Check Your Local Listings: Watch NASA Blow Up The Moon on Friday

By on October 7, 2009 in News 45

Joe Rao writes on Space.com:

Get ready for a unique cosmic collision! Early Friday morning, NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite will end its mission with a bang — literally.

The probe — also known by its acronym, LCROSS — is currently carrying along the upper stage of the rocket that launched it on its way to the moon on June 18. NASA’s game plan is to send that spent rocket motor on a course to smash into the lunar surface. Not just anywhere on the lunar surface, but to a thoroughly scrutinized crater called Cabeus that lies near the moon’s south pole and is enveloped in perpetual darkness. The hoped-for result will be to find hidden water frozen inside the crater.

For seasoned skywatchers here on Earth, the event should also produce a visible cloud of ejected material. However, only knowledgeable amateur astronomers with the right equipment will be able to detect the event. Others can watch the event live on NASA TV.

In jest, here’s a clip about “blowing up the Moon” from Mr. Show:

,

  • Name

    What a fucking waste of tax dollars. people are joblees, homeless. and were blowing up the moon. makes no sense.

  • Name

    What the fuck is wrong with these people? I see absolutely no reason for this at all! We're here struggeling to get by and the government etc.. are getting bailouts and now have extra money to just blow up the moon. What a damn shame!

  • metrucc

    Soooo glad you included the mr. show clip. Appropriately, they get a 2nd monkey to do it.

  • Nicholas Culletto

    “Who the fuck do they think they are!!! “The moon is not they'res to do with ,what ever ! And did WE notice that they didn't anounce they're intentions until it was to late to protest, because there would have been some serious opposittion, for sure.Also, is this a global decission headed by nasa?What normal person would allow some crack pot retards with an unlimitted budget,fuck with the WORLDS Moon.This is a dark day for mankind. these fuckers are “OUT OF LINE”. And we need to pay attention, don't turn your backs to this shit,don't turn your backs. we need to keep our heads up , our eye's open , and one voice ,to keep these idiots in check, “OR WE'RE DOOMED”

  • Name

    Before you start freaking out about how people at NASA are retards…maybe read into the information a little more. The discovery of water on the moon is actually a quite historical event. And yes, they are “Blowing up the moon” but in such a small way that it won't even be noticed unless you have a telescope powerful enough to see this event. So, before you freak out, maybe you should read first…retards

    • Name

      thats your problem ,you think you can justify bombing the moon for any reason, by the text you read ,by the way retard,your only reading what they whant u to know .and the text also mentions the finding of uranium by the japanese, and speculate the mining of that uranium in the not to distant future. water ? water on the moon so fucking what. If that 's really what there looking for.

  • http://www.vacationrentalsad.com/ Chris Brown

    There gonna make them Moon people so freaking mad there gonna come get us watch damn it im gonna have to buy some combat boots.

  • sagitarius

    can anyone say apocalypse?

  • chrystalk

    Science is almost scary sometimes.

  • http://www.vacationrentalsad.com/ constant gina

    I saw the headline and said whhhattt?? then I saw the story and said oh….more money waisted…damn

  • Kikashie45

    WTF???? What kind of affect will this have on the gravitational pull on the earth to moon to earth? Do they even know what kind of affect it will have on our Solar System? The likeliness of there being water in the moon frozen much less there at all is practically zero. At what point since creation or the bang happened did people say to themselves… “I'll prove there's water up there somewhere, even if I have to blow up the moon.”?

  • Name

    So america or NASA can just tell everyone in the world what to do and what not to do and now they the can send the moon out of orbit to check on frozen water???? What “controls” are in place for this event? Have we informed our children to hide under their desks at school when the earth starts spinning? Not all Ideas are good ones. Please for God sake would someone think about what the hell they are doing here, remember the Dinosaurs? Anybody bother to ask the WORLD what they think about this? Leave nature alone, I'll be happy to donate some water from the midwest for any of NASA's future needs. Come on!

    • Kikashie45

      Well done, I just can't believe that they are pulling this shit. LET US VOTE ON IT FIRST, Maybe we'll think it's a bad idea and put a stop to it… Or maybe, just maybe like nearly every other vote we've done they can ignore it and say that majority went to”LET'S BLOW UP THE MOON” When we all know there are not enough satanists in the world to get a vote that high. The Moon represents too many things to just blow up. such as Romance, Wonder, WHY THE FUCK OUR OCEANS STAY THE WAY THEY ARE!!!!! Also I think instead of bombing the bitch how about we do what we do for OIL, Drill?????????????????????? It's safer, more cost efficient, and it saves the moon. It may take longer, But I think I can wait a little bit to find out if there is water on the friggin moon. At what point did our government get all this power? Where's the people's say in this?

    • LookoutforChris

      Get a science education! There is no “explosion.” They're just impacting the moon. It will not send the moon out of orbit, the scale of this impact is similar to the small asteroids that hit the moon SEVERAL TIMES A MONTH.

      They won't take your water donation, it's too expensive to truck it to the moon, we need to find sources of water or the ability to make it where ever we go.

      This is seriously a major problem with America … we have full grown adults walking around with less than a 6th grade science education combined with an inability to use Google.

      • Name

        we hit the moon. we bitch slapped THE MOON. i don't care is it was a small crater that the moon gets hit with hundreds of times, we're civil enough to know that we shouldn't mess with her. but we do anyway. and for what? again, our own selfish reasons.

  • asdg

    wow, seriously, people is retarded.

    Get a hold of reality, you complain about wasted money living in a capitalist society?, just take a look at the amount of money wasted in religion, gossip, celebrities, War and Defense research… the real problem isn't “lol we r blowinz dem moon down”, it's that everyday ordninary people are just too fucking retarded to realize the incredible amount of resources wasted in mundanes activities.

    this is science, we are learning from our universe, and we gotta start from our closest celestial object.

    Did any of you retarded people complaining know that one of the few plans to stopping a comet from colliding the earth is a laser device which would have to be installed on the moon, besides just imagine the possibilities of colonizing the moon.

    you complain about money, just look at numbers, religion and war waste waaaaay more money than all scientific research do…

    “Praise da lawd and pass the ammunition”

    • Meg

      People “is” retarded?

    • Name

      we already knew there is water on the moon. apparently, Never-A-Straight-Answer blew it up to cover something that was there, like a secret base.

  • rawr

    When my friend first told me about this, I was furious. Because IF they blew up the entire moon, chaos would be going on down here, since the moon controls the tides. But then when I read into it some more, I understood, but still didn't like it. People is completely ruining the world, and it's horrible. Let's just cut down all the trees we can and drill as deep as we want, because all we care about is ourselves. Wake up America, someday we're going to run out of everything and our little Utopia down here is going to be Hell. So let's go blow up part of the Moon and go on our merry way, throwing things out of balance. And don't anyone reply to this and say that blowing up a little bit of the Moon won't affect us, because I know. But like the person below me clearly stated, 'Leave nature alone' and they were absolutely right.

  • Nadya Williams

    What the fuck!!!! The moon isn't ours or yours to blow up!!!!! It belongs to the world, the solar system and to whom ever wants to look at it!!!! Why do we care if there is water in the moon? Do you plan on taking it to? Let's not only fuck up our planet but lets fuck up everything else around it!!!! Did you ask anyone else if they are ok with this? Germany, Canada, Switzerland, Australia?

  • Stephanie

    About NASA “blowing up the moon”: Allow me to shed a little insight as to what's gonna go down tomorrow at around 7:30am, EDT. (I'm privy to a lot of this since my fiance works at NASA, but proper information has been going around news stations as well, so I figured I could share what I know!)

    Long story short: They are not “blowing up the moon.” Rather, what they are doing is taking the LCROSS, which is a satellite made to sense the crater and what is in it, and launching from it a small impactor, called Centaur. Centaur will enter a crater that is permanently shadowed from the sun's rays, which leads scientists to believe that there may be frozen lunar water within the crater. (There has been recent study that shows that the Moon's “soil” may actually contain water, and they're trying to confirm this once and for all.) After it takes out a chunk of the Moon and creates a plume of debris, the LCROSS will enter the plume and take readings to determine whether or not this is the case. If water exists on the moon, it could mean significant implications as to human-space exploration and the possibility of existence (or former existence) of water on other planets.

    Let's make this clear, though: First, the Moon is impacted by asteroids and other space debris at least a few times per month. The craters that result from those are minimal compared to the impact that is to be made by Centaur. Second, and to give perspective to the first point, Centaur is to make only a swimming pool-sized hole in an already existing crater.

    As Bill Nye (yes, the Science Guy — talk about a blast from the past!) said on CNN earlier, the impact of Centaur will have absolutely no effect on the Moon's rotation, our tides, or anything else for that matter. As he pointed out, and to solidify my previous two points, the Moon is a much bigger object than we perceive. Sure, it's smaller than our Earth, but it's not tiny by any means! Check out any comparison illustration through Google. I'll give you a second.

    Imagine a teeeeeeeeny, tiny rocket entering one of those craters and essentially making a lot of space dust. The impact is negligible when compared to how big the Moon really is!

    So while I'm all for taking care of what the gods have provided as far as the planet on which we live and its moon, as well as all celestial bodies in the universe and beyond, we have to step back and look at this objectively. It won't do anything, it will be great for scientific research and advancement (which we've been lacking for years), and when I think of it from a pseudo-selfish standpoint, it's keeping my fiance and other rocket scientists employed in a time where canceling the manned rockets may put thousands out of work.

    Anyway, if you're interested in what all is going to happen tomorrow, I urge you to check out NASA's page on LCROSS. It's actually very fascinating. :)

    • Stephanie

      Sorry — I meant that the crater that will result from Centaur is minimal compared to the impact made by these asteroids and such.

      • Janice

        the moon gets enough craters, though. obviously it's not a sustainable enough planet for us to live in but we shoot at it anyway. the moon gave us life and made earth what she is today. it's just morally unacceptable to hurt the only moon we have for our own selfish needs, like killing earth isn't enough.

  • kracker

    what a crock we send a little machine to mars and we find water yet we must blow up the moon and we have already been there? Good luck blowing up the Alien base on the moon NASA

    • Guest in Canada

      I agree with most of the posters here. I'm not too sure that it's going to cause our earth to spin wildly out of orbit or anything. I just seriously doubt they are going to find ANY signs of “water”. This is a HUGE waste of money that could/should have been spent right here on good ole earth. Who IS the ass that rubber-stamped the approval for this idea anyway?

  • kracker

    what a crock we send a little machine to mars and we find water yet we must blow up the moon and we have already been there? Good luck blowing up the Alien base on the moon NASA

  • Name

    So if mother nature makes impact on the moon a couple times of month, why can't you get what you want from her doings? Why don't you land on the moon and drill a whole? Cause we've never been to the moon!!!! And the only way for NASA to get there is to send rockets and cameras and such. And if this impact won't make any difference, why are we doing it? 70 million bucks for something scientists may “beleive” might be up there? I don't need fuel from the moon. I don't want to live on the moon!!! I just want to look at the moon, just the way it is!!!! Leave our solar system alone and try working on our mother earth instead. We have enough problems here!!!!

  • Lookoutforchris

    The ignorance level of this thread is titanic. Also, the title of the post is a lie.

    • http://disinfo.com ralph

      I have having fun with the new story with that title, did not expect this level of reaction to it, and “range” of “opinion.” Fascinating.

  • MoonMan

    Check out what Richard Hoagland, author of Dark Mission and former NASA consultant, has to say about the Moon bombing:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZulJbl2tppQ

  • maf

    when will these arrogant people ask us permission to blow holes into our world. I feel like an iraqi.

  • babiieexxlivyy

    I think this is FANTABLUES!goodjob!I am very proud of you for trying to blow up the moon,i watch it ever night and it is not very respectful that you would do that!Have some commen sence around here come on.

  • http://www.vacationrentalsad.com/ Amy

    I really hope that there are no bad effects from bombing the moon. It just seems insane.

  • SpaceAlienJoe

    But won't this knock the moon out of it's orbit and cause universal annihilation?

  • Name

    wow thats funny sounds like the movie armageddon

  • ok i love charlee doiillee

    chicken and cheese

  • jonathanstatski

    Is this for real? What about building homes and feeding people?

  • NASA is for losers!

    WOW is this where all our govermental money is going? NASA should be shut down…what a complete waste of time..damn the freaking moon is a damn rock it dont have any water on it!!

  • NASA is for losers!

    WOW is this where all our govermental money is going? NASA should be shut down…what a complete waste of time..damn the freaking moon is a damn rock it dont have any water on it!!

  • Sunny_Even

    This is outrageous, every scientist working on this project should be ashamed!! Sending a rocket into the moon is one of the most impractical way of spending tax payers money…. How can we stop you from doing this!!! Everyone who is out there and thinks this is outrageous we need to stand up and stop this from happening ASAP!!!

    • Andrew

      Very funny!

  • Sunny_Even

    This is outrageous, every scientist working on this project should be ashamed!! Sending a rocket into the moon is one of the most impractical way of spending tax payers money…. How can we stop you from doing this!!! Everyone who is out there and thinks this is outrageous we need to stand up and stop this from happening ASAP!!!

  • Andrew

    Very funny!

  • Sademo13

    what is this all about? trying to kill us? i think so

  • Sademo13

    what is this all about? trying to kill us? i think so