back to article NASA moon-bomb probe strikes rich seam of fruitcake

Those readers who've been following NASA's LCROSS lunar pole-prang mission, which saw a brace of spacecraft crash into the Moon's south pole earlier today, will be aware that the effort wasn't popular in all quarters. In particular the self-styled "Chicago Surrealist Movement", claiming to speak for "surrealists, lunatics, …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    As a Polar Bear

    ... I feel furry...

  2. Joe K

    Twits

    I liked the tweet from @TheActualMoon

    "Fucking OUCH!"

    http://twitter.com/TheActualMoon/status/4732484505

  3. Pete 2 Silver badge

    good to know

    That all the time, money and effort educating the western world in the sciences hasn't been entirely wasted.

  4. disgruntled yank

    well...

    You don't think they might be just pulling your leg?

  5. Max Pritchard
    Coat

    Space 1999

    This is exactly like the plot of Space 1999.

    Except it will be ten year's later...

    And it won't be a nuclear blast that will knock the moon out of orbit, but an experimental NASA-sponsored mass driver being used to search for water...

    And there is no space station on the moon...

    Or Flares...

    And the moon will not be knocked out of its orbit.

    Other than that... this is /exactly/ like the plot of Space 1999.

    "I know, I know - back to the seventies I go."

  6. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Wow

    The depth of human stupidity never ceases to amaze me, just when you think you've met the stupidest person alive another pops up to claim the crown.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Grammar

    "Think of the planets in terms of forming a sentence. The Earth is a noun. The moon is a verb."

    Since parsing is not taught any more in school, we might as well just give up now...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Think of the planets in terms of forming a sentence."

    The moon's a planet? First Pluto, then this!

  9. Andy ORourke
    WTF?

    I'd better check the impact location!

    If it is anwhere near my acre of the moon will NASA be paying for the damage to my prime real estate?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    "blasting the moon could send it out of orbit"

    No it can't, that was a scifi from the '70s called Space 1999, not reality, you drooling retard.

    Similarly, kicking Mount Everest with your foot *might* destroy it, in some kind of bizarre messed-up theory, but I don't think the risk is realistic enough to give you the right to demand nobody sets foot on a mountain ever again just because you're a scared moron.

    Stop watching so much TV and fuck off and get yourself a basic science education. Then you won't have to live your life in utter moronic quivering cowardice of completely impossible things that will never happen.

  11. A Bee
    Megaphone

    "Think of the planets in terms of forming a sentence."

    Verb (imperative): Study

    Noun: Physics

  12. frank ly
    Coat

    The moon is a verb

    http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=51795&dict=CALD

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mooning

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

    Yes, it is. ......er.....I'll get my coat....

  13. Anonymous John

    "Think of the planets in terms of forming a sentence."

    It's called a newm, nemon, pneumo, nmem, memory aid.

    My Very Easy Method: Just Set Up Nine Planets.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Werewolves

    "There are members of the concerned general public who are not werewolves, pagans or anarcho-primitives?"

    If the K-Mart Halloween section with the little animatronic props is any indication, it's not normal werewolves we need to be concerned about, but -deluxe- werewolves, which come with a pre-ripped flannel shirt.

    You heard it here first.

  15. Ian Stephenson
    Coat

    well part right...

    To moon is a verb.

    .\fetch coat|taxi

  16. MeRp

    Does that mean...

    "Think of the planets in terms of forming a sentence. The Earth is a noun. The moon is a verb."

    Does that make the variety of objects that hit the moon adverbs?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    You sent an explosive to the moon. Excellent!

    We, your new insect overlords, are pleased to see that you (our genetically created super war-monkey race that we have been breeding for millennia) are finally ready to help us fight our interplanetary war. Your puny life's purpose shall finally be revealed! Bu-wa-ha-ha-ha!

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What's the square root of -100?

    It never ceases to amaze me how many morons (used literally and correctly) are out there.

  19. Tony Barnes

    Just lol

    It's lucky that Armstrong et al launching back to earth didn't knock the moon out of orbit, given how little inertia it obviously has...

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Those letters...

    The best argument against universal suffrage seen to date.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    MOON SHOT!!

    Whoopy for NASA. What if there chosen impact area is a natural fault of the planet and it has a very different outcome than they anticipate? I would like to her them say "OOOPS!!

    Do they really know what the long term effects will be? Doubtful. Maybe a little over zealous.

    Bill C.

  22. Rogue357

    For some ignorance is bliss??

    I can not believe the ignorance of some of these people...before they make themselves look so stupid you would think they would gather some facts first. Or at the very minimum attend a 6th grade science class.

    I am shocked to know our tax dollars are spent on such people!!!!

  23. Wolf207

    FRUITCAKE parade

    Criticism and humor designed to ridicule and belittle people with honest fears or beliefs is a tactic often used by authoritarian regimes to create fear of disclosure which leads to what social psychologist have dubbed “a spiral of silence,” i.e., a fear to say anything unpopular or illegal, lest they be reported to the authorities as being “anti-government”, or just plain “insane.” Your blog is neither cynical nor humorous, but an attempt to differentiate between "correct " and "incorrect" thinking . Your tactics instill an implicit fear that "incorrect thinkers" will be labeled a “fruit cake”, thus chilling people into simply saying nothing. You accuse those of us that are opposed to using weapons of mass destruction on an important and interactive natural satellite as being "fruitcakes" or "lunatics". You can call it a “probe”, or a “kinetic energy device”, or whatever euphemism you like, but I believe most people would agree that creating a five mile crater while awaiting a 6-12 mile plume off the lunar surface is a WMD. Most people who expressed concerns asked the fundamental question, “by what authority does the United States imagine it can unilaterally use such measures against a target that is shared by the entire world? “ Does that make them a "fruitcake"? The major media release only hours before this act contributed to the legitimate concern and anger of many citizens here and abroad without a chance for discussion. The effect? Once again, we display to the rest of our planet the “in your face” policy of doing whatever and whenever we want, regardless of the wishes of others. I believe it would be a mistake to bank on the political or social apathy you and people like you think exists in this country. Perhaps there are those that even congratulate your effort to ridicule “the long gaggle of “fruitcakes” opposed to this destructive act. History, however, has demonstrated that what you have actually done has effectively radicalized that segment of the population that may well have “non-normative” beliefs about “bombing the moon”. You have also converted some who “previously sat on the fence “and are now more fearful of their government and will now be more vigilant of NASA projects. Moreover, your ridicule may translate to those environmentally conscious, or perhaps those who have religious beliefs such as those of Native Americans, that they are also “fruitcakes”, but then, that is the consequence of ignorance.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    @disgruntled yank

    Yeah, just the wrong one and in the wrong way.

    She could probably show them how to do it properly.

    "Think of the planets in terms of forming a sentence."

    Oh rather. This is a big moon and if you look carefully you can see uranus.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Re: What's the square root of -100

    10i

    or 10j if you are an engineer for whom the use of i is highly confusing.

    Hope that helps,

    A concerned mathematician.

  26. Dan 92

    @Wolf207

    Get your facts straight and maybe you wouldn't be freaked out by such an event. They are not creating a 5 mile crater, the energy needed to do that would be enormous. They are crashing the spent stage into an existing crater. That will create something like a 20 meter crater within a crater. This occurs naturally all the time, the moon is constantly hit by various objects going at much higher velocity than this piddly thing that NASA is crashing into the moon.

  27. PRL

    Re: What's the square root of -100?

    ±10i (where i² is defined as -1)

  28. Tom 35
    FAIL

    honest fears or beliefs

    Have any of them looked at the moon? It's covered in craters, the craters have craters. You can see them from earth without a telescope. It's been hit a million times by stuff WAY bigger then the tin can NASA dropped on it.

    But maybe there is a plan here by the PTB... Divert all the morons from noticing that there are real problems (could also explain fox news) that people should be looking at.

  29. Daniel Garcia 2
    FAIL

    @FRUITCAKE parade

    where the hell did you get that 5 miles diameter crater?

    from the NASA website:

    "The impact will excavate a crater about 1/3 of a football field wide and about the depth of the deep end of a swimming pool."

  30. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    @ Wolf207

    Muppet.

    You clearly failed science at a very young age didn't you? This device will generate an energy impact of about 1.5 tonnes of TNT. Certainly nothing that qualifies as a WMD. The small nukes used in WW2 were about 20 kilotons - so in excess of 10000 times bigger than this. And they are classified as a small nuke. The expected crater will be 20 metres wide and 4 metres deep - not 5 miles across. The only reason you get a big plume is because of the combination of no atmosphere and low gravity.

    The impactor was sent into the bottom of an existing crater, but that is about 10 times the size of crater you were talking about, so not sure where you got your fruitcake figures.

  31. Terry 6 Silver badge
    Coat

    never mind all that.....

    .....waht are they doing to find the black monolith?

  32. Luther Blissett

    Postmodern scientists

    would rather rehearse primitive myths than do old-fashioned science. How else to explain astronomers' preoccupations with fast-moving little things crashing into slow-moving big things? Examples: Comet Shoemaker-Levy into Jupiter. Deep Impact. And now this.

    All are metaphors for a brave spunky little sperm bravely engaging a large fruity round egg - a metaphor from which countless other metaphors derive.

    The search for scientific knowledge has mutated in the hyperreality of the postmodern era into the non-reflexive rehearsal of the "deep truths" alleged of the canons of art and literature. Ironic. It had it coming though.

  33. Fatman
    WTF?

    @Wolf207

    Did you forget your meds today???

  34. the old rang

    Peace prize winners all...

    All the 'anti' commenters should be nominated for the peace prize.

    we know here, you need not do anything worthwhile now, to get it...

    And they seem fully qualified.

  35. Spider

    as a woman?

    "as a woman i feel violated that NASA feel it's acceptable to bomb the moon.

    i demand this is stopped. i think we should get an INJUNCTION against NASA."

    we'll as a man i feel unempowered that I'm prevented from blowing stuff, by preventing this you are oppressing my creative urges to rain chaos down and create afresh from the ashes of the old....

    now go an make me a cup of tea... no sugar.

  36. James O'Brien
    Coat

    @Wolf207

    I nominate Wolf207 for the FotW. I know im taking liberty on a few of the rules here but I think it qualifies because of how ill conceived his post was.

    On a side note though lets all run around in mass hysteria now. THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!111one

    /coat please

  37. David 141

    Fire the idiots at the moon.

    Why do we have to share a planet with these imbeciles?

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Its nice to know....

    That somewhere in this world there is a nutjob avaialable to protest anthing

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    @AC 16:46

    Win, best comment of the week.

    Given its lucidity and slight chance of plausibility, I suspect Bill Fresher's comment was sarcasm.

  40. werrington
    Joke

    Moon View

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzYHP0yCm8M

    This explains everything.

  41. Simon Preston

    often overlooked

    Won't somebody please think of the children?

  42. Apocalypse Later

    Peace Prize

    To earn the Nobel Peace Prize, it is not sufficient merely not to be George Bush. Many people are not George Bush. You must, like the last three winners, be the person who has done the most not to be George Bush.

  43. Anonymous John

    @Wolf207

    "by what authority does the United States imagine it can unilaterally use such measures against a target that is shared by the entire world?"

    " The major media release only hours before this act contributed to the legitimate concern and anger of many"

    You seem to believe that this was kept secret until hours before impact. The mission was planned years ago,and information about its objectives is easily found thanks to the Internet. NASA releases information constantly, but the mainstream media only reports the exciting bits.

    Unilaterally? Has there been any worldwide political or scientific objections? No, none whatsoever.

    Just a few fruitcakes jumping up and down at the last moment.

  44. Doug Glass
    Paris Hilton

    @Wolf207

    You're exactly right. My tax dollars would have been much better spent ramming their thing into the mounds of Venus. But nooooooooooo, we have to choose some dead worldlet only a nerd could love.

    Paris because Paris has mounds and knows all about love.

  45. Chris King
    Alien

    Another crackpot theory I heard the other day...

    ...was that it wasn't a scientific experiment, but a test of a space weapon. Perhaps they're worried that we need to be protected from aliens with space missile technology:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfsMZKwqw3w

    These creatures are obviously xenophobic, given their reaction to the diplomatic faux pas (involving non-use of eating utensils) committed at 5:25 in this clip.

    Alien, because I'm wondering what planet the nutjobs came from...

  46. Joe Cooper

    Earth affects the Moon

    "Wouldn't it seem logical for the earth to have a reciprocal effect on the moon - but it doesn't"

    Yes it does. The Earth's tidal forces hold the Moon's orientation so that one side always faces us (more or less), AND the interaction between the Earth, the Moon and the oceans actually _accelerates_ the Moon, causing it to _gain altitude_ and move away from us over time.

  47. Joe Cooper

    Sperm and eggs

    "All are metaphors for a brave spunky little sperm bravely engaging a large fruity round egg "

    It actually is, honest to God, the cheapest way to check for water.

    Its not their fault you see penis everywhere you look.

  48. Shane Lusby
    Happy

    I am the moon

    He's so bright and milky white

    Shining down upon the ground

    He's so bright, milky white

    Shining down upon the ground

    Everybody look at the moon

    Everybody seeing the moon

    The moon is bright, he's milky white

    Everybody look at the moon

    Hey! I did a song. Jupiter, I did a song. You ain't got one.

  49. Diane Miller

    As a woman

    I'm personally embarrassed by some of those coments. Would that I could convince myself they were jokes...

    /facepalm

  50. Herby

    Gives new meaning to the word "Lunacy"

    Enough said.

    Then again, we don't have a "man from the moon", just a "man from mars"..

    It demonstrates the level of education we have in the USA. (*SIGH*)

  51. blockstructured

    cheeky munkies

    Apparently the Reg doesn't recognize a tongue in the cheek unless it is their own.

  52. Steve Brooks

    paragraphs! They're for normal people.

    You can always tell who the nuts are, paragraphs people, paragraphs. Has anybody else ever noticed how people with nutty idea also think paragraphs are for "other" people?

    See that gap Wolf207, that's paragraph space, once you master that simple concept people will read a lot more of what you write, I only went back to read it because of the other comments, I originally dismissed it as nuts. Well....I was correct, true, but at least I would have made the effort to read it sooner.

  53. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Oops -- Science education FAIL

    I commented to my wife about the fruitcakes who thought that this tiny probe would shatter the moon, and that, in turn, would impact us in some bizarre way, and she immediately said, "Well, yeah, they're crazy, but what if the moon did shatter? Wouldn't that mess up our tides?"

    This is a woman who passed college-level physics with a B+, and graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Biology (with a minor in Chemistry) who honestly believed that the gravitational pull of an aggregated mass would be different from a solid object. (So, she thought that if the moon were replaced by an equal mass of marbles, we'd be in trouble). So it's definitely not just the nut jobs who are misinformed -- it seems like the U.S. educational system isn't teaching gravity all that well.

    (My father was a physicist, and his favorite exam question was, "What would happen to Earth's orbit if you replaced the sun by a black hole of equal mass?")

  54. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    @Postmodern scientists

    Whoa there feller, hold the Freudianisms, I'm getting all hot and bothered over a celestial body.

    Paris, of course.

  55. JohnG

    @Wolf207

    "Criticism and humor designed to ridicule and belittle people with honest fears or beliefs is a tactic often used by authoritarian regimes to create fear of disclosure ...."

    That's bollocks. Authoritarian regimes arrest and imprison or kill those who spread views that the regimes consider subversive or otherwise unacceptable.

    If people don't want to be ridiculed, they should not spout utter nonsense on the Internet. The Internet has become a breeding ground for conspiracy theories, with people making up pseudo-science where they don't understand and/or cannot be bothered to find the facts. Such idiots should be exposed as such - that should encourage them to either shut up or acquanit themselves with the facts.

  56. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bit of a waste?

    Firing this rocket stage into the moon where it is hitting at twice the speed of a bullet is probably going to result in wreckage similar to Del Boy's passion wagon (i.e. bent metal).

    Would it REALLY have been so much more expensive to actually arrange for a lunar landing which resulted in a softer set-down where instrumentation could have survived the impact? I mean, not very long ago they managed to plonk a small satellite onto the surface of a piece of fast-moving space rock - the satellite had not been designed to land on anything and the space rock was not exactly stable in terms of landing site. And that poor ickle satellite got to the surface and then phoned home!

    It doesn't seem so far-fetched to believe that they could have arranged for a softer landing and with some very basic tools and scientific instruments plus a radio they could easily have got decent data back.

    Or we could have given Gordon Brown a space suit and a couple of air tanks plus an ice pick and he could have done the world a service at last.

  57. Mike Flugennock
    Pint

    @Luther Blissett re: postmodern scientists

    God. DAMN. Dude. That is quite possibly the awesomest post on any comment thread anywhere on El Reg, at least up until the moment I'm typing this.

    "Spunky little sperm!" "mutated in the hyperreality...!" Priceless.

    Pint of lager icon, only because there's no pint of stout icon, which the above commenter richly deserves.

  58. HFoster
    Thumb Down

    Ed Byrne

    How many more idiots are going to hold up their children as justification for their scientifically, logically and factually incorrect arguments?

  59. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Not In My Name

    Re AC : "(So, she thought that if the moon were replaced by an equal mass of marbles, we'd be in trouble). So it's definitely not just the nut jobs who are misinformed"

    Wouldn't be the first time theory hasn't turned out so well in practice; numerous Darwin Awards testify to that.

    Of course, if those 'marbles' all held together and didn't drift apart to form our version of rings around Uranus, it may well not affect the tides or anything else.

    "Told You So" T-shirts may well have been invented for partners of the arrogantly "informed".

  60. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    I love hypocrits

    By Anonymous Coward Posted Friday 9th October 2009 16:52 GMT

    The moon has no fault line as there is no tectonic activity, it just doesn't have the same crust structure we do. Any degeree level geologist can tell you that. It is simply inert rock unlike the earth, mercury, mars etc

    Second, the moon is about the same age as Earth, so for at least 4.5 billion (ish) years it has been hit countless times (Hence the craters) people who think it might in some way be affected by something that is actually smaller and less powerful that most of the craters that hit it (Remember the probe hit inside a crater, that had to have been formed by a much larger and more powerful impact.) are a bit odd to say the least.

    By Wolf207 Posted Friday 9th October 2009 17:00 GMT

    The only reason you are geting a plume that large is the lack of an atmosphere and the lack of any sizable gravity field, allowing the relatively small impact to throw up such a dust cloud. It isn't because of the device being sent to hit the planet, that is such small fry it is like a light aircraft hitting the Earth, and we are not spinning out of orbit into the sun. Nothing we can hit the moon with is anything like as powerful as the meteors that have hit it in the past. Gravity is one of the most powerful forces in the universe, requirements just to get into space is staggering and nothing we can do today will push the moon or earth out of orbit.

    People amaze me, they prattle on about some ancient dogma or religion against 21st century technology. But use 21st century technology to do it. I don't go against thier beliefs, but they can't use technology to complain against NASA. They should be using word of mouth and not to any journalist that will use the internet or TV or the mobile phone. That is just showing their hypocracy.

    What is very clear with the mad people in the world, is that science whether, physics or geology is a sadly lacking education in some of the larger countries and allegedly more educated of this world.

  61. Sillyfellow
    Welcome

    will not be silenced

    wolf207- very well said. thank you.

    anyone notice the general trend/ratio between the few voices of concern (real sanity), and the many voices of ridicule (smoke screening bullshit).? makes me wonder how many of those full of ridicule and lack of compassion are few pretending to be many.. or work for NASA and their minions.

    i for one can not be ridiculed into silence. some may label, categorize and misconstrue me, but they are all mistaken because i am unique. and such people certainly don't know me at all.

  62. Alan Edwards
    WTF?

    Not entirely sure where to start with this lot...

    I rather like the theory that the moon is a giant water balloon...

    "Wouldn't it seem logical for the earth to have a reciprocal effect on the moon - but it doesn't"

    Yeah it does. The Earth's gravitation field is what stops the moon drifing off into space. You wouldn't get tides even if there were oceans because the moon rotates with the same period as the Earth (what are the chances of that happening, BTW?) but gravity does have an effect.

    "Why aren't core tests done before blasting it"

    They were, during the original Apollo landings. Not frantically deep, granted, but samples were taken.

    "blasting the moon could send it out of orbit "

    We're hitting it with something that was launched from the Earth's surface, so it'll be a couple of tons at most. We'v e got a pretty good idea what the mass of the moon is - 7.36 × 10^22 KG , I assume by measuring the effect of the Earth and the Sun on it. It'll have as much effect on the orbit of the moon as a bug hitting the windscreen of a train does, possibly less.

    "which would kill us"

    Removing the moon would severely screw with things but I doubt it would kill us outright. Hitting something on the way out, Venus or the Sun say, would spoil your day though.

    "There are members of the concerned general public who are not werewolves, pagans or anarcho-primitives?

    "

    Apparently not...

    Alan.

  63. Steve Swann
    Coat

    @"Think of the planets in terms of forming a sentence. The Earth is a noun. The moon is a verb."

    ooh... quite right....

    Moon {Verb} [Imperative]

    Earth {Noun}

    Example of usage:

    "Mr. Armstrong was indeed suprosed when the order came through to moon Earth."

    /coat.

  64. Secretgeek
    Coat

    @spider 'as a woman'

    '...i feel unempowered that I'm prevented from blowing stuff,...'

    I feel you're a little of topic (as well as off website) there Spider. I've not read every comment but I'm pretty sure nobody's objected to you blowing anything. Blow away brother, blow away!

    It's definitely Monday isn't it.

  65. HFoster

    @Sillyfellow

    Please, for the sake of your own credibility, go AFK. I'd suggest you read up on physics, but the effort may be tantamount to pissing into the wind.

  66. HFoster
    FAIL

    Use of the words "blast" and "bomb"

    I think a big part of the problem is that all journalists often need to enliven their writing in order to make a report into a story (this is a given), and bad journalists overdo it. Hence "collision" becomes "blast" and elements of society who take the written word always as 100% gospel go mental.

  67. Ed Blackshaw Silver badge

    @Oops -- Science education FAIL #

    If you replaced the sun with a black hole of equal mass, the Earth's orbit would probably change a tiny-little bit, from the sudden absence of photon-pressure on it from one direction some eight minutes later. Do I get extra credit?

  68. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Water on the moon was taken 6000 years ago.

    NASA and everybody else is chasing a false promise, a dream. All the water on the moon was dumped when a long sharp meteor hit the north pole 6000 years ago. The water all spurted out and the Earth's gravity drew it inward. When it hit the atmosphere it caused massive thunder-storms and rain showers that lasted 40 days and 40 nights, flooding the entire world. When the rain stopped and nearly all the water evaporated, the sun blew it away, out toward the really big planets where it was sucked down. Jupiter sucked so hard that Saturn couldn't get its water down to it's surface and that's where Saturn's rings came from...

    Just ask Noah.

  69. Anonymous Coward
    Coffee/keyboard

    @AC 13:17

    Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

    I would continue but I'm laughing so hard that I can't type. I think you easily beat Wolf207 for whack-job of the week.

  70. Rob 101

    There was definitely an effect

    Since the impact I have had no trouble with my sinuses at all.

  71. James Hughes 1

    @whoever...

    Wouldn't a black hole of equivalent mass to the sun evaporate?

    @AC 13.47.

    I think (hope?) that AC 13:17 was taking, shall we say, the Micky.

  72. James Hughes 1

    @My previous comment

    Should have looked this up first. No, it wouldn't evaporate before the universe gave up the ghost.

    http://www.nature.com/physics/looking-back/hawking/index.html

  73. jake Silver badge

    @Luther; @AC 00:35; @Sillyfellow; @JohnG

    Luther Blissett wonders "How else to explain astronomers' preoccupations with fast-moving little things crashing into slow-moving big things? "

    Luther, look up the phrase "spectrum analysys" and ponder deeply why it might be interesting to take a look at anything ejected during a very energetic extraterrestrial impact.

    AC queries: "Would it REALLY have been so much more expensive to actually arrange for a lunar landing which resulted in a softer set-down where instrumentation could have survived the impact?"

    Yes. Consider: Fire a rifle at a target. Hit target with bullet. Observe results. --or-- Fire rifle at target. Have bullet slow down just before impact, and gently settle onto target. Have bullet "call home". Have bullet dig into target. Have bullet analyze material from target. Have bullet send data collected home. (It's more complicated than that, but I'll spare you. Rocket science isn't exactly difficult, but the complexity of the details aren't trivial.)

    Sillyfellow: As usual, I don't know where to start. However, I strongly suggest you at least attempt to get an education, unless you enjoy having people laugh at your appalling ignorance.

    JohnG: Well said, that man.

  74. Ian R

    @jake (thumbs up) and really @sillyfellow, wolf and others

    Quite rightly said jake.

    I have been watching these moon bomb/blast/impact/oh-my-god threads. We should remember that the 'age of reason' is still so very young, perhaps 400 years at most. This is a tiny time in the life our our species (a really tiny time if you believe the world is 10,000, 6,000 or 4482 years old.

    I am sure that reasoning ability has been with us much longer than that, however, reason has been shouted down (and still is, actually, reason is under serious threat, but I stae the obvious.). It occurred to me, how to start a religion? I know! See an implausible threat (like a moon splitting in half, blah, blah), test out your audience, seek reverence from said audience. Once the fear is in place, suggest there is a diety holding the power, and you can mediate on behalf of the feared.

    Oh---by the way, I am not going to do any more hunting, you will have to feed me. Oh--by the way, I need one of the best huts around here, you will build it for me. Oh---by the way, I will have to ratify any/ANY decision the chief/king makes, be it war, wife or taxes (I am exempt of those of course).

    We have had a lot of fun in this thread with the 'whacktards'. But, seriously, do these people hold the same genes that the founders of our religions also held? Does one not hear the same bleats? 'Do not be arrogant! etc.',

    Acquisition of learning and execution of reason are not acts of arrogance. For this moon thing, as others had stated eloquently, there was no physics issue, no possible doomsday scenario. The gnat hitting your windscreen is a close approximation. For rights of NASA to 'bomb' the moon, see earlier posts that show this was planned and known for a very long time. For Noah, see Black Sea origins via the opening of the Dardenells in a sudden rush.

    I am grateful to live in this time of reason, I grew up in it, it seems to be fading fast in the popular culture, which is a dire shame for the future. I am so happy that here, I see fellows, who hold the flag of objectivity, observation, experiment, result and conclusion still so high.

    Remember folks, we are only 400 years old, my hopes for the future of mankind rest with reason surviving beyond all attacks and absurdities. It does not matter that I/we shall not witness the far future, but I hope we do not witness our deep dimise in our lifetimes.

    Reason rules, 'cos it's reasonable innit :-)

  75. Kilroy
    Alien

    Where's The Moon Maidens?

    Bombing the Moon. Finding Water? Or this--http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s5i61026

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