Jun 17 2009 Oh Great: NASA Plans To Blow Up The Moon

MORE: boom! , growing colder , ice , iffy , ka-boom , magic missile , missile , moon , nasa , okay , outerspace , questionable , safe , sounds good , sure why not , uh-oh , water , we're gonna need another moon , you're as cold as ice to me

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That's right folks, NASA plans to shoot a giant missile at the moon and make it go boom. BOOM SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE THE MOON!

In an unprecedented scientific endeavor -- and what may be one of the coolest space missions ever -- NASA is preparing to fly a rocket booster into the moon, triggering a six-mile-high explosion that scientists hope will confirm the presence of water.


The four-month mission of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), which will be directed from NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, is to discover whether water is frozen in the perpetual darkness of craters near the moon's south pole. As a potential source of oxygen for life support and hydrogen for rocket fuel, that water would be a tremendous boost to NASA's plans to restart human exploration of the moon.

Come on NASA -- as pro blowing stuff up as I am, there has got to be an easier way to find out if there's water on the moon. Like, oh I dunno, ASKING THE MOON PEOPLE. Hey, moon-chick, is there water in the moon? "ZIP ZAP ZIP YES WE DRINK IT". Ta-da, mystery solved. But while you're here, how about flashing those blue cheese boobs in my direction one more time?

NASA/Ames ready to explode one of the coolest space missions ever [siliconvalley]

Thanks to meeotch, who wants to ride the rocket when it goes. Me too, meeotch, me too.

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Feb 20 2008 Tonight's The Night For Sky Watching

MORE: astronomy , awesome , boom! , earth , missile , moon , nasa , satellite , sky , somebody tell my neighbor to pull his damn pants up , space , whee

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There's a total lunar eclipse tonight that you should probably step outside and take a look at later. "The moon will be completely within the shadow of the Earth as of 10pm EST, and won’t start to come out again until 10:50pm. During that time it’ll turn a lovely reddish-orange, thanks to the sunrises and sunsets refracting light past the limbs of the Earth."

Also during that time the US is going to try to shoot down the spy satellite we've been hearing so much about lately. They're going to use a modified SM-3 missile launched from sea near Hawaii and I'm totally going to go pick up the pieces which are expected to land in central Canada. They've got to be worth something right? It's like when I was a kid and dug up baby dinosaur bones in the backyard. I was so excited I tried to sell them to a museum. That's when my parents broke it to me that they were the remains of Nibbles, my guinea pig. Those assholes had told me he was on vacation.

Spacewatch: Wednesday Is A Big Night [ohgizmo]

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