RE: We pay NASA to do this? (Full Version)

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ThatDamnedPanda -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/9/2009 11:50:31 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or

Hmmm, the lack of potable water has been noticed in areas of famine in the world. I have an idea, let's send it to the moon !

And how's come none of these asteroids have ever brought up any water ? Oh wait, maybe they did but it all evaporated because there is no atmosphere. In a vacuum our beloved H2O is almost always either water vapor or ice. This is why freeze drying works.

So they are looking for what now ?


Actually, that's exactly what would have happened. They're not looking for liquid water, because they already know there isn't any substantial reservoir of liquid water on the moon. They're looking for evidence that there may be usable quantities of frozen water buried deeply enough beneath the surface that it wouldn't have been boiled off by the sun.

As for your earlier post, I'm really not sure exactly what you said there. I don't think I quite got what you said about the effects on the earth's orbit. But I think I disagree with some of it; the part of it I understood, anyway. Actually, if we were to lose the moon, the immediate effects would be significant and possibly catastrophic, and the longterm effects would be worse.

Initially, many nocturnal land animals would become extinct, because their vision is not acute enough to hunt by starlight. At the same time, though, other nocturnal animals would thrive because there wouldn't be anyone hunting them anymore. Other predators - those with more acute night vision - would do quite well, but they would probably have different prey species than the ones with the poorer vision, so it's hard to say which species would be diminished and which species would blossom. But this, in turn, would have an effect on plant species that are either eaten or fertilized by the prey species, which in turn would have an effect on other species dependent upon those particular plants. At best, there would be significant planetwide disruptions in the ecosystem.

The effects would probably be worse for marine life. You're right in that the tides would be disrupted, but it wouldn't be a minor matter at all. Many ocean-dwelling species key their mating cycles to the tides and the phases of the moon. Without the moon  to trigger their cycles, they literally wouldn't know when to mate or lay eggs, and many species would be impacted severely enough that they might go extinct. At best, there would be global diebacks of many key marine species. Fisheries around the world would be drastically affected, and many cultures dependent upon those resources would suffer severe famine if they weren't able to find some other food source.

Meteorologically speaking, the impact on the world's climate would perhaps be the most immediate and the most disastrous. The lunar tides act as a powerful engine to mix the world's oceans, bringing colder water from the depths up to blend with the warmer surface waters. Without the moon to drive that engine, surface temperatures of the world's oceans would change significantly, which would cause extreme and almost immediate changes to ocean currents and (as a result) worldwide weather patterns.

Longer term (over a period of several hundred thousand years), the Earth would become a much more inhospitable place to live. The gravitational tug of the moon presently acts as a stabilizer to the Earth's orbit, keeping the axis tilted at a constant 23.5 degrees or thereabouts. This constant axis is what allows the Earth to experience long, stable seasons. Remove that stabilizer, and the planet will begin to wobble more and more. As it wobbles more on its axis, there will be periods of time when each pole is pointing almost directly at the sun for part of each year, much like Mars - again, causing severe climatic variations worldwide.

So yeah, it would suck. This post is already way too long, so i won't even waste any more space going into how much different the planet would be if there had never been a moon at all (short version, we probably wouldn't even be here). But if we were to lose the moon now, it would be a royal pain in the ass for just about everyone.



AlwaysLisa -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/10/2009 5:05:38 PM)

quote:

This is a silly game.

What if a secret civilization of earthlings long sealed off are rescued, this film of water condensation from their activities underground, and their rescue the key to a new age of peace, prosperity, freedom from disease, spiritual understanding...



You mean like....Goreans? *grins*

Call it silly or whatever you will, tell me that we can predict without any doubt the outcome for generations to come, or that a probe won't impact the moon...and I could argue all the points presented.   If life has shown us anything, it is that we can't predict the future.   Hindsight is always 20/20 for a reason.   Minute things may have changed upon this last explosion to go un noticed, not to mention the changes that happen over time.   

The weather is changing, the earth is doing what it has done since it's creation, slowly and perhaps not visible to the naked eye, it is evolving.  Popping a hole into the moon could very well cause changes that you and I will not see in our lifetime.

It's not a "what if" game, more of a "who do we think we are question", that we need to blow holes into something as old as the moon and take unknown risks that will effect the entire population?  

I forget who stated we knew precisely what would happen, but I disagree.  True, they can predict the size of explosion, or how deep it would go, however the damage that hasn't occured as of yet, is impossible to forecast.

Lisa



thishereboi -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/10/2009 5:26:22 PM)

If people followed that line of reasoning, we would still be living in caves. 



thornhappy -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/10/2009 8:09:10 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: AlwaysLisa
Call it silly or whatever you will, tell me that we can predict without any doubt the outcome for generations to come, or that a probe won't impact the moon...and I could argue all the points presented.   ...
I forget who stated we knew precisely what would happen, but I disagree.  True, they can predict the size of explosion, or how deep it would go, however the damage that hasn't occured as of yet, is impossible to forecast.

Lisa

If you calculate the momentum transferred to the moon, you'd come up with something insignificant.  The moon gets smacked by small things all the time (there are seismographs up there that record impacts). 

These are simple physics problems.



Aylee -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/10/2009 8:32:04 PM)

They did find sodium, which was a surprise. 

http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=09&month=10&year=2009



thornhappy -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/10/2009 8:35:16 PM)

That is pretty trippy - wonder if it came off the earth from the original collision?



Aylee -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/10/2009 8:40:34 PM)

I would think that it would be more likely that it came from one of the asteroid or comet impacts.  I am NOT an astronomer though.  I had ONE astronomy class in college. 



ThatDamnedPanda -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/10/2009 9:12:54 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: AlwaysLisa

quote:

This is a silly game.

What if a secret civilization of earthlings long sealed off are rescued, this film of water condensation from their activities underground, and their rescue the key to a new age of peace, prosperity, freedom from disease, spiritual understanding...



You mean like....Goreans? *grins*

Call it silly or whatever you will, tell me that we can predict without any doubt the outcome for generations to come, or that a probe won't impact the moon...and I could argue all the points presented.   If life has shown us anything, it is that we can't predict the future.   Hindsight is always 20/20 for a reason.   Minute things may have changed upon this last explosion to go un noticed, not to mention the changes that happen over time.   



Let's say I decide to go out into my front yard with a rock and try to break my neighbor's window. I used to pitch on the high school baseball team, so I've got a pretty good arm, but still, his house is a ways away. So I don't know for sure that I'm going to hit a window. I'm going to throw it really hard, but I just don't know for sure that I'm going to actually break a window.

One thing I do know for sure, though, is that no matter how hard I throw that rock, I'm not going to blast his house off the face of the earth and crack the planet open. I do know that for sure. Like I said, I've got a good arm, but it's not that good.

But what you're saying is that because I don't know for sure that I'm going to break a window, there's no way i can be absolutely sure I'm not going to blow his house off the face of the earth and crack the planet open. That's pretty much the argument you're making here. And it just doesn't make any sense at all. Don't you see that?





ThatDamnedPanda -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/10/2009 9:14:58 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: thornhappy

quote:

ORIGINAL: AlwaysLisa
Call it silly or whatever you will, tell me that we can predict without any doubt the outcome for generations to come, or that a probe won't impact the moon...and I could argue all the points presented.   ...
I forget who stated we knew precisely what would happen, but I disagree.  True, they can predict the size of explosion, or how deep it would go, however the damage that hasn't occured as of yet, is impossible to forecast.

Lisa

If you calculate the momentum transferred to the moon, you'd come up with something insignificant.  The moon gets smacked by small things all the time (there are seismographs up there that record impacts). 

These are simple physics problems.



I just worked it out 10 minutes ago. It's very simple.

The total energy released by the impact of the satellite was 6,803,885,550 joules.

By way of comparison, a 747 crashing into the ground at 600 mph releases 197,846,313 joules of energy.

So in other words, the amount of kinetic energy delivered by the satellite was the equivalent of about 35 Boeing 747's crashing into the moon at the same time.

So, OP - yes, we do know that there is absolutely no way the satellite impact could cause any unforeseen damage to the moon. We keep explaining that we do, and explaining how we know - even showing you the numbers that prove our argument - and you just keep repeating that we don't know that for sure. No matter how many times we show that we do know. This is just high school level physics - a 9th grader can work this out in 3 minutes with a pocket calculator, and 2 minutes 30 seconds of that is the time it would take her to google the mass and the velocity of the satellite (that's about how long it took me to look it up and write it down).

The only thing I can conclude is that you just don't understand anything about science. And that's fine - there's nothing wrong with that. But please don't keep telling us that we don't know that for sure, when we keep demonstrating that we do know for sure. We're not the ones who don't understand.



Vendaval -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/10/2009 9:35:29 PM)

Yes, we do pay NASA to carry out scientific experiments and expeditions.  The moon is hit by comets and asteroids and assorted space debris on a regular basis.



DomKen -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/10/2009 10:02:47 PM)

If that little thing could have done the moon in then the rock that created Tycho would have torn it apart much less the monster that created the South Pole-Aitken basin, 2500km wide 13km deep crater on the dark side.



Musicmystery -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/10/2009 11:01:18 PM)

quote:

I forget who stated we knew precisely what would happen, but I disagree.  True, they can predict the size of explosion, or how deep it would go, however the damage that hasn't occured as of yet, is impossible to forecast.

Lisa


Apparently, you don't believe in mathematics or physics either.

Not only is it possible, it's possible to forecast precisely.



ThatDamnedPanda -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/10/2009 11:16:45 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen

If that little thing could have done the moon in then the rock that created Tycho would have torn it apart much less the monster that created the South Pole-Aitken basin, 2500km wide 13km deep crater on the dark side.


Wouldn't that have been something to see? Not the one that created the Aitken Basin, because that would have been on the far side. But Tycho - that would have been visible from Earth. What an amazing sight to have seen. I think I recall reading that they think the asteroid that created Tycho was from the same group of asteroids that smoked the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Cut a pretty wide swath, that little cloud of rocks.



Thadius -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/11/2009 5:52:13 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: AlwaysLisa

Is it just me...or does anyone else think crashing a vehicle into the moon is a bad idea?

We are so closely tied into the moons orbit, why are we meddling with the possibility of screwing things up even further on this planet?

Lisa


Maybe some of Bush's friends are left over and figured this could be the next form of entertainment, cosmic demolition derby?



AlwaysLisa -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/12/2009 7:32:50 AM)

quote:

But what you're saying is that because I don't know for sure that I'm going to break a window, there's no way i can be absolutely sure I'm not going to blow his house off the face of the earth and crack the planet open. That's pretty much the argument you're making here. And it just doesn't make any sense at all. Don't you see that?



Not what Im saying at all.   Listen closely.   It's not the damage that will occur upon impact, but rather what "may" happen years down the road.   Sort of like that rock that hits your windshield, it often will produce only a small, even un noticed "blip" in the glass, but over time that small imperfection has the possibility to span the entire surface.

There are chances to take in life, that won't effect others and I say go for it!   But when we are dealing with the unknown and how it could involve a great deal of the population, I say we should think twice, even three times.

I'm not carrying a sign claiming the earth is ending, or the moon will split in two sections, geesh...  I "am" saying that we don't know what effect these blastings will have in the generations to come.   We can't possibly know and it's damn arrogant of us to think we do.  




Muttling -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/12/2009 7:41:17 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: AlwaysLisa


I'm not carrying a sign claiming the earth is ending, or the moon will split in two sections, geesh...  I "am" saying that we don't know what effect these blastings will have in the generations to come.   We can't possibly know and it's damn arrogant of us to think we do.  




Planets and moons aren't held together by glue like your windshield.  The only thing holding them together is gravity.  Why do you think the earth stays together when it's crust is already fractured into several plates that move seperately (think. Pangea, platetonics, and earthquakes)?

There are some things that we can and do know.   The moon is cratered because it is hit by astroids on a regular basis, yet you seem to believe that one tiny satellite is going to somehow be different than the millions of previous impacts that the moon has taken. 



OrionTheWolf -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/12/2009 8:03:34 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: AlwaysLisa

This doesn't change the fact that we don't know everything.   The effects of our blasting may not be obvious for awhile, but one thing is certain, we can't predict the outcome.   I think it's lovely that the decision makers have gone ahead with something without knowing the after effects. 


Yes there could be a butterfly effect, but highly unlikely. Hopefully you have been able to read some of the reports and observations now. The future cannot be accurately predicted, but the minds at NASA have come up with probabilities of various things. Kind of like walking out our front door, we do not know if that action will lead to a series of events that causes someone death, but the probabilities are usually very, very low.

quote:


Sort of like when they tested the first bomb and crossed fingers.  Do we then all shout "oopsie" if it goes awry and millions are impacted?  Is water on the moon that important?   If people are going to be used as part of a scientific experiment, shouldn't they at least be aware?  

It's not like there hasn't been "oopsie's" in the past or anything.  


Actually it is not like testing the first bomb, as the scientific methods of observation are well advanced of the exaggerated example that you use. Yes water on the moon, or any celestial body other than Earth is important, as it is one of the basics needed to sustain and/or create life. Not sure how people are being used as an experiment, you could say the same thing about some of the alternative energy testing being done today.

Yes we pay NASA for things like this, and we have NASA to thank for many of the technological breakthroughs that have occurred since NASA was created.

Could you site an "oopsie" that relates to this? I am curious as to what you are talking about, and a good example may change the context of your concern.



Muttling -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/12/2009 8:54:08 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: OrionTheWolf


Actually it is not like testing the first bomb, as the scientific methods of observation are well advanced of the exaggerated example that you use.


Even the testing of the first bomb was not a risky as it is made out to be.   There was a lot of concern with a run away reaction, but that concern was raised by scientists who were not working with the first nuclear reactor and were not privelaged to the data that we had developed as it was highly classified.  (So classified that even Vice President Truman was not briefed about the Manhattan project until he was promoted upon Roosevelt's death.)

The theory of nuclear reactions and a bomb were widely known in the scientific/ medical community.  Contrary to popular belief, Japan knew exactly what had hit them.  If you read the journals of the doctors from Hiroshima, you will find that the military told them it was an atom bomb just 2 days after the strike and the doctors knew exactly what it was when they were told.  That's when they stopped thinking that they had a massive outbreak of dissentary and realized they were dealing with radiation sickness.  The doctors also knew that the soil at Hiroshima was radioactively contaminated and would stay that way for decades to come.

What wasn't widey known in the scientific community was that we had discovered how nuetron radiation controls a nuclear reaction and we had discovered that ONLY fissile materials will produce enough nuetron radiation to sustain a reaction.  By the time we detonated the first bomb, we had been running the world's only nuclear reactor for over 5 years and we knew a LOT about nuclear reactions.  What we didn't know was whether or not we could get ALL of the fissile material to react at once (e.g. make it go boom.)

For those that say the nuclear reactor could have run away with them, you don't understand how hard it is to get a nuclear reaction to start or how easily it is stopped.  We knew lead was a nuetron absorber from years of previous research.  If we have lead plates in a position to insert and block the nuetrons, we can catch the nuetrons and stop the reaction.  Risk of a runaway reaction was insanely low, the biggest concern was too much heat causing the lead to melt and loosing our control rods.  As I understand it, the reactor core was designed so that the pieces of radioactive material would fall away from each other if it got that hot.  Thereby, stopping the reaction with distance between sources.

Another contrary to popular belief on the nuclear bomb, is that the Nazis were close to having one.  While we knew they were trying, we didn't know that they had not been able to get their nuclear reactor working and you can't design a bomb if you don't have the research data from running a reactor. 



Termyn8or -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/12/2009 10:51:25 AM)

If we segue into the nuclear for a minute fine. But I would like to add my opinion.

Panda seems to have thought out the ramifications to the environment moreso than I. But it makes sense. However something I have been asserting for years is that all the nuclear testing going on in the world has had a deleterious effect on the overall climate. Underground tests are like a big subwoofer in a fish tank in a way. It almost has to have an effect.

The conspiracy theorist part of me wants to say that "they" knew what they were doing. I can't prove it of course, but in general famines and other disasters are usually good for "them" as "they" depend upon our dependency upon "them". While the whole thing was imprecise, either way it helped "their" agendae.

That is my assertion, to explain how I arrived at it would take a book. But as probablty one of the most skeptical of those who might be called conspiracy theorists, I am finding too many things that might be true for none of them to be true. A few of them must be true. The problem is figuring out which ones, and finding proof.

Which bring us to another point. They are worried about colonizing the moon ? It seems like they are decolonizing the world. If they keep wrecking the economy, Air Force One will eventually have to be grounded and the President will have to take a bus to work. All of our dreams of exploration will be brought to naught, because we are going to have our hands full just keeping body and soul together.

Like many, I don't believe that this little bomb will have any signifigant effect. However I do see it as a waste of money. If it costs $80,000 to send a gallon of water to the moon, what did it cost to send the bomb ?

T



Arpig -> RE: We pay NASA to do this? (10/12/2009 11:37:48 AM)

OK Lisa, just what dire consequences "in the generations to come" do you foresee? Just what sorts of things might our little probe crash cause?



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