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?