Duelist Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=countdown-to-bombing-raid-on-moon-2009-10 Its happening TOMORROW! I for one wish they wouldn't do this... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
remedy48 Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 Theres water somewhere on the moon? Do they really believe that. WOW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nalgas Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 America, FUCK YEAH! Yes, they do believe there's water (or at least ice) on the moon, because India's space program just sent up their first lunar mission and found some. Before that, there had already been signs that there could be ice in permanently shadowed areas or under the surface that may have originally been deposited by comet impacts. And it's not like hitting stuff really hard (which is essentially what the "bombing" is, just dropping a hunk of stuff on it from a large height so it goes thud, not actually blowing up the moon) is a new thing for Science. They've whacked stuff into comets before to see what flies off so they can analyze what's underneath the surface. Same thing happening here. It's massively more expensive and very impractical to send a mining survey to the moon to go dig a hole and find out that way. I wish they'd do more stuff like this. They could find out some fairly interesting stuff at extremely low cost compared to what we stand to get out of it, and it's about damn time we got back to the moon after getting bored and giving up a few decades ago. If that hadn't happened and they'd stuck with it, we could be sending tourists there by now. The reporting seems a bit sensationalistic and exaggerated, like usual, and congratulations, you fell for it. At least the article itself isn't too bad, but I used to expect better from Scientific American, especially that headline/initial summary. Oh well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Velvet Elvis Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZSi02uccrc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duelist Posted October 8, 2009 Author Share Posted October 8, 2009 You don't think it's gonna start a trend of mining ice from the moon and using up that resource, and then fucking up the earth's tides and so forth? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mudpuppy Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 Umm... we have our own ice... so... probably not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nalgas Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 You don't think it's gonna start a trend of mining ice from the moon and using up that resource, and then fucking up the earth's tides and so forth? No. Not remotely. Do you have any idea how cost-prohibitive that would be? If you think your water bill sucks now after taking long showers or watering your lawn in the summer or something, imagine what it would be if your water came from somewhere that cost billions of dollars, quite possibly trillions, just to get set up and running. It makes desalinization plants look free, and the main reason those aren't used more is because they're expensive to run. Also, do you have any concept of just how big a planet is and how much water we already have here? To make even a measurable difference in sea level here (by adding more water) or tidal effects (by removing mass from the moon), you'd have to move probably as much stuff from the moon to the earth as we've ever moved around on the surface of the earth in the entire history of mankind. Planets are huge, and we currently don't have the ability to bring back more than a few pounds of small rocks from the moon. It will likely never be profitable to mine the moon for water to use down here, just considering all the vastly simpler alternatives we already have. It would be extremely useful if there's enough that's easily extractable to use on the moon for a (semi-)permanent base there or for other uses in space, though, because it's absurdly expensive energy-wise to get stuff out of the earth's gravity well (which is why it would be so nice to have a moon base in the first place that could manufacture stuff up there instead of having to launch it from the equivalent of the bottom of a very deep hole). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inspired_Neurosis Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 Seconded everything Nalgas said. I'm surprised that a science-oriented magazine would have such poor science coverage. And we don't need ice so badly that we'd mine it from the moon... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duelist Posted October 8, 2009 Author Share Posted October 8, 2009 That's good to know, thanks Nalgas, I appreciate you sharing your opinion on this subject with us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mudpuppy Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 Thanks for the nice PF vid, VE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anelize Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 I'm actually kind of glad to see them doing ANYTHING in space. We need to do more, to stretch out beyond this earth. I really am concerned for the space program, with the ending of the shuttle program. Let's hope that there's something in the works thats bigger and better. Then, let's go to Mars already FFS! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inspired_Neurosis Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 - A very prescient, decade old Mr.Show skit. "You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!" How did VE embed the youtube video like that anyways? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Velvet Elvis Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 IM: use the "insert media" button. According to the article the whole point of the thing is to look for potential water sources for a moonbase or a fuel sourse (I assume they'd be making hydrogen peroxide out of it or something). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nalgas Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 That's good to know, thanks Nalgas, I appreciate you sharing your opinion on this subject with us. I can never resist when a story like this comes up, because crappy science reporting is one of my pet peeves, especially now that so many news sources have gotten rid of all their specialized reporters (i.e. the ones who have any training in or understanding of the subjects) for being too expensive to keep on staff. I feel compelled (but not in an OCD sense) to clear up the junk that ends up in the news when stuff like this happens, so if anyone gets anything useful out of it, great. Heh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inspired_Neurosis Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 Thanks. I actually gave that a try...maybe it's glitchy or something. But I appreciate the confirmation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inspired_Neurosis Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 That's good to know, thanks Nalgas, I appreciate you sharing your opinion on this subject with us. I can never resist when a story like this comes up, because crappy science reporting is one of my pet peeves, especially now that so many news sources have gotten rid of all their specialized reporters (i.e. the ones who have any training in or understanding of the subjects) for being too expensive to keep on staff. I feel compelled (but not in an OCD sense) to clear up the junk that ends up in the news when stuff like this happens, so if anyone gets anything useful out of it, great. Heh. Yeah, one of my friends emphasized his science background when applying for journalism school for that reason. But unfortunately, sometimes science stories are so esoteric that you need a PhD to understand the subject matter and put it into layman's terms. A BS only goes so far. And to make matters worse, some scientists don't talk to the press out of fear of being misinterpreted. Science reporting general sucks, for a variety of reasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nalgas Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 Science reporting general sucks, for a variety of reasons. It really does most of the time, but you can still occasionally find some decent stuff. I still like a few places like Ars Technica for general science/tech stuff for the most part, where a good chunk of the people are either writers with a science background or scientists who happen to be able to write. They tend to even read the original papers and link to/report on them, not just the press reports, and there are some other places like that around, too, but most of the mainstream (TV/newspaper) stuff is crap these days, sadly. Makes me wonder sometimes how wildly inaccurate their coverage of other things I don't know as much about is... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inspired_Neurosis Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 Heh. I bet you'll get a kick out of this, Nalgas: http://www.dailymail...human-hair.html The headline almost made me burst a blood vessel. Sure, you should never expect much from the Daily Mail, but this is irresponsible even for them. Note that the piece is unattributed, which suggests that the author and editor may have been vaguely aware of their...scientific limitations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
resonance Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 Reporters want a good story, researchers want accuracy. So researchers insist on accuracy and then reporters make it into a good story by dropping accuracy where it doesn't fit. Researchers don't understand they can't win, science reporters are rewarded with approval for their articles. It helps to ask reporters to report quotes back to you, because they may do things like leave out the fact that a study was a small pilot study with college students and make it sound like your conclusions firmly apply to all people everywhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
archgallo Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 Reminds me of this comic: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1623#comic Anyway, it's just a small rocket, it's not like they're going to blow away a whole chunk of it with nukes. I think it's pretty cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NailFlower Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 Go, Nasa! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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