Washing Machines on the Moon

Not really, but that’s about the size of these two probes, cutely named EBB and FLOW, being smashed into a mountain on the moon.

Two Space Probes to Crash, Intentionally, on Dark Side of Moon (NYT)

Well, I guess that’s ONE WAY of finding WATER on the MOON!

We’ve read it before, time and again.  This time, the Times is telling us what our “Exploration” Really Is and

How We Really View the Moon Wilderness. . .

“The Moon has been affronted this way many times before, especially during the space race of the 1960′s,  but NASA is now trying to dispose of its litter more carefully.”

“The exercise will not be for the advance of science, but rather something of a garbage-disposal operation. . .”

NASA is bringing them down

“to make sure the probes. . .do not come to rest in a historically significant place, like on Neil Armstrong’s footprints.”

Now wouldn’t THAT be a wake up call!

SPACE JUNK DESTROYS FOOTPRINTS OF FIRST HUMAN ON MOON!

No, can’t have THAT.  So they’ll crash the ebbing and flowing crafts and their toxic materials into the Dark Side.  Now isn’t THAT another enlightening bit of information (and so American. . .just pollute where we won’t have to SEE it).

I ask again, what if the headline was:

Air Force to Drop Bombs on Rocky Mountain National Park

OR,

Navy to Dump Tons of Waste on Protected Florida Reef

Or, here’s one more

Walmart fires microwave ovens at the Lincoln Memorial (but they’re on sale!)

Over and over again, NASA is giving us Reason after Reason to Protect the Moon from this desecration NOW.

Time to do some Mental Laundry. . .

Whoops, almost forgot to mention. . . Don’t try to find an Ebb and Flow at your local Sears.  The mission cost NASA, that is, the United States, that is, Americans, $500,000,000.

Sorry, one more trivia tidbit. . . NASA named that obliterated lunar mountainside “Sally Ride” in honor of (sic) the late astronaut.  What a thoughtful honor, don’t you think?

America’s Moon?

William Anders, Apollo 8, 44 years ago this month. . .

Took this incredible, iconic shot

*

Listen closely to what he says about a guiding purpose of those missions (Pacific Northwest Magazine):

“And let’s get real about what pushed us in the first place: “Apollo was all about beating the Russians to the moon,” says Anders, a nuclear engineer who once headed a critical U.S. commission on the future of post-Apollo spaceflight. “It was not to get rocks. We went to the moon to stick the flag in.”

And what he says about the future of spaceflight:

“Anders was no fan of George W. Bush’s announced plan to return to the moon as a springboard to Mars. And unlike many of his fellow NASA alums, who sharply criticized the Obama administration for shelving those plans, he argues for a leaner space agency that’s less of a budgetary monster. In the short term, he says, America is doing the correct, and affordable, thing by launching unmanned probes such as the Curiosity rover, and farming the heavy lifting of near space to private industry.

He warns against another space race to the next available planet.

“If humans are going to Mars to explore, then they ought to do it as united humans, not just jingoistic Americans,” he says, adding, “I don’t see it happening for another couple hundred years — if we’re still around.”

And how his flight changed his views on Religion:

“Ironically, Anders’ six days in space forever altered his own view of his place in the universe. Raised a Catholic, Anders says he held generally to a traditional Christian viewpoint of the Earth being created by a God who fashioned Earthlings in his own image.

The view from space changed everything.

Earth, seen from the moon, Anders explains, looks to be about the size of your fist at arm’s length. Two lunar distances away, it’s half that size; at eight, it’s one-eighth of that. And so on. Even at 100 lunar distances, still far short of Mars or any other planet, Earth is rendered as a dust speck — beyond insignificant against the vast scale of the universe.

It is one thing to imagine this. It’s another to get far enough into space to feel it.

“When I looked back and saw that tiny Earth, it snapped my world view,” Anders says. “Here we are, on kind of a physically inconsequential planet, going around a not particularly significant star, going around a galaxy of billions of stars that’s not a particularly significant galaxy — in a universe where there’s billions and billions of galaxies.”

“Are we really that special? I don’t think so.”

Another Mission to the Moon?

My comment on this article (NPR)

“First, we should explore space (if we can afford it. . .a big IF). Second, any further explorations should be joint, international research voyages (not owned and operated by one country or corporation). Third, our track record suggests we haven’t learned much since the days of the pioneers (we make a mess of things and tend to kill things to get there. . .see what we’ve left behind and how we slam rockets into the land). Fourth, let the world community create a Neil Armstrong Moon Wilderness NOW (and preserve this pristine environment in the sky for future generations of all earth-dwellers).”

Golden Spike

Golden Spike!?  You’ve got to be kidding.  We’ve been warning about this kind of madness.

Here’s my comment on this article on the Washington Post:

“Bad idea. Ground it. Think Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon. . .if only the rich could go, stake a claim, develop. . . Think about it. As some have been saying for a long time, it’s time for the international community to designate the lunar landscape a Moon Wilderness Park (www.moonpark.wordpress.com) with an area set aside as the Neil Armstrong Preserve. Sooner or later it has to be done, or we will all be looking up at The Corporate Moon or The Military Moon or the American Moon.”

Golden Spike?  And Newty is on the board?!  Give us, and the moon, an astronomical break!

Next (you wait, this is a prophecy), we will hear the GangRich and his folks claiming the Moon was given to them By GOD as an “exceptional” annex of the New Holy Land (aka America).  You wait.  You heard it here first!

Neil Armstrong

A great man is gone.  The news is that Neil Armstrong died.

His place in history, as the first human to step on the moon, is established.

Now, perhaps we could consider whether The Moon Park Wilderness could also be named

The Neil Armstrong Moon Wilderness.

A fitting tribute, not only to an American, but to an explorer, to a true citizen of the world.

(I wonder if his ashes might one day be scattered to mingle with the soil of the wild moon)

 

The Best Reason Yet

I watched the wonderful landing of “Curiosity” on MARS this week.  Amazing.  Incredible technological and scientific achievement.  And as I celebrated with the brilliant team that achieved this momentous feat, I wondered about a few things:

1)  Where were other countries in the accomplishment?  No doubt many countries contributed expertise and parts and such.  But, like so much of the Olympic coverage, we just see the Americans congratulating themselves.

2)  Are we going to make a Mess of Mars the way we already have of the Moon?  I see it going that way real fast!

3)  When will our “Curiosity” as a species be practiced with Responsibility, Respect, Cooperation and simple Common Sense?

Now, this is just about the most disturbing piece of information I’ve heard about the moon in a long time, and EXACTLY WHY I have been publishing this blog lobbying for a MOON PARK.  We KNEW this was coming.

NASA’s claim to the “historic artifacts” left behind on the United States of the Moon (Read this:  NPR).  Then, if you have the heart for it, read NASA’s “Recommendations to Space-Faring Entities”

Incredibly audacious.  So American.  We love our monuments, memorials, “sacred sites” and we’ll claim them and protect them at all cost.  How arrogant!  Almost funny, until you cry.

Here’s what NASA demands (politely asks) of all other nations who would dare to approach these (sacred U.S. territory?) sites:

Since the completion of the Apollo lunar surface missions in 1972, no missions have returned to visit these historic sites, leaving them in pristine condition and undisturbed by artificial processes (the sites have changed due to normal space weathering). It is anticipated that future spacecraft will have the technology and their operators will have the interest to visit these sites in the coming years. These visits could impose significant disturbance risks to these sites, thus potentially destroying irreplaceable historic, scientific and educational artifacts and materials.

This part is not at all surprising, and once again raises the question:  What if this was Yosemite?  Alaska?  The Antarctic?  The Ocean?  The Air?

A number of spacecraft have been deliberately crashed into the lunar surface. During the Apollo Era, these included the Saturn IVB upper stages, the Ranger spacecraft, and the Lunar Excursion Modules (LEM). Given the impact velocity, no trace of these spacecraft should survive. However, the impact generates a fresh lunar crater, whose age is known exactly. The scientific community would be interested in the morphology of the crater (depth, diameter, shape, etc.), the nature of the ejecta blanket as a function of distance from the crater (depth, continuity, size distribution, rays, etc.), and the nature of the target material. With that kind of information, models of impact physics could be improved. All of the above properties are ‘extensive’ (as opposed to ‘intensive’) and should not be compromised in any way by a rover trekking around among the debris. It would also be interesting (and surprising) if anything recognizable from the impactor still exists.

Note Page 54 and following in the “Recommendations.”  TWENTY-TWO PAGES of “Artifacts” (experiments and equipment) the United States has left on the lunar surface and doesn’t want anyone to disturb!

See Page 76 (here’s where it gets even more disturbing in the disturbance of the pristine lunar surface):  Additional Assets left on the Moon (EIGHTEEN PAGES):

including:  4 “defecation collection devices” (now THERE’S pieces of History!); hammers; batteries; cameras; boots; wet wipes and of course, lots of Flag Kits!

Sounds like our Local Dump doesn’t it?  And WHO PAID for all this waste?  Moon exploration is costly enough (and ONCE AGAIN I AM NOT AGAINST RESPONSIBLE EXPLORATION!).

And WE want others, who may drop in, to “respect” and avoid “contaminating” our precious Junk-Strewn areas of the Great Moon Wilderness!

Sure makes you want to look up in a different way at the Beautiful Moon that belongs to no one and No Nation, doesn’t it?

Imagine hiking through Yellowstone or the Great Smoky Mountains and having to follow a map of Where the Sacred Garbage Dump is located

SO NOT to “disturb” or “desecrate” the place!  Don’t Disturb Our Garbage and the Ground it Litters!

Madness. . . as only NASA and our Arrogant, bumbling “Leaders” can show. . .

{I really feel like giving up this “campaign.”  Anyone care?  Out there?  Anyone?}

Moon Flags

The U.S. of A.nything is Ours has left six (6) flags littering the lunar landscape.

Here’s the comment I left on this (HUFF):

Six flags. Sounds like a theme-park, but I guess this is supposed to foreshadow the 51st state? Seriously, it’s time for the U.N. to declare the moon an international wilderness park, before this great treasure in the sky becomes a political football or worse.