Moon bombing is bad, for it will make the aliens very angry indeed.

The idea of blowing bits of the moon up bothers me, because I believe that the moon is not ours to blow up. Blasting synthetic craters on the lunar surface for the purpose of finding water or habitable land -- which we'd have enough of if we weren't screwing things up so furtively, back home -- just disturbs me. But nevermind what I think. What matters is what esteemed "Exopolitics" expert Alfred Lambremont Webre thinks.

["Moon bombing"] may also trigger conflict with known extraterrestrial civilizations on the moon as reported on the moon in witnessed statements by U.S. astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, and in witnessed statements to NSA (National Security Agency) photos and documents regarding an extraterrestrial base on the dark side of the moon.

If the true intent of the LCROSS mission moon bombing is a hostile act by NASA against known extraterrestrial civilizations and settlements on the moon, then NASA and by extension the U.S. government are guilty of aggressive war which is the most serious of war crimes under the U.N. Charter and the Geneva Conventions, to which the U.S. is subject.

And that will make them very angry, very angry indeed.

NASA moon bombing violates space law & may cause conflict with lunar ET/UFO civilizations (Seattle Exopolitics Examiner via Jesse Dylan)

Bonus Video: "America Blows up the Moon," from Mr. Show, (via @georgeruiz).

• [mneptok]

  I can’t wait until the moon is paved, the sentient baby moon-squirrels are all converted to meat patties, and I can go to Wal-Mart on the moon, where my fat butt is inly 1/6th the weight.

  Woohaa!

• [gniobboing]

  I think we should give Xeni the benefit of the doubt and assume she was merely channeling the whackaloon “Eureka Mindfulness meditation group” point of view on this for comedic effect. http://humboldt.craigslist.org/grp/1367583207.html Xeni’s “views” mirror those of the anti-science woo-woo meditation group’s very closely; obvious parody…..I HOPE.

• [Xeni Jardin]

  This is Serious Business.

  [danlalan]

  Just cuz they fly the flag doesn’t make em ‘mericans.

• [VagabondAstronomer]

  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Le_Voyage_dans_la_lune_2.jpg

[Wirelizard]

The whole thing about ‘lunar based civilizations’ and ‘attested to by [various astronauts]‘ is a joke, right? Please?

[Chris]

What guff! It’s perfectly safe and reasonable to bomb the moon looking for water. The Clangers will just scuttle under their dustbin lids until the bombardment ceases.

[Anonymous]

The mindset that has taken over planet earth and thinks it owns it is the warrior-mindset which it completely cut off from its own organism and its interelation to nature.

Like the article says, this mindset is SO bloodymindedly ignore-ant that it doesn’t even know about how to intelligently work with nature which includes intelligent water management, and thus will waste billions bombing the sacred moon!

This show that this absurd mindset would gladly set off to carry on its toxic wasteful BS on the moon and any other planet unfortunate enough to have these ignore-ants land their goofy techno-ideas there or their selves!!
This mindset MUST die to itself. Ego death!

[jimh]

Hey, if we destroy their home, they’ll just come down here and move into our neighborhoods and use our libraries.
I DO NOT LIKE MOON PEOPLE, I DO NOT WANT TO LIVE NEXT TO MOON PEOPLE.

[Edward]

This reminds me an awful lot of an advertisement by The Schwa Corporation.. “Moon Blast: Save The Moon”

[Richgoth]

I have watched the internet distort this fairly harmless experiment gradually until it has reached Munchausonian proportions.

According to NASA its 2 tonnes of empty booster rocket.

Then due to the miracle of the internet it became a “2 tonne kinetic weapon”

Another Lunatic website quoted “2 tonnes of high explosives which will contaminate the moon with heavy metals” and alledged it would be “the biggest man-made explosion in space”.

Finally it became “a 2 megatonne nuclear bomb” that will shatter the “thin crust of the moon” (did a hollow earther come up with that?)

Me? Why not “NASA wants to wipe out the Nazi moon base and prevent the Fourth Reich”

So cheer up Xeni!

[IamInnocent]

Xeni,

is it really ethical to out so many morons in one go?

[arikol]

yup, let’s give Xeni the benefit of doubt. She has shown herself to be intelligent, witty and sarcastic before.
Of course she can also have her opinion, which seems to be the opposite of what we (who have commented) have.

But switching into the moon men joke without so much as a wink just disturbs me ;)

[NorrinRazael]

Y’all Xeni is just stupid an’ if we don’t talk this up it’s probably gonna wind up and exploding us up in our asses! Quick, somebody get Joel or one of the other good ol’ boys in here to fix this. FIXIT!

[cognitive dissonance]

come on. how do you think all the other craters got on the moon? it gets hit. a lot.

it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than landing and drilling on the moon, plus now we get the extreme irony of having our president awarded the nobel peace prize an hour before we set off to be the first country to bomb a celestial body. U-S-A!!! U-S-A!!!

[TEKNA2007]

@benher

The secret alien base on the dark side of the moon?

I always thought it was a secret Nazi moonbase, set up during the last days of the second world war, where Hitler’s chosen few (and their Aryan breeding partners) tunneled deep underground to bide their time and plot the return of the Third Reich on Earth.

Am I misinformed?

[Paul]

@morgaen

Wasn’t really meant as a rant, more a plea for sanity :o)

@arikol

Yeah, in hindsight she could be taking the piss, but it didn’t read like that. Maybe my sarcasm detector is a bit on the blink today. I hope so.

Following some of those links made me laugh and despair at the same time. Love the stuff about the secret aliens on the far side. Especially the “quotes” from astronauts which read like they were written for a Michael Bay film, and of course are from sources who refuse to be named for their own safety :o)

[Keith Roberson]

Anyone who thinks the moon crash is a problem, doesn’t understand the scale of the moon vs. the rocket.

Its like a grain of sand crashing into a football field.
Not a baseball crashing into a plate.

[arikol]

@Tekna2007
The Nazi moon base, they’re making a film about that now. The same ppl who made Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning.
Looks good so far, hope they manage to finish it within the next few years.

@Paul
I agree. But sarcasm can get lost very easily in text. Just try using sarcasm in IM conversations or emails, you just might lose a couple of friends…

[JDavid]

Alfred Webre…LOL…the same man who states 9/11 was a product of alien beam weapons which were used to bring the Twin Towers down. He’s about as absurd as it gets.

[steve davidson]

Who cares if we piss off the aliens. We’ve got Duck Dodgers to take care of those kinds of things for us, and if he doesn’t work out, there’s always Space Cadet Porky to back him up.

TEKNA2007 – yes, misinformed, but only slightly. The Nazis ARE the aliens….

[Xeni Jardin]

If I was joking, I wouldn’t have embedded a jpeg of my spiritual leader in this blog posts. You people disgust me.

[TEKNA2007]

http://www.ironsky.net/

[Nelson.C]

Man, the Selenites have totally got WMDs! What do you think caused all those craters?

[jimh]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/facetious

[jimh]

Meaning yes, I believe so.

[Pasketti]

I say the moon had it coming!

What about all that full moon madness over the years? Who is responsible for that? THE MOON

And then there are the werewolves. WEREWOLVES! Who unleashes their monthly rampages? THE MOON

If we hand out a little payback, I say it’s about damn time. Maybe the moon won’t be so quick to mess with us in the future.

[D3]

Thank you Cory. Just, thanks.

[porcospino]

For more crackpots, see here:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/stop-nasa-from-bombing-the-moon

[Stargayzer]

Just a couple quick things so I can put my two cents in… I tend to agree with your Headline to the article, I think this action could be misconstrued as a hostile act against whom ever may be living on the moon, Dark side or sub teraineal. From previous articles I have read on the subject of Life forms from other Solar systems who were engaged on the moon in activities that are being conducted even to this very day as being questionable but not impossible or even improbable. The reason that I can make that statement is for the multitude of differing facts ranging from the Bible to the Face on Cydonia (Mars)
There is much wisdom in the Universe. That which man is able to discover for himself and that which we can learn from others… Life is abundant on Earth, and so it is else where also..

I wrote that as a little back up to the haters and skeptics out there. lol.. But seriously if we were making decisions that were wreckless and motivated by profiteering or war mongering, be it by our leaders or the Uliminati or by the strings being pulled by our Alien cousins who might not be aligned to the highest ideals that our Human prospective can obtain. So I pray and hope that the people of our Government would be wise and take caution with every action they make, for our sakes and their own… Not to mention our Grandchildren’s and 1000 more after them…

This article is fills allot of blanks about some of the questions some of you may have, perhaps its time once again to come face to face with our future. Take a Leap of Faith. Trust. Much has come to pass for us to be at this point right now. Man has walked and lived for many years, many generations. We have sought answers to our questions for as long as man can imagine his existence as a species. We have endured much to be delivered from the oppression that followed our minds and lives in our painful past. But we have reemerged from our limitations and awoken in to a time of Detail. Wonder and Discovery. With in side of ourselves and the Universe that’s all around us. I suppose this is to those who read this message in the name of curiosity and intrigue, maybe on the inside and who might be waiting to recognize the voice of those among the rest..

Thank you for this opportunity and good luck to all on the greatest search of our time, how much truth can we uncover. And handle?

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vida_alien/esp_vida_alien_37.htm

( I Think if you read this link, you will be inteaged, I just found it a week ago)

[jtegnell]

We’ll be okay as long as we lay off the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulators.

[MadMolecule]

@Anonymous regarding the UN Treaty: Where did you get your quote about the experiment being “contrary to space law prohibiting environmental modification of celestial bodies”? I’m not convinced that moving a couple tons of dirt around counts as “environmental modification.”

[LYNDON]

Apparently, people keep asking Giblets, “Were we wrong to blow up the moon?“

[danlalan]

I don’t know whether to laugh…or cry.

[Gendun]

FWIW Nasa reports the impact will have less energy than a 22 pound meteor.

In any case, I am in favor of a massive pre-emptive strike against the moon, whether there are Moon People or not. Why take a chance?

• [Antinous / Moderator]

  Wow. It’s a whooshfest in here.

[ZippySpincycle]

I say we MUST bomb the moon as retribution for the panic those Mooninite bastards caused in Boston a couple years back.

Also, best comment from Wonkette’s Epic Thread on this subject: “Mark my words: The Moon will be Obama’s Vietnam.”

[ADavies]

Save the baby moon seals for Jesus!

[petergarner]

How ironic that this Act of War comes on the day President Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize. It is a Day of Infamy, I tell you.

[orwellian]

There’s a humor/political site, imao.us that has the concept that nuking the moon would cause world peace. The theory is that if we nuke the moon, a lifeless rock a quarter million miles away that only we have been to, the rest of the world will say, “Geez, those Americans sure are scary! We’d best not make them mad.” I’m not sure if we then send Clint Eastwood to the UN to squint and glower until everybody signs a peace treaty with everyone else, but it couldn’t hurt.

[gniobboing]

Oh noes! Check your aura colors, alien invasion detectors and chakra alignments everybody, because NASA confirms LCROSS impact at 7:31 EDT! http://spaceflightnow.com/

[Gendun]

@Vagabond

Well, /I/ don’t really say, NASA says.

“The energy associated with the LCROSS impact is about 6 billion Joules (1 Watt = 1 Joule per sec, so the energy of LCROSS is what you’d get from 100 million 60 Watt light bulbs in a second). A 10 kg (about 22 lbs) meteorite would impact with about 8 billion Joules of energy.”

http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/faq.htm#q4

• [VagabondAstronomer]

  @Gendun…
  Oh, I got ya. Just wanted to list those sites showing what NASA was expecting, but failing to mention the velocity (~40 km/s) in your original post there threw me off; a 10kg object hitting at the same velocity as LCROSS would be even more insignificant. Increase that velocity, and it’s show time, big time-ish…

[arkizzle / Moderator]

“Lunar Americans”

Ha! Well played.

[benher]

@Tekna Naa, the base is actually being converted to a stronghold for the Titans as seen in episode 23 of Zeta Gundam.

(It’s too early to godwin this discussion anyway!)

[Moriarty]

Whatever, they’re just going to do it on a TV set in the New Mexico desert. Everybody knows that sending something to the moon is physically impossible. Yeah, we already know there’s water on EARTH, guys!

[rhys]

@Xeni

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25172832@N04/3998249824/sizes/o/

[jahknow]

“Laugh while you can, monkey boy.”

[VagabondAstronomer]

YAAAAAAAAAWWWNNNN… smack smack… I take a nap and look where the conversation leads.
Since the specter of the UN space treaty has been brought up, let me just remind everyone again that the Lunar environment is near vacuum, therefore not much of one. No harm, no foul. Unless there are creatures that live in a vacuum (aside from far right wing political types).
As for the expectations… 22 pound meteor you say? Might want to look at this…
http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/impact.htm
And as for what actually happened… and the disappointment it wrought…
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/10/091009-nasa-moon-bombing-lcross-impact-crash.html
My theory? Zeta Reticulan moon base at lunar south pole threw up an energy dampening field, so the LCROSS Centaur upper stage instead came to a gentle rest near the Cebeus crater chain, where the Reticulans plan to strip it down for there on going study of humanity. That, or they were wrong about the actual amount and make-up of the expected impact site and most of the energy was absorbed by the lunar surface instead of being displaced in the form of a plume, and that, indeed, lunar water may be rarer than a super model at a doughnut shop.

[querent]

given what Buzz Aldrin recently said, this could be a bit worrisome.

just saying.

[McFinchy]

My problem with NASA bombing the moon is that NASA is just incompetent. I don’t trust them to do anything correctly, especially after their incredible Mars Orbiter fuckup: http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric/

They are run by complete imbeciles – http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_space_thewritestuff/2008/12/nasa-has-become.html – and the program needs to be completely dismantled and started from scratch.

• [VagabondAstronomer]

  I’d trust NASA long before I’d trust, say, the DoD. You bring up the Mars Orbiter, yet you leave out some great mistakes as well; the Polar Lander comes immediately to mind. But you skip all these wonderful successes, some of which have been so in spite of the budgets they were forced to work around; that list is far longer.
  Does NASA need a bit of an overhaul? Probably (Project Constellation comes to mind as a good place to start). But, having worked around some of these folks, I’d reconsider the comment. Seriously.

[Kibble]

We are humans from Earth. You have nothing to fear. I think we’re gonna like it here.

[VagabondAstronomer]

Erm…
“for there on going study of humanity”?
Ahem…
“For THEIR on going study…” blah blah blah blah blah…

[demidan]

Moon cheese! I demand Moon cheese and conkers! On a serious note, I am sure NASA has dropped plenty of leaflet bombs to warn the hyper intelligent shades of the colour blue that we were going to do some “Testing”,\ If I know Huvaloos, they might just lend a helping hand (?).

[VagabondAstronomer]

The event occurred on time, 11:31UT, and… boy, was it anti-climatic. Here on the east coast, chances were pretty slim that we’d see anything, and yes, we saw nothing. Still didn’t stop me from giving it the old college try; 6″ telescope, fairly sensitive camera plugged into it, direct-to-VCR (yup, old school) output, ancient iBook Clamshell serving as back up (did I mention old school? Or maybe that should be old skool… regardless…). That’s when the clouds rolled in…
But, my colleagues out west report that there was no visible flash that could be seen through smallish instruments. Basically missed nothing.
I understand Xeni’s concern (though I’m really hoping that was irony), but the Moon is basically a rock. A pretty rock, mind you, but a rock nevertheless. It is getting pummeled quite often by natural objects (here’s a video from a few years back… http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/13jun_lunarsporadic.htm ). Prior to the Apollo program, both the US and the Soviets were busy making tiny craters on the Moon; the early Luna probes (them Ruskies), the Ranger series (us capitalists pigs… I mean Yanks(— attempt at old Soviet style put-down… a lame attempt, granted, but it stays, okay?)).
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to see huge lunar strip mining operations, though eventually, for the survival of humanity, it may come to that. When I’m not dealing with my inner Kunstler (“We’re all DOOMED!!!”), I like to think that, eventually, we shall move up and out. And I’d rather see us do anything like this to an arid rock than some more sensitive environment like Mars.
My two pence…

[BlameCanada]

Martin Martin

I’m not angry just terribly hurt!!!!

• [arkizzle / Moderator]

  Martin Martin, eh?

[Ilovechocolatemilk]

I thought Xeni was being sarcastic and the whole point of the post was mocking the supposition that there exists alien life-forms on the moon. If that is the case, the people posting are forgetting rule #1 of the internet, that it is always, unequivocally Serious Business.

I also believe that the internet exposes so much of humanity’s ignorance that for me to even read some websites, I’ve deluded myself into believing that everyone is just being sarcastic and that anything which offends me is just some elaborate trolling attempt.

[Brainspore]

What’s with the picture, was it too hard to find a photo of an angry moon-man? Martians have two moons of their own to worry about.

• [jimh]

  I vote for this one:
  http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/blog/mooninites.jpg

[Anonymous]

The aliens *made* Obama do it. Had he not, the world would have been destroyed. That is the real reason he won the Peace prize.

[Nelson.C]

The day Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize, he opens hostilities on the Selenites! Oh, irony!

[jazzbo]

If I recall correctly both the US and the glorious USSR crashed rockets into the moon during the space race in the 60s prior to doing soft landings. I don’t recall how large the payloads were, but the impacts were designed to create observable data on earth – so they weren’t love pats. Or maybe they were love pats, considering the scales involved.
No angry green men – unless you subscribe to the conspiracy GW Bush is an alien (which would explain a lot). He’s got those Spock ears.

[VagabondAstronomer]

Hmmm… part of my post vanished. After the “capitalist pigs” comment, there was another line after the open parentheses, to wit; “That was an attempt at Soviet style humor. Lame, I know, but it stays, okay?” followed by a double close parentheses. Makes me look like a bad typits.
Anyway, my irony detection level is low. Lack of sleep will do that to ya.

• [Antinous / Moderator]

  VagabondAstronomer,

  Is it that hard not to use the ‘less than’ sign?

  • [VagabondAstronomer]

    Yeah, hard to resist the less than key. Use it quite a bit, actually. Just not here. And the one time I use it, wouldn’t you know… anyway, kiddies, the moral here is don’t type when you’re drowsy…

[CrimsonDregs]

People our so-called expert uses the term “dark side of the moon” and we continue to read the rest?

[Anonymous]

Xeni just trolled the lot of you.

http://lol.i.trollyou.com/LOL-I-TROLL-YOU.png

[lyd]

I can’t believe anyone thinks we are actually bombing the moon.

Clearly this is all hoax intended to distract us from the real issues of the day.

They’re doing it all over again!

[Anonymous]

Hey, did Xeni’s marvin .wav site just try to load an infector into my computer?

Looked like a PDF exploit attacking my antivirus from here, but maybe I’m overreacting. My hyper-paranoid secret defense system killed the firefox task and the quicktime task and the PDF updater when the PDF updater jumped stack.

[Thunderbeing]

BAD IDEA – Mi’kmaq tribal legends claim kluscap/glooscap a Mi’kmaq god, battled and banished all the monsters and evil creatures that would destroy LNU , good people, and harm Mi’kmaq, so he roamed the LNU lands/earth to banish all threats and creatures TO THE MOON, so the bombing is going to disturb very deadly creatures/life forms and or monsters capable of destroying HUMANS.

[chip]

Xeni, it’s not like the moon is an active biosphere with living creatures that will be disrupted by an impact. It’s a big dead rock. The solar system has been crashing debris into the moon’s surface for the last four and a half billion years. One more crater isn’t going to make much difference.

Besides, if we don’t find water there, how will we set up bases to enslave the “extraterrestrial civilizations”?

[Anonymous]

Maybe Obama found Osama…

[Xeni Jardin]

I’m worried about the baby seals up there.

• [Anonymous]

  LOL! Xeni = WIN!!!

  Almost forgot about those cute moon seals o.O

[George Ruiz]

And I’m worried about the Moonies.

[Antinous / Moderator]

He who breaks a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.

• [Anonymous]

  You have an odd definition for “breaking” the moon. What do you say about those who unnoticeably blemish something to learn more about it?

[VagabondAstronomer]

From CNN ( http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/10/09/probe.moon.crash/index.html )

“(Dan) Andrews said that “the spacecraft performed beautifully.”

Chuckle. How hard is it to screw up a crash?

Okay, kiddies, going to get out of the sandbox for a while, ’nuff comments here today…

[Anonymous]

Time Machine anyone?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A5Xu7MkHGo&feature=related

[DeusEx]

This is exactly the sort of foolishness that is being discussed everyday. Instead of trying to understand the concept of the experiment we have one conspiracy theory after another. One New Age cult leader I keep an eye on claims the moon bombing is an attempt by the “power elite” to damage the quarantine shield (some sort of shield created by ETs to keep us on Earth and keep aliens off Earth until we grow up) so the “power elite” can escape. Umm yeah…

[Paul]

@VagabondAstronomer

Thanks for that link, very interesting. Nice to get a sense of how insignificant that impact really was to the moon, although I’m sure it would have smarted if you were underneath :)

The last NASA post I read said you’d need a 10-12″ scope or better to see anything. It was always going to be a bit anti-climactic, as it wasn’t ever going to be that big an impact.

As for the sarcasm, it was early in the day and I’ve read so many things like this that were utterly genuine (although most were muuuuuuch wackier). I think my spidy-sense was dulled :)

[hiteque]

Obama’s birth certificate may be located in that crater, hidden under a Pink Floyd album.

• [danlalan]

  @hiteque

  Oomagooma?

[Beelzebuddy]

And has joined the path of SCIENCE!

[Lobster]

I understand the concern and certainly we won’t get another moon any time soon, but it’s not like they want to look for water because we ran out here, or because they want more room to build condos. A permanent colony up there could be a huge boon for space exploration and, ironically, could be a LOT more ecologically friendly than our current systems. It takes a tremendous amount of energy (that is, fuel) to get an item from the surface of the Earth into orbit. Rockets are also greatly constrained by aerodynamic concerns, which become meaningless as soon as it leaves our atmosphere. A space craft constructed on and launched from the moon could be bigger, more comfortable, more durable, and better suited for moving in space rather than escaping Earth. Just imagine how little fuel it would need to carry.

[George Curious]

NOVA Science Now covered this, like for reals a couple months back.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/0405/01.html

NdeGT FTW!

[Anonymous]

To everyone quoting Douglas Adams & those who finds worthless sarcasm as a sufficient cover for their general ignorance;
“The planned October 9, 2009 bombing of the moon by a NASA is contrary to space law prohibiting environmental modification of celestial bodies.”
“The U.N. Outer Space Treaty, which the U.S. has ratified, requires that “ The moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all States Parties to the Treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes. The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military manoeuvres on celestial bodies shall be forbidden.” 98 nations have ratified and 125 nations have signed the U.N. Outer Space Treaty.”

Whether their will be angry fairy beings is completly irrelevant, & if you think that to be the case or lambast those who do is just guiding attention away from the fact that this will be totaly against the law. But I guess were so used to that anyway.

• [lyd]

  The treaty also says, “”A State Party to the Treaty which has reason to believe that an activity or experiment planned by another State Party in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, would cause potentially harmful interference with activities in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, may request consultation concerning the activity or experiment.” No state has done this, have they?

  I don’t think international law is an issue here, not that the US has ever been concerned about violating treaties we have signed as soon as it suits us to do so, anyway.

[wackyvorlon]

Oh good lord, I hope you’re being Facetious Xeni…. This is no different from stuff that’s been happening to the moon its entire existence. The only difference is that since the impact isn’t merely accidental, we know when to watch the effect. This is absurdly silly. The moon is pock-marked with craters from millions of impacts over the eons. Just because a man made device instead of random debris changes nothing.

[Stevezilla]

Of course, if we accidentally knock the moon out of orbit and into a space warp, Gerry Anderson will dance a jig. That’ll be cool.

[zandar]

Paul: arty, romantic, humane, sensible and rational…. sigh. that’s a tall order for a Friday afternoon. :P

[artbot]

Oh, lordy, please don’t tell me you’re one of the sadly uninformed rubes who think we’re damaging the moon or “disturbing the spirit of Luna”, or some such touchy-feelie crap. I really expected more from you as a writer and (sometimes) science reporter.

On a barren, atmosphere-free rock, this is what you do to perform scientific experiments. Jeez, people get that terrible word “bombing” in their heads and out come the bleeding hearts, like we’re bombing some unknown civilization or something. Pul-eeze! Let’s get a grip, shall we?

[Sam]

@anonymous: You think NASA is incompetent because they have had failures? So in your mind, for people to be competent they need to never make any mistakes?

NASA has it’s problems, yes – and they are many, but to be able to land a little robot on a really small peace of moving rock millions of miles away and still have that robot operate is nothing short of miraculous – just look at the numerous failures of other countries to do the same thing. A failure here and there is certainly understandable – it’s the cost of doing business on the new frontier.

Now, as for Xeni, I really hope she was joking.

[The 2-Belo]

Personally, I’m worried about the 311 men and women on Moon Base Alpha. What if this explosion pushes the Moon out of orbit?

[Anonymous]

Mooninites, Unite!

[benher]

The secret alien base on the dark side of the moon?

… really?

I thought these folks were more concerned about that doppleganger earth revolving around the opposite side of the sun.

(and a pedantic PS for posterity, it’s not surprising that the US would be unconcerned with violating UN charters or committing hostile acts against the will of the rest of the inhabitants of our biosphere.)

[Zan]

The only problem with your statement is that there was no environmental modification that took place. We didn’t actually bomb the moon — there was no bomb involved at all, just two pieces of metal. The moon is being pelted by objects this size on a weekly basis, so you could argue that such bombardment IS the natural lunar environment. We didn’t establish any military facilities, test any weapon, or conduct military manoeuvres. I fail to see how your “law” applies.

[Mitch]

I’m sure the US government is smart enough not to start a war it can’t win.

[yex13]

Any word on whether they got the idea from Mr. Show yet? “We’re Earthlings! We should blow up Earth things!”

[Mark Crummett]

I just left “Rants and Raves” on Craigslist…or did I?

[Paul]

“blowing bits of the moon up”

They are not blowing it up, there is no bomb or explosives involved, just a hunk of metal, much like all the (much larger and energetic) metallic asteroids that have been slamming into the moon for billions of years.

“I believe that the moon is not ours to blow up.”

I disagree, it’s a dead rock. North America was no ours to plunder because there were already people there living quite happily and doing so screwed them utterly.

“synthetic craters on the lunar surface”

How is a synthetic crater any different from all the “natural” craters that are much, much *much* bigger than this one will be?

“for the purpose of finding water or habitable land”

Makes it sound like they are going to set up Little House on the Moon and farm the place. We are talking about supporting perhaps a small outpost, not planting wheat.

“which we’d have enough of if we weren’t screwing things up so furtively”

Errr, at many thousands of dollars per kilo, lifting water to low earth orbit, let alone getting it to the moon is hideously expensive. Why do you think NASA has spent so much time on that urine/sweat/crap recycler system on the ISS?

NASA are not planning to mine the water on the moon and ship it back here to sell in bottles.

“just disturbs me”

Why? I really don’t see why it should. No one is going to give the Moon people small-pox, or wipe out the moon buffalo, or the moon whales for all you Futurama fans :)

Repeat after me, the moon is a very large lump of rock. A very beautiful, significant, wondrous, stunning and awe-inspiring rock, but a rock none-the-less.

Sigh, I thought BB was my kind of people, arty, romantic, humane and able to see the beauty in the universe, but ultimately sensible and rational.

As Douglas Adams put it so well: “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”

I think part if the problem is that so many people just don’t realise how huge the moon actually is, it’s vast. Splatting a tiny, insignificant, spent rocket into it is going to do little other than kick up a bit of dust, and make a small hole in an already sodding great big hole. You’ll need a 10 inch telescope just to see the dust cloud, the impact crater is at the bottom of an existing crater, which is in perpetual darkness.

We still have this anthropocentric view that we are this big power in the universe when we are just specks of dirt, living out our lives on a grain of sand in a cosmic ocean. We are doing huge damage to this Earth of ours, but in the long run, it will be just fine, it will be us that gets shafted.

Anyway, after all that still I love you guys for what you do so well. Keep it up, even if it does occasionally get my day off to an “Annoyed from Tunbridge-Wells” kind f start :o)

• [morgaen]

  @Paul
  Thanks for the articulate rant.
  Some of us are too hung-over to contribute meaningfully.
  I can’t even figure out if this is a piss take or not.

• [Maggie Koerth-Baker]

  “Little House on the Moon and farm the place. We are talking about supporting perhaps a small outpost, not planting wheat.”

  And, with that, I finally have an idea for a YA science fiction series.

• [Anonymous]

  Couldn’t have said it better myself Paul.

[jimh]

Requisite ATHF dialogue:

Ignignokt: We are Mooninites from the inner core of the moon
Err: You said it right!
Ignignokt: Our race is hundreds of years ahead of yours
Err: Man, you hear what he’s saying?!
Ignignokt: Some would say the earth is our moon…
Err: We’re the moon!
Ignignokt: But that would belittle the name of our moon, which is “The Moon”.
Err: Point is, we’re at the center, not you!

[Anonymous]

Surely the article is intended as humor.

The replies I read here suggest the posters believe otherwise.

[Cory Doctorow]

For the record, I support this experiment. I think it’s an ingenious, low-cost way of doing some good space-science; and that space-science is, ultimately, *Earth*-science, since it helps us understand the system our own home is embedded in.

Like Kim Stanley Robinson, I think that the space program is essential to the mission of preserving the Earth’s biosphere, because a deeper understanding of our solar system is critical to being good custodians of our planet.

I think that this is “destructive” only in the sense that, say, a particle accelerator is, or a geologist’s rock-hammer. Making a preturbation in a system is key to making observations, which, in turn, are key to forming hypotheses, which, in turn, are how we advance knowledge.

[Alan Bir]

Please don’t hurt her.

[Nadreck]

Well, everybody knows that the Nazi base on the far side of the moon won’t be a problem until 2018

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KEueJnsu80

and the Mysterons don’t set up theirs until around 2068 but we might as well get some practice in now. Caution, however, should be extercised as things like bombing alien cities for the wrong reasons can cause a War of Nerves to start: see the first episode of Captain Scarlet.

[Nunya Bizness]

There are still many countries left that the U.S. hasn’t yet blown up. Aren’t the Americans acting prematurely? And here we thought there couldn’t be any idiots left after Bush. Sad.

[El Payo]

NASA crashed one of Apollo 14′s rocket stages into the moon over 30 years ago and we haven’t been attacked by the Galactic Federation yet.

OR HAVE WE? Reveal your true form Xeni!

Dum dum daaaaaah!!!

[Paul]

@Cory

Good to hear it :o)

And so succinctly put.

It’s especially important to Earth science because the evidence at the moment suggests that the Earth and Moon were once both parts of the same planet that got smacked apart. Studying the moon helps us understand the geology of the earth.