LCROSS: Mission to HYPErspace

Paul D. Spudis wrote some comments about the LCROSS mission and the reactions to the lack of a plume.

- LRK -
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http://blogs.airspacemag.com/moon/2009/10/12/lcross-a-mission-to-hyperspace/
October 12, 2009

LCROSS: Mission to HYPErspace

Early last Friday, the public and families of employees at Ames Research Center in California, where the LCROSS mission was conceived, built and operated, camped on the lawn in an all-night vigil. NASA’s educational outreach and public relations push about the pending lunar
impact event was very effective, having reached a wide audience in the weeks leading up to the much hyped event. Alas, the promised giant plume of impact debris was invisible from Earth, leaving a receptive public feeling cheated and disappointed.

The understanding that a high-velocity impactor can yield important information about planetary composition and state is very old. The first probes to the Moon (both Soviet and American) were impactors. We know that when something strikes a planetary surface at high speed, target material is thrown up into space, some of it vaporized by heat generated in the energy of the impact. By studying this impact ejecta, we learn about the composition of the target object.

I didn’t post on it earlier, but as the LCROSS mission has successfully concluded, I think it is a good time to examine this mission, how it came about, and the lessons that hopefully it has taught NASA about public appeal and its involvement with space.
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Dr. Spudis mentions some of the history of how the LCROSS mission came about and how some had wanted to land rovers or hoppers. Even if water itself is detected more might have been detected with instrumentation on the ground. Then again, landing rovers or hoppers this early without more information from the LRO mapping might not have done any better.

The comments left on his blog are most interesting as well. You may find them informative.
- LRK -

So now the question will be, do we do it right and send rovers to the Moon later.
Missions get proposed and before they get far they may be switched, modified or dropped for others.

Just not enough money to do everything you would like. And then there is politics.

http://www.spacenews.com/archive/archive06/smalllanders_0814.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Precursor_Robotic_Program
http://moon.msfc.nasa.gov/background.html

Some have accused NASA of BOMBING the Moon. Not so, but is something to consider.
- LRK -
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http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/12/nasa-bombing-the-moon-opinions-contributors-kenneth-anderson-glenn-harlan-reynolds.html?partner=commentary_newsletter
Tiny URL for above link - http://tinyurl.com/yhdkzcn
Commentary
Bombing The Moon
Kenneth Anderson and Glenn Harlan Reynolds, 10.13.09, 12:00 AM EDT
Laws and treaties on explosions in space.

The rocket that NASA aimed at the Moon last week did not produce the public relations bonanza the agency was hoping for--a cloud of dust visible to amateur earth astronomers. But early accounts suggest the explosions did produce a wealth of scientific data on the presence and distribution of water-ice in the dust, which is an important practical factor if humans are ever to spend much time there. The presence of accessible lunar water would mean not having to haul all our own H2O out of Earth's deep gravity well.

The LCROSS mission is an important and expensive scientific experiment. Nonetheless, comments on Web sites such as Scientific American and Nature indicate that quite a few people thought the whole venture to be some sort of outer-space vandalism. Some even wondered
whether NASA might have acted illegally or violated an international law or treaty by setting out to "bomb the Moon."

The answer is no. But while many might be surprised--dismayed, even--to hear that there is such a thing as "space law," there are treaties governing activities in outer space, including the Moon. The United States has joined four international agreements that regulate different questions about space activities. The Outer Space Treaty (dating back to 1967, not long before the first lunar landing) covers many aspects of humans in space, including the peaceful uses of space.

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The subject of space law is going to come up over and over. It will be a subject that needs to be dealt with as we inhabit off world places.
- LRK -

Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
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http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lpi/abspudis.html
Dr. Paul D. Spudis

Planetary Geology and Remote Sensing

I am a geologist interested in the geological history and evolution of the Moon and the processes of impact and volcanism that have shaped its surface. I study the Moon largely by remote sensing, whereby composition and physical properties are determined through analysis of data returned by orbiting spacecraft and from Earth-based telescopic sensing. I combine this information with data from photographs and lunar samples obtained by the manned Apollo missions to reconstruct the nature, composition, and history of the Moon. Because impact and volcanism are the principal processes that have shaped the Moon and other terrestrial planets, I study impact craters and lava flows on the Earth as guides for interpreting planetary histories. The Dept. of Defense Clementine mission to the Moon, for which I was Deputy Leader of the Science Team, mapped the Moon's topographic shape and surface color in the visible and near-infrared parts of the spectrum (where information on mineral composition can be extracted). My current research largely focuses on analysis and comprehension of the huge quantity of data (more than 60 Gbytes!) returned by this mission. By integrating this new, global dataset with the information provided by the Apollo samples, we will be able to reconstruct the structure and history of the Moon, a complex and fascinating planetary object as well as our nearest neighbor in space.

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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