Why NASA Shot the Moon

By Alaina Grantham
Rotunda Reporter On Oct. 9, 2009, hundreds of hopeful amateur astronomers pointed their telescopes in the same direction. Hoping to catch a glimpse of something special, no they weren't looking for Leonoids meteor shower; that meteor shower is not expected to peak until Nov. 17. These astronomers were looking at something bigger, whiter, and far less likely to come crashing into our fragile planet in a spectacular light show.

They looked at the Moon to watch NASA's latest mission, LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite). Earlier, NASA had implied that if a person happened to be looking at the Moon when this mission took place, an observer with a telescope would be able to see the miles of moon dust, rock, and debris shoot away from the impact site where the LCROSS mission took place.

The idea of the mission is simple: shoot a rocket into the Moon, then have a second rocket follow the first to observe the collision before it crashes as well. The purpose of the LCROSS mission, however, is a little cloudier. Officially, the LCROSS mission was to study the formation of craters and confirm the presence of a significant amount of water on the Moon. Unofficially, it appears that the Moon had insulted NASA's mother and NASA was out for revenge.

Water on the Moon is not a new idea. NASA has suspected the presence of water on the Moon since 1994, when the Clementine spacecraft orbited the Moon and recorded trace amounts of water in its soil. This immediately prompted NASA to attempt to discover how much water was present on the Moon. Thus, several years and millions of dollars later, the LCROSS mission was born, and thousands of hopeful astronomers were promised not one but two explosions.

Unfortunately, the mushroom cloud from the explosions did not rise as high as NASA had predicted, and it was not easily observable from amateur telescopes. Even among the crushed dreams of the amateur astronomers, the second rocket was able to gather and send data from the plume of debris from the first rocket's impact before it, too, crashed into the surface on top of the crumpled remains of the first rocket.

On Nov.13, 2009, NASA announced that the data from the experiment proved the existence of significant amounts water of being present on the Moon, a month and a half after India's unmanned Chandrayaan-1 mission announced the presence of large amounts of water on the Moon without having to shoot at it.

Regardless of who made the first official announcement, the presence of large amounts of water on the Moon changes the way NASA and other space organizations look at the Moon. With the presence of water, the possibility of a permanent moon base starts to look less like science fiction and more like reality.

In addition to the potential of having readily available drinking water, a large amount of water could produce oxygen and rocket fuel for a moon base. This is because water contains two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen; hydrogen would produce the rocket fuel and oxygen would go towards producing air. These things combined could allow a base on the Moon to become a pivotal prototype for a future base on Mars and a launching site for future Mars missions.

However, a base on the Moon is still at least ten years away. Between financial difficulties, the length of project planning and plots to destroy the Moon, it is impossible for NASA to undertake a new project as immense as establishing a moon base. Though if the Moon does not apologize for its supposed insult, NASA might just feel inclined to launch more rockets at it first.