So I stayed up to watch the live feed (4:30am) on NASA TV Friday morning when the Centaur Booster rocket crashed into the moon followed by the LCROSS Spacecraft.I'm sorry to report that it was a dissapointing waste of time.Other than a video of the Moon getting larger and larger as the crafts approached the moon there was absolutely NOTHING to see.(Nasa reports that one of the instruments picked up 1 or 2 pixels of evidence of a flash.One might question what exactly was the nature of the flash.)
They were attempting to kick up debris miles into the air to spy for evidence of water. Or at least that's their cover story.Recently three other spacecraft have already confirmed water on the moon. Conspiracy buffs will say that since other countries are taking a lot of interest into visiting the moon these days, that our government
thought it was time to destroy our secret moon base and any evidence of it.So we already know there is water on the moon, but a moon base is another matter.
It turns out that I'm not the only one who is a little baffled by the lack of a show that night.
According to SpaceWeather.com - "NASA scientists are grappling with a mystery. Where did the debris go?....the debris plumes that were supposed to issue from the impacts failed to materialize." Further on they are careful to point out that the experiment isn't a failure. On the contrary, they say, "by offering up the unexpected, LCROSS is teaching us something new about the lunar surface and the products of lunar impacts. That makes it, by definition, a successful experiment. All that remains is to figure out what the new information is."
I guess the glass is always full.
My first thought was that maybe the Moon really is made of cheese and the spacecrafts simply "cut the cheese" and went right in and perhaps out the other side. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? That would be some new information for sure. It would sure update the old information which told us that the Moon is solid, rocky and dusty. Which of course can't possibly be true if this experiment was a "success". I fail to see how objects traveling at 4000 mph impacting into that supposed surface would not produce the expected debris cloud. Or at least a small dust cloud!
So I think the next logical question is, "Was this experiment a success at all?" As I mentioned, the video feed did show the moon appearing to get larger as it approached, but after watching it I was struck by the fact that we didn't appear to actually see what you would expect to see as something smashes into something else. Visualize what the bug sees before it hits the windsheild. Or what you see just before you walk into a wall. In other words, there was no "Oh shit!" moment. There was just anticipation until the feed was "lost".
Did the spacecrafts actually make it to the surface or not? If seeing is believing, I'd have to put my money on "Not". Even if we take NASA's (Never A Straight Answer) word that they did pick up a "flash" there is nothing to say that the "flash" took place on the surface and not in the air (uh, er, I mean space). You see where I'm going with this? Perhaps there really is someone or something up there who has a similar propensity to privacy and staying in one piece. Maybe cousins of the Martians who have often toyed with the toys we have sent there.
I don't know. It does make for some entertaining conversation though. Actually, I don't really care. Except that things just aren't adding up and I don't think they should just be swept under the rug. I would like to state for record though, that I am definitely not in favor of bombing things on this rock or any others in the universe!
Stange Days, strange days indeed! But enough about Me and the Moon. What do you think about Me and the Moon?
