NASA to shoot the moon : Pure Pedantry

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Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NYC getting a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience. He holds a BS and MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University. If a volcano were to erupt Pompei-style in Central Park, his body would be preserved in a scoliotic posture over his lab desk. Archeaologists would later conclude that he spent most of his day training rats to perform tricks, until he went blind building electrical equipment by hand using a dissecting microscope. But, still, he died happy...because science is cool.

Pure Pedantry is a blog about science -- social sciences and otherwise -- as well as academic and scientific culture. No one can live on science alone, so I also like to dwell on pop culture, periodically explore the humanities, and indulge in other types of geeky goodness.

DISCLAIMERS: 1) Jake Young is not a licensed physician (yet). He is merely a medical student. The information published on this site is not intended for use in medical decision-making. Please seek advice from a licensed, medical professional before making any health decisions. 2) The opinions expressed are my own. They do not represent the views of SEED magazine or the educational establishments I currently attend or attended in the past.

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NASA to shoot the moon

Category: Space
Posted on: February 28, 2008 1:23 PM, by NotoriousLTP

...literally:

Scientists are priming two spacecraft to slam into the moon's South Pole to see if the lunar double whammy reveals hidden water ice.
The Earth-on-moon violence may raise eyebrows, but NASA's history shows that such missions can yield extremely useful scientific observations.

"I think that people are apprehensive about it because it seems violent or crude, but it's very economical," said Tony Colaprete, the principal investigator for the mission at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

In the event that shooting the moon fails, we can always nuke it. You can sign a petition to nuke the moon here.

(A search for "nuke the moon" in google produces interesting results. For example, the Air Force actually constructed plans to nuke the moon during the 1950s -- and Carl Sagan participated!)

Find more posts in: Physical Science

Comments

Just watch where you shoot, or the Swedes will be very angry.
http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=21065&in_page_id=2

Posted by: Lassi Hippel�inen | February 28, 2008 2:17 PM

I think we should take all of our frustrations out on the moon, and similar lifeless celestial bodies. (Just tell GW there's oil and Al Queda bases on it)

Posted by: Jason Failes | February 28, 2008 2:26 PM

Ooh, Ooh, I read this one, I know what happens.
So the moon shatters causing cataclysm on Earth, the maker of the time machine gets knocked in the head as he leaves for the future and arrives 800,000 years later with 2 races of humans, the subterranean one that mutated into a caste of differentiated forms for hunting on the surface and living in the dark, and the above ground type, farmed by the underground type for food. How prescient HG Welles was.

Posted by: Doc | February 28, 2008 7:09 PM

Jason,

If we tell GW there are al Queda bases on the moon then he is likely to attack Mars.

Posted by: Jim RL | February 29, 2008 12:42 AM

It'll be interesting how coporate America is going to respond to this. Check it out. Somebody figured out a way to advertise on the moon already. You can post messages on it.

http://www.moonvertising.com/

Posted by: ACMilanSF | February 29, 2008 3:13 PM