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Photo courtesy the Newseum.
The Washington, D.C. Examiner.com gets high-marks for two wild posts; first, pontificating with no evidence that it was a test of "Star Wars" technology, and then this offering, which blows up the totally inaccurate information that this was some huge "bombing," then pouts because there was no big, exciting explosion (only adding at the end of the "bomb bomb bomb" tirade: "Keep in mind that the bomb was more an impact than an actual bomb." Indeed, would you?). Cable news stations -- though we give CNN credit for one interview with Our Hero, Bill Nye the Science Guy -- and countless newspapers and web sites all had similar "Moon bombing" stories. But it was the Huffington Post's Amy Ephron we can probably draw all these lines back to. Her article (labeled under "comedy," though it's not clear if that was her designation or her editor's) and call to arms with the creation of a Twitter feed called Help Save the Moon can only be summed up, even as a joke, by this comment: "No wonder our educational system is the laughing stock of much of the civilized world."
All of this led to Full-On Crazy, including a short-lived Twitter trending topic on "Dear NASA," as in, "Dear Nasa, WHAT THE HELL IS WR0NG WITH Y0U?? D0 Y0U N0T N0 THE M00N IS G0D CREATI0N Y0U NEED T00 WATCH IT ((SERI0USLY))." The irony is that all this was happening the same week President Obama gave a passionate speech on the need for science education at the White House Star Party (highly recommended viewing). One would hope that none of this would have happened if it weren't for the deplorable lack of science writers and editors in the mainstream media. Even poor Bill Nye could only explain the the Crazy by throwing his hands up and saying, "Well, it just shows you that I failed."
If you heard the media going on and on about "bombing" the Moon and thought, "What the hell?," I hope you took a second to use our friend Google or ask a science-minded friend about it. One thing about us science geeks: we love it when you ask us questions! We don't expect every person to follow every detail of our space program, but we do expect you to ask before you run off half-cocked with misinformed opinions about it. So while in retrospect, this should have been in last week's column, I now give you:
Eight Facts About LCROSS
1. LCROSS was a mission to discover hydrogen (i.e. water) on the Moon.
2. The night before impact, LCROSS separated into two pieces: the upper stage of a depleted Centaur rocket and the Shepherding Spacecraft. The continued on the same path, but separated quite a few miles before impact.
3. The Centaur rocket hit the Moon first, inside the crater Cabeus near the south pole, kicking up a dust plume. The Shepherding Spacecraft followed about four minutes later, collecting volumes of data regarding the contents of the dust.
4. The rocket was about the size of a school bus and had no fuel. That's right, no explosives were used upon impact on the Moon.
5. The mass of the Moon compared to the mass of the tiny spacecraft is ENORMOUS. It couldn't knock the Moon off its axis and it will in no way affect the tides.
6. You know how we know that aside from basic math? This isn't the first time we've done this. Humans have crash-landed spacecraft into the Moon dozens of times; the first time was by the Russians in 1959. (Yup, the Russians actually beat us to the Moon, but we sent humans there first.)
7. LCROSS was a "low-cost, high-risk" mission, what NASA calls a "Class D." Much of the spacecraft was made by recycling parts from satellites. These types of missions are becoming more and more popular because they can collect quite a bit of data for very little cash.
8. Why this mission? The discovery of high quantities of water will guide the decision to send humans back to the Moon for long-term missions. Not to mention, information about the Moon's make-up helps planetary scientists learn more about how our solar system was formed.
Despite (or more likely, because of) the hand-wringing about the U.S. "bombing the Moon," the LCROSS event became the third highest viewed NASA event ever; at least 200 people (including yours truly) attended the 7 a.m. LCROSS viewing event at the Newseum to watch on the big screen with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. (Side note: while I watch plenty of space events over the internet, there is nothing like experiencing them in a packed room full of eager viewers.) Yes, we were all pretty disappointed that a big visual plume didn't appear on screen, but, with apologies to the sensationalist media, the fact is that science doesn't always come with big booms. In all other respects, the impact was successful, huge amounts of data were collected, and NASA is eagerly reviewing it all.
Okay, now that I've gotten that off my chest, let's talk about all the great star gazing events going on this week:
Tonight: The Northern Virginia Astronomy Club's (NOVAC) monthly meeting is tonight at George Mason University in Lecture Hall 1. The meeting starts at 7 p.m., but you're encouraged to come early for a little socializing. If you decide to join NOVAC, dues are only $25 per year.
Thursday: A little farther away in Columbia, Md., the Howard Astronomy League will have its monthly meeting. This month Charles Quintero from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory will talk about the robotic missions on Mars. Starts at 7:30 p.m.; annual membership is $25.
Saturday: Head over to Rock Creek Park for the National Capital Astronomers monthly Exploring the Sky program. Join them for stargazing starting at 7:30 p.m.; they'll be focusing on Andromeda and the Orionid meteors this time.
Also, definitely mark your calendar for NOVAC's 27th Annual Star Gaze, the "largest public star gaze in the Washington D.C. area." Hitch a ride out to C.M. Crockett Park in Fauquier County, Va. for the event; solar observing begins at 3 p.m. and the star party runs until 11 p.m.
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I'm not sure where your Miles O'Brien is at the moment, but this Miles O'Brien is probably trying NOT to crash things into the moon or other planetary bodies.
I bet he's tired of that joke, yet today, it's quite appropriate.
erincarly: not sure which miles o'brien you were linking to (the star-trek one or the CNN reporter), but i think we can all agree the reason we don't have the reporter on CNN anymore is because the traditional news media organizations put less value on actually educating their viewers and readers on a subject than at any time in history.
thank goodness we have intelligent folks like heather to keep us abreast of things here. much appreciated!
Excellent summary of why the coverage of the LCROSS mission was such a mess. It didn't help when NASA did their part to overhype it by providing computer animation that showed a big, bright plume rising from the impact. I'm still hoping, that within my lifetime, one of the close-call asteroids will actually hit the Moon to great effect.
I really like your coverage of all things space related Heather. How did you get interested in this subject?
Thanks OtR! I always favored science as a kid and, after being blown away by an astronomy 101 course I took at the local community college while I was in high school, went on to study physics and astronomy in college. My career veered away from it, but some events over the past year (not the least of which was seeing a shuttle launch for the first time) really reminded me why I love science and the space program so much.
Thank you Heather. I am (for better or worse) old enough to remember the early years of the Space Program; Shepard, Grissom, Glen, Carpenter, the moon landing, etc. As a young boy, space travel was Science Fiction. It is really refreshing to read your posts and hear of the great advances in travel outside of our safe cocoon.
Good analysis. One quibble: LCROSS was designed to look directly for water, rather than just hydrogen. (The LCROSS web site has a very technical explanation of the methods it would use to detect H2O.) Some previous efforts have tried to discover water indirectly by detecting hydrogen, but LCROSS has (or had, I guess now!) instruments to perform direct detections of water and hydroxyl (OH).
Also, I wouldn't blame the Washington Examiner newspaper for some of those crazy articles: almost anyone anywhere can be an "examiner" and post their wild and crazy ideas. My favorite, though not directly about LCROSS: just before Japan's Kaguya orbiter crashed to the lunar surface this summer, a San Francisco astrologer "examiner" asked: "Did these scientists talk to the moon? Tell her what they were doing? Ask her permission? Show her respect?"
Ah, indeed you're right, Jeff. I think I was getting it confused with LRO, which does have instruments looking specifically for hydrogen (the Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector, which I wrote an article about the other week when they found a bunch, so it was on my mind). Thanks for the clarification.
Nice to see a post that has comments that stay on topic, and dare I say it, is an intelligent conversation.
Heather, what blogs can you recommend on this subject and space in general?
Thanks.
Molly?
Jay -- Although I keep a handful of sites in my RSS (New Scientist: Space is good for quick headlines; NASASpaceFlight had detailed technical posts, and -- plug plug -- Aviation Week's On Space blog, where I now write), I have to admit I get a ton of space news from Twitter. NASA has about 30 feeds alone, along with innumerable science mags, science writers, scientists, observatories, and space organizations. I'm also following engineers who work at Mission Control and even someone tweeting as one of the mice up in the International Space Station. Together they have a wealth of knowledge, and by following them I'm quickly notified of breaking news and interesting events happening within the hour, as well as articles I would have otherwise missed or news the mainstream media would never pick up on.
I know some people look down on Twitter, but I'd suggest they're just not using it right.
Thanks, Heather, believe it or not my mom said something along the lines of "we shouldn't be messing with the orbit of the moon" at which point I noted thatjudging from the huge impact craters, it has been bombarded by asteroids and comets for ages without problem.
It also reminded me of that segment in the Carl Sagan "Cosmos" documentary series, where he recounts a tale told by monks at a British monastery sometime in the middle ages, where they recorded a large impact on the moon, visible with the naked eye, so it must have been a huge one.
Also, perhaps the old science fiction show "Space 1999" added to the undercurrent of fearmongering. I remember my mom and dad watching it when I was a kid, and being vaguely concerned the moon would depart from its orbit due to human activity of some kind.
Hey, if Martin Landau and Barbara Bain taught me anything, it IS possible to shift the orbit of the moon.
I have some familiarity with NASA PR. By and large, it has been terrible over the past couple of years. However, recently they seem to be on a bit of a roll. This is a result of their PR being a bit too good.
Yay, this is a great write-up! Thanks, H-dog. So, where do we sign on pre-construction moon condos? Any info on that yet?
Great write up! I love that the moon has somehow become a female.
Heather, thanks for this great post. Just curious, how did you find out about the LCROSS viewing at the Newseum? I would love to know about cool events like this in the future.
Julie -- I found out because one of my friends is a member of the Newseum and it was in their email newsletter, which he forwarded to me. I also mentioned the event in last week's Look Up, so keep an eye on DCist for future events! :)