popularmechanics.com — Today, NASA announced the crater on the moon where LCROSS will land, but the mission continues to be controversial. Is crash-landing on the moon necessary for science? Will it be worth the damage done to the moon? To both questions, PM answers a resounding "yes." Here's why we're rooting for NASA's mission to bombard the moon.
Sep 11, 2009 View in Crawl 4
roulettescarsSep 11, 2009
You people have no idea what just happened, but I caught it.P.S. "we're earthlings, lets blow up earth things"
Closed AccountSep 11, 2009
Do you really think all NASA has done is send people to the moon and up to the ISS? Did you somehow forget about the interstellar probes currently exiting the Solar System (two of which that we are still in contact with despite being 10 billion miles away)? Or the countless telescopes out there that bring us the badass images that you always see making the Digg front page? Or all of the missions to Mars, or the probe orbiting Saturn? Or the spacecraft we send and landed on asteroids? Yes, we f**king landed on an asteroid. Twice. Bet you don't even know that we have another spacecraft currently enroute to check out Pluto. Just because there aren't people out in space exploring doesn't mean we haven't been exploring all this time. Your profile says you are 37 years old - you should be aware of this fact by now.
maddprofSep 11, 2009
So by that argument; you've just justified everything humans have ever done as "natural tendencies" as completely acceptable.Murder, Guns, Bombs, Chemical Warfare, the Crusades, Genocide, War, Hiroshima, 9/11 (inside job or not), etc etc etc etc.
blowjustinupSep 11, 2009
I don't care about crashing s**t into the moon..But seriously.. $491 million dollars with our economy in the s**tter to see if there's water on the moon?And if there is water on the moon.. So what? People going to start living there just because there's water there? It would cost even more money for that to happen..
maddprofSep 12, 2009
But everything you've discussed there is not NATURALLY OCCURRING; e.g. you don't walk down into your back yard up to your "C-4 tree" and pluck off a brick. Plants, humans (as a biological entity), moons, planets, and more to the point METEORS (and/or comets) are naturally occurring (assuming no other life form is purposefully launching meteors/comets at us) phenomenon. Yes, we use naturally occurring source materials to CONSTRUCT these items. And how is this not a moral issue? We are launching more trash at our moon specifically in the name of science. Are you telling me they couldn't find a less polluting/damaging way to complete the same research? Are they (meaning current/future scientists) planning on picking up that empty fuel tank out of the crater it creates when they are done? No. Not to mention, this method is a one-shot deal. What if they don't find water in that exact spot? Are they going to repeat the experiment again somewhere else? What's going to stop the mentality of "well, we've done it once already, lets try a few more times just to make sure?" or from someone deciding the dust cloud isn't big enough and decides to use actual explosives next time? Bank to my original point; I think they could have done a lot better using a rover for scientific exploration of the moon for water a whole lot more efficiently (with the ability to repeat until the rover completely dies) then this method.
Closed AccountSep 12, 2009
Now THAT is one obscure and awesome reference.