens got fuzz and no immediate pictures of the crash or the six-mile plume of lunar dust that the mission was all about. The public, which followed the crashes on the Internet and at observatories, seemed puzzled.
So what happened? NASA officials said their instruments were working, but live photos of the actual crash were missing. Those of you itching to see photos might get lucky around mid morning as NASA said some select photos should be ready in time for a 10 a.m. press conference.
A very slow moving video below shows the final few minutes before impact and about a minute of after-impact footage. Nothing much of interest going on but beggars can't be choosers.
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OMG! They killed the man in the moon!
What the hell kind of mission control room was that? They looked like they were in storage room B in the basement of my physics lab.
Anyone else see the rejected high five with the guy up front at 5:01? Burned.
What the hell kind of mission control room was that? They looked like they were in storage room B in the basement of my physics lab.Anyone else see the rejected high five with the guy up front at 5:01? Burned.
Yeah. Is it sad that it was the best part of the video for me?
Because of poor footage new conspiracies arise if NASA really didnt send two spacecraft into the moon and just pocketed the money........ Well thats what I would have done. I kinda like my taxes actually being used to blow stuff up instead of bailout frenzies.
Moon Bombing... Ha, you crack me up.
lol at 5:01 a dude got denied a high-five... How rude!
Anyone else see the rejected high five with the guy up front at 5:01? Burned
Ouch!
lol at 5:01 a dude got denied a high-five... How rude!
Packing up his laptop to get the hell out of loserville was way more important. ROOFLES!
That's 79 million well spent, LOL!
The most boring video I have ever seen, and suspiciously looking people cheering at the end what the...
Not only do they make blowing up millions of dollars worth of equipment boring as fuck, but they reject employee high fives. Could NASA be more lame?
@ High five: Noticed that too!
Lol!
We've all been spoiled by Hollywood special effects. Obviously this moon bombing wasn't faked, or was it?
Anyone else see the rejected high five with the guy up front at 5:01? Burned.
I think the guy was afraid of germs, watch how he opens the door to get out...!
Cool, I did an internship at Ames.
The best part of the video
NASA hasn't done this to produce an awesome piece of footage for people to gawp at. They did this for an experiment.
I got up just past 4:00 in the morning here (westcoast) to see a plume, dammit!
they didn't even show it being hit they just showed a crapy CGI D:
Hi, I work for NASA and we smash things into the moon. Cool.
All of these comments are pretty funny actually! LOL!
That's 79 million well spent, LOL!
... Back at NASA HQ.
Jack: Hey guys, in the last 10 years we have 75 million in undocumented funds we "secretly" spent on operation HoBo (i.e. cheap hooker & expensive booze)... errr was it the other way around. Anyhow, we need a plan to cover our arses.
Bob: I thought you said it was fool proof.
Jack: I was half drunk & talking to a pig when I made the plans. Gentlemen, any ideas?
Mike: We already drank the booze, but why don't we just ask Jack's mom for our money back.
Jack: Ha Ha. Very funny.
Todd: Bob, don't you have a "secret" satellite you've been working on in your basement?
Bob: Ya, but I was going to use that for my son's science project.
Todd: Why don't we use 4 million to crash it into the moon and tell everybody it cost 79 million. It's going to be a pile of junk anyhow--no offense Bob. How's anybody gonna know what it actually cost?
Jack: Intriguing idea. All agreed?
Everybody: AGREED!!! Now let's party like it's 1999!
Another faked moon mission by nasa. Pretty sad attempt.
BAhahaha! Denial of the high five. Seen by millions of people around the world. Oh...um. Thousands? Hmmm. Hundreds? Yeah...maybe hundreds.
As for the staging of this event...my guess is that they just took a really high res photo of the surface of the moon and simply zoomed in on it to simulate something moving towards the surface giving the illusion that eventually it would impact. Maybe that is why they switched to infrared at the latest stages or the image would have broken down to show the resolution limits of the photo.
I seriously doubt they (humans) would crash anything into the moon. That would probably be considered a declaration of war to the aliens living on the moon. I don't think that would be a smart move on our part. I bet the dark side of the moon (the part we never see) is probably loaded with lakes, rivers, trees, alien condos and lots of other goodies...yet here we are mining for water in the wrong place.
That is why the nerd didn't get a high five. His boss is choked they picked the wrong spot!!!
Now if someone had time on their hands... they would re-edit this video with footage from Space:1999 in which an explosion on the moon knocked it out of earth's orbit.
lmao, the denied hi-5 at 5:00 was the best part.
Anyone else see the rejected high five with the guy up front at 5:01? Burned.
So burned! My husband picked up on it right away as we watched!
the nasa mission is so lame now spending money on useless missions. i appologize to the current generation for their arrogance. vote and blog the president to get them to wake up and do missions the will help reduce energy and clean up the environment. please!!!! we can make a difference, we got obama elected that way didn't we?
the nasa mission is so lame now spending money on useless missions. i appologize to the current generation for their arrogance. vote and blog the president to get them to wake up and do missions the will help reduce energy and clean up the environment. please!!!! we can make a difference, we got obama elected that way didn't we?
This mission is useless? LOL. Yea a mission that will determine if there is any trace on the moon is useless. Despite it being to see if future bases on the moon are feasible are not.
Sigh, the only thing you should apologize for is your stupidity.
I think we should spend a couple million dollars and just fill missiles filled with water to explode on the moon. That way for sure we know the moon has water.
sure NASA will have the pics ready just after they make some up in Photoshop like the way the lunar landing was faked back in the old days. so what does this lunar bombing is supposed to do for the american people? nothing....we need jobs not some rich company supported by our taxes to wasted more of our money. phuck all this
wait...i got it, they are going to sell bottled moon water...lol