NASA launched a spectacular mission to bomb the Moon on June 16th 2009. Their LCROSS mission blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying a missile that will blast a hole in the lunar surface at twice the speed of a bullet. The missile, a Centaur rocket, will be steered by a shepherding spacecraft that will guide it towards its target - a crater close to the Moon's south pole. Scientists expect the blast to be so powerful that a huge plume of debris will be ejected.
The attack on the Moon is not a declaration of war or act of wanton vandalism. Space scientists want to see if any water ice or vapour is revealed in the cloud of debris. Though the Moon mostly a dry airless desert, they believe ice could be trapped in crater shadows near the south pole which never receive any sunlight. If so it could provide vital supplies for a manned moon base. Last year, British scientists identified regions where water might be found on the Moon and estimated that there could be enough to fill one of Europe's largest reservoirs. The spacecraft will not head straight for the Moon. First it will orbit the Earth a number of times while its precise target is identified. Finally, it will send the missile into the Moon at twice the speed of a bullet on October 8. The shepherding spacecraft will follow close behind, taking pictures and analysing the ejected debris as it looks for evidence of water. It has just four minutes to do this before it crashes into the Moon itself, producing a spectacular explosion that should be visible in amateur astronomers' telescopes.
Sounds like a pretty crazy idea. Taking into account the disclosure taking place about UFO's, aliens and strange happenings, it seems that such a step would be sure to intensify interest by passing aliens "Hey Kronko - did you see what those crazy humans are up to now - they just nuked the moon" - worse would be if we actually hit one of their houses by mistake and they declared war on us. Now seriously speaking - who dreamed up this crazy scenario - why is it that the first thing we humans do when they find something is to destroy it or even better to blow it up (in the name of science). Come on folks - this is ridiculous. Perhaps NASA does have something that they need to destroy on the moon before other space faring nations get there?!....