NASA Moon Bombing: Scientific Exploration or Act of War?

Is NASA bombing the moon? The act sounds like something out of a Robert Heinlein novel or some science fiction movie about wayward colonies, but it is true that NASA has launched a mission (LCROSS) that will send a missile that will literally crash ("bomb") into the southern surface of the moon in an attempt to find ice. The NASA moon bombing will take place inside a crater on the moon's southern pole, and the impact is expected to produce such a cloud of debris that scientists back on Earth can ascertain whether or not water actually exists in some form on the moon.

The LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite) Mission is not an act of war or vandalism, as some have claimed. According to Scientific American, the NASA moon bombing is also part of a dual scientific mission. A centaur rocket (which will be the object bombing the moon) and a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will both be launched from an Atlas V rocket, which will get the mission to Earth orbit.

The LCROSS spacecraft will first orbit the Earth a few times before its target is pinpointed. As it heads toward the moon, it will be shepherded by smaller craft which will monitor and capture data about the mission, including data from the debris cloud after impact. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will detach long before impact and begin its separate mission of orbiting the lunar surface in search of possible lunar landing sites, places for possible colonization, and materials that could possibly sustain a moon colony.

The impact of the LCROSS missile is scheduled to occur at approximately 7:31 a.m. October 9. The missile is designed to hit the moon's surface at twice the speed of a bullet. It is expected to have an impact equivalent to 1.5 tons of TNT. The debris cloud is expected to be visible from Earth with the aid of a telescope.

The intent of the NASA moon bombing is to find proof of the hypothesis offered by British scientists last year that, since the southern pole of the moon has craters with shadows that have never seen sunlight, ice may be trapped in the crater shadows. This backed up findings of a NASA lunar probe called Lunar Prospector in 1998 that found evidence that the moon's soil held water.

Sounds peaceful enough, but there are those who believe that the NASA moon bombing is an act of aggression against an extraterrestrial civilization and, as an act of overt aggression, is a direct violation of a United Nations treaty, of which the United States is a signatory.

According to an article reaching wide circulation on the world wide web (this particular incarnation posted by Norwegian Viking on Free Republic), the United Nations Outer Space Treaty maintains that: "The moon and other celestial bodies will be used by all States Parties to the Treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes. The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military maneuvers on celestial bodies shall be forbidden." Using that as a base and stating that astronauts, cosmonauts, scientists and the NSA (National Security Agency) have confirmed that extraterrestrials do exist on the moon, the article makes its case that to "bomb" the moon would be a violation of the U. N. Treaty and an act of violence against possible extraterrestrial civilizations. It also suggests that the bombing of the moon may be an attempt for the U. S. to gain sovereignty over the moon, which is also a violation of the U. N. Treaty. The article also implores those in agreement to contact the Director of NASA to stop the NASA moon bombing.

Could any part of the aforementioned article hold any truth? Besides the well-documented statements of many astronauts that they had spied UFOs and other anomalies in space and the fact that the U. N. Outer Space Treaty exists, the extrapolation that all the gathered statements and "evidence" is proof of an extraterrestrial presence on the moon (or anywhere else) is a monstrous stretch. To suggest that the United States, through NASA, is attempting to establish sovereignty by crashing a missile (no explosives involved) into the surface of the moon, is imaginative but misguided. As the Associated Press pointed out, Friday's impact will be the 20th such crash into the moon's surface (and nearly all of them on purpose) in 50 years.

That the United States and others may wish to someday place colonies on the moon is a foregone conclusion. Proving that ice exists in the crater shadows could go a long way in providing a much-needed and readily available resource for the colonization of Earth's nearest neighbor.

To believe that various military agencies aren't watching with interest the NASA moon bombing would be the height of naivete. There is no doubt military advantage to be had by establishing bases on the moon, not to mention productive information to be gained by watching something impact the moon's surface. But to combine reports of UFO sightings, a U. N. Space Treaty, and the LCROSS mission as a complicated plan to establish lunar sovereignty for the United States or to aggressively attack an extraterrestrial civilization really does sound like the plot of a Robert Heinlein novel.

******

Sources:

Associated Press
FreeRepublic.com
ScientificAmerican.com