Blast into Lunar pole in NASA search for water on the moon

[Mike Philbin]

this happens at our lunchtime, here in UK, so we'll see what happens then...

[UK Lyn]

Folks, have you heard Richard Hoagland's take on the reasons behind this mission?

He was on Coast To Coast on the 6th October discussing the affair.

In a nutshell, in the 60's we had good enough technology that detected no Lunar atmosphere at all, nothing.

Recently, the newer missions going on outside of NASA have discovered not only a thin atmosphere (wtf!?) but that the signatures of it suggest long term human habitation (WTF!?!?!), said atmosphere coming from our breathing etc leaking gases from spacesuits and living capsules.

The people behind this hidden tech, have basically split into seperatists from the rest of us, eg a a greedy cabal that has decided to keep all the tech (black-budget and perhaps ancient or alien artifacts) for themselves and not share it with the rest of mankind (a pet theory of mine too about the nature of assumed-to-be 'alien' UFOs).

Hoagland suggests this is a hasty and desperate mission to cover-up evidence, by blasting it with this otherwise redundant mission.

Whatever, it's an entertaining listen.  Here is an upload of the hour from the show in MP3.

http://rapidshare.de/files/48490876/Coast_to_Coast_-_Oct_06_2009_-_Hour_4.mp3.html

[JTCoyoté]

You know JT, you call me out by saying I can't speak anything other fiction. I was merely pointing out a flaw in your representation. DARPA has funded many of these exoskeletons for future use in war. Plain and simple, it is where fiction and reality have started coming together.

I read the original NASA article. Basically they system is set up into two parts, you have the LCROSS system which separated from the Centaur system tonight. The Centaur will make it's first impact in the morning in which LCROSS will follow. The LCROSS impact is the one that scientists on the ground hope to use high powered telescopes to take pictures of along with data sent back prior to LCROSS crashing to determine if water / ice is actually in a surface crater at the pole of the moon.

Now we have sent one object that is going about 7.3 times the speed of sound to the moon that has split into two different mechanisms. Both of which are going to hit the pole of the moon. That is where my concern comes from. It's been proven that the moon's orbit around our planet has been consistently moving outward overtime, my concern is that this could possibly either cause it to go faster or slower. That is where my skepticism comes in at.

In an earlier reply, I asked for your "story" since you boldly attack mine, when all I showed was that I had some concern over how this ends up. Fiction, oddly can become reality at an alarming rate. Setting up a Moon Colony is essentially the beginning of Halo, to deploy UN Like marines to any troubled part of the world at a moment's notice. See, I choose to use my own life stories with things I've experienced, read, or information gained from others to my advantage. Guess in doing such, that is not OK with you, even though you do the same.

 Then why don't you go start a thread... and then reprove all your fiction... because this thread is not about fiction... or hearsay... or hallucination... we're talking about an experiment on the moon, that was first made public almost 4 years ago and can be proved... it is not speculation... Oh, I suggest you start your science-fiction thread over on the off-topic board!

JTCoyoté

"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated
than the man who reads nothing but newspapers."
~Thomas Jefferson

[JTCoyoté]

Folks, have you heard Richard Hoagland's take on the reasons behind this mission?

He was on Coast To Coast on the 6th October discussing the affair.

In a nutshell, in the 60's we had good enough technology that detected no Lunar atmosphere at all, nothing.

Recently, the newer missions going on outside of NASA have discovered not only a thin atmosphere (wtf!?) but that the signatures of it suggest long term human habitation (WTF!?!?!), said atmosphere coming from our breathing etc leaking gases from spacesuits and living capsules.

The people behind this hidden tech, have basically split into seperatists from the rest of us, eg a a greedy cabal that has decided to keep all the tech (black-budget and perhaps ancient or alien artifacts) for themselves and not share it with the rest of mankind (a pet theory of mine too about the nature of assumed-to-be 'alien' UFOs).

Hoagland suggests this is a hasty and desperate mission to cover-up evidence, by blasting it with this otherwise redundant mission.

Whatever, it's an entertaining listen.  Here is an upload of the hour from the show in MP3.

http://rapidshare.de/files/48490876/Coast_to_Coast_-_Oct_06_2009_-_Hour_4.mp3.html

Thanks Lyn...

This is happening on almost every front... and it's all divisive... it splits people into two camps...Moon atmosphere, pro-con/ global warming, pro-con/the moon landings, pro-con/9-11truth/Democrat-Republican/black-white/male-female/child-adult... they are leaving no possible division untouched... the Pharaoh is freaking out... he has to get and keep the slaves divided as much as possible to continue his feudal empire...

If there was an atmosphere on the moon, because of its size and gravity... it would've been boiled away or combined in the rocks and dust through out-gassing/combining, billions of years ago, the Moon is an extremely arid place... Any water that would remain beneath the surface in the perpetually sunless interiors of polar craters, resides there at an extremely low temperature around 200° below zero Fahrenheit or less. Once it's stirred up if it is there, it will dissipate quickly into vapor and would fall to the ground, once exposed to the sun's rays. It to would begin combining with the rocks and dust...

JTCoyoté

"What has been the effect of coercion?
To make one-half the world fools and
the other half hypocrites. To support
roguery and error all over the earth."
~Thomas Jefferson

[reed026]

Then why don't you go start a thread... and then reprove all your fiction... because this thread is not about fiction... or hearsay... or hallucination... we're talking about an experiment on the moon, that was first made public almost 4 years ago and can be proved... it is not speculation... Oh, I suggest you start your science-fiction thread over on the off-topic board!

JTCoyoté

"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated
than the man who reads nothing but newspapers."
~Thomas Jefferson

 

You are very funny man. I press you for information and you start acting bat shit crazy.  No need for me to "start" a new thread to prove what you believe is "fiction" when others have already done it. It'd be a waste of time.

http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=15854.0
http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=66638.0


It's funny though that I took the time to sit here and write out a brief explanation about what will happen this morning, and my concerns of doing such only to have you go off about me showing how what you believe is "fiction" is merely pre-programming for the future. Man though you really like being a gate keeper don't you?

Head em up move em out.. I'm going out on the porch to watch the fireworks.. NASA's flipping the bill tonight. 

[TheCaliKid]

Seems like anything can be done in the name of 'science'.

Better living through chemistry kids!

[infowarrior_039]

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/countdown/video/

NASA TV live

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/video/nasatv/nasatv-cc.ram

[UK Lyn]

Thanks Lyn...

This is happening on almost every front... and it's all divisive... it splits people into two camps...Moon atmosphere, pro-con/ global warming, pro-con/the moon landings, pro-con/9-11truth/Democrat-Republican/black-white/male-female/child-adult... they are leaving no possible division untouched... the Pharaoh is freaking out... he has to get and keep the slaves divided as much as possible to continue his feudal empire...

If there was an atmosphere on the moon, because of its size and gravity... it would've been boiled away or combined in the rocks and dust through out-gassing/combining, billions of years ago, the Moon is an extremely arid place... Any water that would remain beneath the surface in the perpetually sunless interiors of polar craters, resides there at an extremely low temperature around 200° below zero Fahrenheit or less. Once it's stirred up if it is there, it will dissipate quickly into vapor and would fall to the ground, once exposed to the sun's rays. It to would begin combining with the rocks and dust...

JTCoyoté

"What has been the effect of coercion?
To make one-half the world fools and
the other half hypocrites. To support
roguery and error all over the earth."
~Thomas Jefferson

Thanks JT, yes I'm keeping in-mind the distraction aspect for sure.  I don't really know where to put RCH as yet, I have some of his books including Dark Mission which was very interesting.  But, some of those enhanced Lunar pictures showing 'domes' behind the horizon are clearly an iris effect.  So where that leaves the other 'weirdeties' I'm not sure.

Hey - don't you ever sleep? 

[stella]

Ok I'm watching online and that was, like, the lamest thing ever.  I saw nothing.  

[Dustbunny]

Folks, have you heard Richard Hoagland's take on the reasons behind this mission?

He was on Coast To Coast on the 6th October discussing the affair.

In a nutshell, in the 60's we had good enough technology that detected no Lunar atmosphere at all, nothing.

Recently, the newer missions going on outside of NASA have discovered not only a thin atmosphere (wtf!?) but that the signatures of it suggest long term human habitation (WTF!?!?!), said atmosphere coming from our breathing etc leaking gases from spacesuits and living capsules.

The people behind this hidden tech, have basically split into seperatists from the rest of us, eg a a greedy cabal that has decided to keep all the tech (black-budget and perhaps ancient or alien artifacts) for themselves and not share it with the rest of mankind (a pet theory of mine too about the nature of assumed-to-be 'alien' UFOs).

Hoagland suggests this is a hasty and desperate mission to cover-up evidence, by blasting it with this otherwise redundant mission.

Whatever, it's an entertaining listen.  Here is an upload of the hour from the show in MP3.

http://rapidshare.de/files/48490876/Coast_to_Coast_-_Oct_06_2009_-_Hour_4.mp3.html

Thats what I suspected...

[carlee]

What a crock of crap..... Showed nothing. Nothing observable, just a bunch of public relations footage of high fives. Even the guy reporting said we didnt get to see anything.

 Why did it jump from the viewable spectrum to thermal or infrared red and ... This was such a joke back to bed to review in the morning sun.

   cover up!

[stella]

Why did it jump from the viewable spectrum to thermal or infrared red and ... This was such a joke back to bed to review in the morning sun.

Some BS about the image size and resolution.  How is it possible people could have seen this with a telescope if we saw nothing zoomed all the way in on the crater?

[carlee]

WASHINGTON – NASA has successfully bulldozed two spacecraft into the moon's south pole in a search for hidden ice, but without the promised live photos.

First a 2.2-ton empty rocket hull smacked the moon's south pole at 7:31 a.m. EDT Friday. Then four minutes later the camera-and-instrument laden space probe made its death plunge.

The smaller probe had five cameras and four other scientific instruments and NASA had touted live photos on its web site. But those images didn't occur. NASA officials say they are sure the two probes crashed and looking to see what happened to the pictures. Pictures were live until seconds before impact.

The intentional crashes had been expected to kick up miles of lunar dust. The space probe is called LCROSS, short for Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — NASA has successfully bulldozed two spacecraft into the moon's south pole in a search for hidden ice, but without the promised live photos.

First a 2.2-ton empty rocket hull smacked the moon's south pole at 7:31 a.m. EDT Friday. Then four minutes later the camera-and-instrument laden space probe made its death plunge.

The smaller probe had five cameras and four other scientific instruments and NASA had touted live photos on its web site. But those images didn't occur. NASA officials say they are sure the two probes crashed and looking to see what happened to the pictures. Pictures were live until seconds before impact.

The intentional crashes had been expected to kick up miles of lunar dust. The space probe is called LCROSS, short for Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite

[xfahctor]

 Well, the moon is still there, in one piece, we're still here, in one piece. What was everyone expecting? Truth is most of the really juicy stuff is going to come from the spectro analysis of the debre.

[chris jones]

Why not concentrate on the situation with our planet and its inhabitants.

NAH, leave more debt for the future generations.

NASA, if the recourcs used to send rockets to the moon were to be used to create fuel alternatives, we would eliminate oil barons and their monopoly.             CAN'T HAVE THAT CAN WE.

Colonizing the moon, great idea, send the NWO elites there immediatly.

[Triadtropz]

Colonizing the moon, great idea, send the NWO elites there immediatly.

lol...did they just spend a hundred million dollars to possibly screw up the tides and gravity?..this place is nuts the countrys flat broke and this is a priority c'mon...

[Jackson Holly]

Did not six manned missions on the Moon's surface already prove/disprove the water question? Don't we already have hundreds of pounds of lunar material to study ... not just 'spectrum analysis'?

[ridebmx]

NASA has successfully zoomed in on a still image and switched back and forth between thermal images that mean absolutely nothing

this is 2009 and they cant show anything?!

oh yeah, i forgot they accidentally erased the moon landing tapes

[JTCoyoté]

Did not six manned missions on the Moon's surface already prove/disprove the water question? Don't we already have hundreds of pounds of lunar material to study ... not just 'spectrum analysis'?

The short answer to your first question in sunlit areas, is yes. The problem with those six missions is that they all landed on areas of the moon that are bathed in sunlight a good portion of the time. The question of water then was not completely put to rest however because there are portions of the moon, the poles, that never see sunlight. This Mission was to confirm whether or not any water existed in these areas as underground water ice... if water is found there, then setting up pilot colonies becomes quite feasible since water would not have to be carried to the moon from earth.

The hundreds of pounds of lunar material from the equatorial region of the moon would show about as much information about the polar regions of the Moon, as a soil/water sample from the equatorial African desert would tell you about the soil/water composition in northern Alaska...

I contend, that putting all ones anxt against NASA, rather than concentrating on ending the Federal Reserve, is nuts. And as I pointed out before, division among the people maintains the position of the banking criminals better than an act of Congress.

JTCoyoté

"If we were directed from Washington when to sow
and when to reap, we should all want bread."
~Thomas Jefferson

[Nomadinexile]

U.S. Bombs moon.  Impact does shoot up soil apparently not getting the info it bombed for in the first place.  Bang up job boys!  How much did this one cost?  Unreal.  I like the comments at the bottom.  Its crazy enough being a citizen of this country and watching this go on.  Imagine what rice farmer in India thinks?  What about a Ukranian steel worker?  Brazilian marketing exec?  Imagine, just for a second, what the rest of the world must be thinking watching this unfold. 


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article6868167.ece

[JTCoyoté]

Thanks JT, yes I'm keeping in-mind the distraction aspect for sure.  I don't really know where to put RCH as yet, I have some of his books including Dark Mission which was very interesting.  But, some of those enhanced Lunar pictures showing 'domes' behind the horizon are clearly an iris effect.  So where that leaves the other 'weirdeties' I'm not sure.

Hey - don't you ever sleep?  

Yes, when Richard first came out on Art Bell with his enhanced lunar and Mars photo's in the mid '90s, it put the "doubt/division train," started by Capricorn one, into high gear as far as NASA is concerned... he even had me going for a while, but not very long.

If one keeps in mind that the whole idea is to divide... then one takes a stand of being skeptical of all of it. Unfortunately, most are completely disarmed in these arguments due to an almost complete lack of scientific knowledge... a perfect preying ground for scientific charlatans, since it leaves the average person with no proven scientific basis upon which to build the foundation of their understanding... and most will fall prey to the one with the most money or the loudest voice... the very essence of tyranny.

Sleep... what's that...

JTCoyoté

"Where the press is free, and every man
able to read, all is safe."
~Thomas Jefferson

[JTCoyoté]

U.S. Bombs moon.  Impact does shoot up soil apparently not getting the info it bombed for in the first place.  Bang up job boys!  How much did this one cost?  Unreal.  I like the comments at the bottom.  Its crazy enough being a citizen of this country and watching this go on.  Imagine what rice farmer in India thinks?  What about a Ukranian steel worker?  Brazilian marketing exec?  Imagine, just for a second, what the rest of the world must be thinking watching this unfold.  


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article6868167.ece

You can rest assured that it cost less than the QBC/Rothschild Trust made in fraudulent Fiat interest worldwide over the last 24 hours... get your priorities straight...  Tell your Indian rice farmer, your Ukrainian steelworker, your Brazilian marketing exec that little fact... imagine what the world will think when they figure that out!

Your lack of understanding is glaring... and you are willingness to spread this as an affront on the people of the world, believing, and using the words "US bombs moon... Apparently not getting the info..." bespeaks either stupidity, or an agenda!

At the very worst, once analyzed the results will prove conclusively there is no water on the moon... at a cost of less than $79million...

JTCoyoté

"What has been the effect of coercion?
To make one-half the world fools and
the other half hypocrites. To support
roguery and error all over the earth."
~Thomas Jefferson

[xfahctor]

lol...did they just spend a hundred million dollars to possibly screw up the tides and gravity?..this place is nuts the countrys flat broke and this is a priority c'mon...

dude, you honestly don't believe that do you? We're still here, even if in some science fiction movie plot scenario, this managed to even budge the moon, we would not be having this conversation right now, it would be felt that quickly.
 Tell me something, now, I don't have the numbers right now myself, but apparently you have seen some that lead you to believe this would even be possible, could you point me to those numbers and explain why they demonstrate such a scenario?

[ramallamamama]

NASA needs to youtube it or it didn't happen.

[Matt Hatter]

WOW this is really going to Piss off the aliens now!

I see them! The earth is now surrounded lol.

[JTCoyoté]

dude, you honestly don't believe that do you? We're still here, even if in some science fiction movie plot scenario, this managed to even budge the moon, we would not be having this conversation right now, it would be felt that quickly.
 Tell me something, now, I don't have the numbers right now myself, but apparently you have seen some that lead you to believe this would even be possible, could you point me to those numbers and explain why they demonstrate such a scenario?

Even if the moon was only the size of Rhode Island, this wouldn't have affected it... and this fellow's statements were most likely tongue-in-cheek... but many who read his statements may not see that, as it is written.

The moon has a diameter of 1800 miles which is just under one quarter the diameter of the earth, it has a mass 1/6th that of Earth and therefore gravity equaled to that... what weighs 6 pounds on earth only weighs 1 pound on the moon... The moon's orbital diameter around the Earth is roughly 1/2 million miles, it cruises that orbit once every 28 days, at a speed of just under 2500 mph.  At the same time, the Earth/Moon are in orbit around the sun, the orbit that is roughly 195,000,000 miles in diameter. It completes one orbit every 365 1/4 days... at a speed of roughly 60,000 mph.

That little bitty missile striking the moon, had about as much chance of altering the cosmic geometry of our system, as the flapping of a butterfly's wings once, would have on a hurricane.

JTCoyoté

"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated
than the man who reads nothing but newspapers."
~Thomas Jefferson

[xfahctor]

Even if the moon was only the size of Rhode Island, this wouldn't have affected it... but this fellow's statements were most likely tongue-in-cheek... but many who read his statements may not see that as it is written.

The moon has a diameter of 1800 miles which is just under one quarter the diameter of the earth, it has a mass 1/6th that of Earth and therefore gravity equaled to that... what would weigh 6 pounds on earth only weighs 1 pound on the moon... The moon was orbital diameter around the Earth is roughly 1/2 million miles, it cruises that orbit once every 28 days, at a speed of just under 2500 mph.  At the same time, the Earth/Moon are in orbit around the sun, the orbit that is roughly 195,000,000 miles in diameter. It completes one orbit every 365 1/4 days... at a speed of roughly 60,000 mph.

That little bitty missile striking the moon, had about as much chance of altering the cosmic geometry of our system, as the flapping of a butterfly's wings would have on a hurricane.

JTCoyoté

"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated
than the man who reads nothing but newspapers."
~Thomas Jefferson

Or put another way, think about being on the side of a highway, and firing a pea shooter at an oncomming tractor trailer's grill, how much do you think it will slow the truck down or move it?

[DavidB]

Most people (although fewer and fewer) understand that exploration is a fundamental expression of mankind.  Exploration and innovation are hallmarks of great races and civilizations, in my opinion.  (Of course, since modern Americans aren't very curious and can't build anything, we now fill those drives to discover with drives to murder Arabs and worship the military, but that's another issue.)

However....the LCROSS mission looks like an unmitigated flop: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/091009-lcross-impact-update.html

Not only did they not get enough of a plume to test for water....they're being wishy-washy about whether there was ANY ejection of lunar debris!  What's more is the fact that people (like myself) feel let down: we all watched the LCROSS approaching the moon expecting, if nothing else, cool close-ups of the moon.  Instead, we got low-res imagery and, for reasons I can't imagine, the mothership didn't even take external video of the LCROSS hitting.

In short, I believe that exploration is a necessity for mankind, and the timid "men" who lambast NASA are often the beer-guzzling, military-worshiping phonies who also pretend to cry for "God Bless America".  But failure is an inevitable byproduct of exploration, and LCROSS looks like one of those failures.

[phosphene]

yeah, all i saw on the nasa web site was 1 blocky picture of a grey circle. this is 2009...right? Kids are sending their walmart instant cameras up to space with helium balloons and getting better pictures than that weak ass nasa bullshit.

[DavidB]

yeah, all i saw on the nasa web site was 1 blocky picture of a grey circle. this is 2009...right? Kids are sending their walmart instant cameras up to space with helium balloons and getting better pictures than that weak ass nasa bullshit.

Yeah, it's funny because even though the camera mounted on the LCROSS was borderline worthless as far as entertainment value goes, I was thinking, "Well, NASA said that the plume will be observable for every telescope with a 10" lens, so I'll still see a bunch of awesome videos from Earthbound astronomers later on!"

But then I learn that there wasn't anything observed even from massive observatories at Columbia.  I'm like, "Oh.  Okay, chalk this one down as a total loss."  But, hey, I'm sure we'll learn SOMETHING, even just by failing.  Like I wrote before, you're going to fail lots of times.  That's just the way it goes when you're doing something that's never been done before.

[xfahctor]

Yeah, it's funny because even though the camera mounted on the LCROSS was borderline worthless as far as entertainment value goes, I was thinking, "Well, NASA said that the plume will be observable for every telescope with a 10" lens, so I'll still see a bunch of awesome videos from Earthbound astronomers later on!"

But then I learn that there wasn't anything observed even from massive observatories at Columbia.  I'm like, "Oh.  Okay, chalk this one down as a total loss."  But, hey, I'm sure we'll learn SOMETHING, even just by failing.  Like I wrote before, you're going to fail lots of times.  That's just the way it goes when you're doing something that's never been done before.

There will still be a lot of valueable information from the spectrographic readings though. Unfortunately many are operating under the presumption this was a fancy visable show and forgetting it was still just an experiment designed to gather data.
 in other words, they weren't trying to give us fire works, they were gathering scientific measurements, science is just not all that flashy and sparkly most times, it can be pretty mundane and still be quite productive.

[kingp43]

ARRGHH!!!  so I was driving today, looked out at the moon, and sure enough!  the whole bottom part of the moon is missing.  This is a pic of todays moon, but it looks a little different from my viewpoint, the missing part is more towards the bottom.....

http://moon.jaxa.jp/en/today/


Those bastards.... I knew this wasn't going to go well.....
 

[DavidB]

There will still be a lot of valueable information from the spectrographic readings though. Unfortunately many are operating under the presumption this was a fancy visable show and forgetting it was still just an experiment designed to gather data.

Check out the Space.com link I provided a few quotes above: NASA's equivocating about whether there was any significant ejection at all!  They might have unsettled the surface and gotten a meek dust cloud, but they obviously didn't get the tons and tons of material that they were hoping to eject out, and they definitely didn't get the "ten mile" vertical plume that they were advertising.

I'm not saying that it's a total waste, but I highly doubt that the feeble lunar emissions will be enough to analyze for ice.  Which means that they're going to have to run yet another test, which will probably take at least another three years.  

All signs point to this being a failure.  I'm not trying to, ya know, mock them: explorers and scientists represent the best of us (NOT the f-ing military!).  But I'm 99% sure that this will turn out to be a total loss.

[phosphene]

Check out the Space.com link I provided a few quotes above: NASA's equivocating about whether there was any significant ejection at all!  They might have unsettled the surface and gotten a meek dust cloud, but they obviously didn't get the tons and tons of material that they were hoping to eject out, and they definitely didn't get the "ten mile" vertical plume that they were advertising.

I'm not saying that it's a total waste, but I highly doubt that the feeble lunar emissions will be enough to analyze for ice.  Which means that they're going to have to run yet another test, which will probably take at least another three years.  

All signs point to this being a failure.  I'm not trying to, ya know, mock them: explorers and scientists represent the best of us (NOT the f-ing military!).  But I'm 99% sure that this will turn out to be a total loss.

There will still be a lot of valueable information from the spectrographic readings though. Unfortunately many are operating under the presumption this was a fancy visable show and forgetting it was still just an experiment designed to gather data.
 in other words, they weren't trying to give us fire works, they were gathering scientific measurements, science is just not all that flashy and sparkly most times, it can be pretty mundane and still be quite productive.

some people are forgetting that these experiments cost millions and millions of dollars, and are run by the US government. It's not much of a stretch to imagine there might be some other experiments conducted that they are not telling us about. NOT fitting a visual spectrum camera on the thing defies all logic and goes against the scientific method. They are not showing us the pictures.

[xfahctor]

Check out the Space.com link I provided a few quotes above: NASA's equivocating about whether there was any significant ejection at all!  They might have unsettled the surface and gotten a meek dust cloud, but they obviously didn't get the tons and tons of material that they were hoping to eject out, and they definitely didn't get the "ten mile" vertical plume that they were advertising.

I'm not saying that it's a total waste, but I highly doubt that the feeble lunar emissions will be enough to analyze for ice.  Which means that they're going to have to run yet another test, which will probably take at least another three years.  

All signs point to this being a failure.  I'm not trying to, ya know, mock them: explorers and scientists represent the best of us (NOT the f-ing military!).  But I'm 99% sure that this will turn out to be a total loss.

I guess we'll know soon enough.  I just feel people were pinning too much on the visual display aspect of it all. Either way and as you pointed out, we learn stuff even from failures, it is a nessesary part of scientific exploration.

[xfahctor]

some people are forgetting that these experiments cost millions and millions of dollars, and are run by the US government. It's not much of a stretch to imagine there might be some other experiments conducted that they are not telling us about. NOT fitting a visual spectrum camera on the thing defies all logic and goes against the scientific method. They are not showing us the pictures.

I'm sure there are plenty of experiments we don't get to know about, but how in gods name do you hide something anyone on the west half of the country could have trained a tellescope on and seen for them selves?

[70983]

Coyote, got any recommendations on reading material for a beginner?  Mostly in the field of astronomy/astrophysics/our solar system's composition, etc

[phosphene]

some people are forgetting that these experiments cost millions and millions of dollars, and are run by the US government. It's not much of a stretch to imagine there might be some other experiments conducted that they are not telling us about. NOT fitting a visual spectrum camera on the thing defies all logic and goes against the scientific method. They are not showing us the pictures.

i take that back. Here is some video. All i saw on the nasa web site was 1 crappy pic of a grey blob. I thought there should of been more, and there was...
NASA Moon Bombing Video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP4tF8ShMnQ

[Harconen]

 NEWS-BOMBING OF THE MOON

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgyNjNKyjb8&feature=related

[DavidB]

Coyote, got any recommendations on reading material for a beginner?  Mostly in the field of astronomy/astrophysics/our solar system's composition, etc

I know you were asking Coyote and not me, but I'll take a stab at it.

1) Grab a few high school (or even junior high) astronomy texts, or grab similarly basic astronomy books at a library.  Just grab a few of 'em, skim them over, and figure out which one presents information in a way you're receptive to.

2) Always feel free to imagine variations of what you're reading in your mind's eye.  Have fun!  Sometimes, you have to envision the solar system and then the galaxy as these tiny entities in the palm of your hand: it's the only way to wrap your brain around it. 

3) Remember that astronomy requires, like everything in life, knowledge of other fields.  You're going to have to be willing to think mathematically, physically, and philosophically, too.

4) Studying controversies is often a good way to learn things.  For instance, this cool documentary, 'The Privileged Planet' applies intelligent design principles to our Milky Way galaxy: 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5488284265590289530&ei=W67PSuWCBpqIqQLV2-WVBQ&q=the+privileged+planet#

If you're an argumentative person (like me), then you're focus will be kind of heightened as you read about these controversies so, as you're thinking about an argument, you're actually learning, too!