Good Morning, Moon - Democratic Underground

omega minimo

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Thu Oct-08-09 03:01 AM
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Good Morning, Moon

Edited on Thu Oct-08-09 03:38 AM by omega minimo

"For just as we write in good faith what happens in our own time, and so to speak paint the state of our affairs, so that we put it on view to those who come after, and their successors, they also have done the same thing who were before us, from which it comes about by the common association of men that by combined endeavors our life becomes as it were more prolonged, and fuller, and we are able to pronounce on the state of things as if we had been present at them all."

Niccolo Cabeo, Italian Astronomer (1586-1650)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0q6YWDm0GSU

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/index.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

From giant leap to big bang: Nasa prepares moon smashing satellite
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/07/moon-lcross-nasa-mission
Nasa's attempt to smash two probes into the moon's surface could prove the presence of water and hint at a faster, cheaper future for space exploration

Indeed, the entire mission reads like a delicate extraterrestrial ballet. Soon after taking off from Florida, LCROSS used gravity to slingshot itself into a wide orbit around the Earth that would eventually coincide with the moon.

Soon, as it closes in on the moment of impact, the craft will divide in two. The Saturn fuel tank will detach from the body of the main LCROSS unit – which, stuffed with cameras and sensing equipment, acts the mission's brain. The empty fuel tank will then hit the moon at a sharp angle while the shepherding craft spends several minutes filming the first impact, analysing the dust cloud and sending information back to ground control. In addition to those observations, an array of telescopes and cameras on Earth and in space will be watching to grab images.

Then, finally, the second vehicle will also smash into the moon's surface – providing another bite of the cherry for those observing from thousands of miles away.

"These and several other telescopes participating in the LCROSS observation campaign will provide observations from different vantage points using different types of measurement techniques," says Jennifer Heldmann, who is leading the observation effort.
<snip>
The target being tracked by the team at Ames is a 98km-wide hole called Cabeus, which lies just a short distance from the Shackleton crater – the proposed location for Nasa's crewed lunar outpost, which it hopes to have completed by 2024. Discovering a potential water supply has obvious benefits for that scheme, not least providing astronauts with a potential reservoir that they can tap into rather than rely on shipments from Earth.

And while the existence of usable water inside Cabeus is still a hypothesis, the decision to target that crater is based on detailed information. Just a couple of weeks ago, the Indian Chandrayaan satellite appeared to confirm the existence of water in the region — subsequently confirmed by data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the vessel that LCROSS hitched a ride into space alongside.

The Months of the Moon
http://www.pathcom.com/~newmoon/month2.htm

Dieties of the Moon
http://www.bol.sapphiremoon.info/ll/deities.htm
Lunar Lore
http://www.equinoxastrology.com/LunarLore.htm

Cabeus Crater
named for Niccolo, Cabeo, Itaian Astronomer (1586-1650)
http://books.google.com/books?id=-btchdnNT6kC&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93&dq=%22niccolo+cabeo%22&source=bl&ots=eTaTNXXdjG&sig=A_g54dr0BRg33s9kjaAQgxTB_yQ&hl=en&ei=9o_NSua9Fo_2sgPrz8W6BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10#v=onepage&q=%22niccolo%20cabeo%22&f=false

http://www.google.com/moon/

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-moon8-2009oct08,0,708425.story

For decades after the Apollo missions of the late 1960s and early 1970s, scientists considered the moon to be little more than a dry wasteland.

But in 1999, NASA's Lunar Prospector mission found evidence of hydrogen, a possible indicator of water, in permanently shadowed craters at both poles. Since then, other spacecraft have detected the same thing, leading scientists to wonder whether large stores of ice billions of years old are hidden in craters that never get sunlight.

According to scientists, water on the moon would be as valuable as gold. Not only would it be useful to drink, should President Obama continue former President George W. Bush's ambitious plan to build a lunar base there after 2020, but it could be broken down to make breathable air and even rocket fuel.

Transporting water to the moon, on the other hand, would cost $50,000 a pound.

The crater-observing satellite launched June 18 attached to a second spacecraft, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Shortly after launch, the two separated.

The orbiter continued on to begin a yearlong mission to map the moon in search of landing sites for future lunar colonists.

The sensing satellite went into a long, looping orbit around the Earth to line itself up for Friday's impact.

Originally, spacecraft controllers had chosen a nearby crater, Cabeus A, as the target. But last week, they decided it wasn't as good a potential source for water as Cabeus, a 60-mile-wide valley near the moon's south pole.

Andrews said satellite controllers were aiming for a spot in the northwest region of the crater, where temperatures of minus 397 degrees Fahrenheit would ensure that any water would be frozen as hard as rock.