Water Found in Apollo Moon Rocks
From National Geographic:
Recently NASA crashed two spacecraft into the moon and orbiters scanned the lunar surface for telltale light signatures—all to confirm the rocky body isn’t bone dry after all.
But, it turns out, solid evidence for water on the moon was under our noses the whole time.
Tiny amounts of water have been found in some of the famous moon rocks brought back to Earth by the Apollo astronauts, scientists announced last Wednesday. (Related: “Apollo 11 at 40: Facts, Myths, Photos, and More.”)
The water levels detected in Apollo moon rocks and volcanic glasses are in the thousands of parts per million, at most—which explains why analyses of the samples in the late 1960s and early 1970s concluded that the moon was absolutely arid.
“Only in the last decade have instruments become sensitive…
Tons of Water Ice Found on the Moon’s North Pole
Thanks to Coast to Coast AM for posting this article to their Twitter feed. By Tariq Malik for Space.com:
Vast pockets of water ice numbering in the millions of tons have been discovered at the north pole of the moon, opening up another region of the lunar surface for potential exploration by astronauts and unmanned probes, NASA announced Monday.
A NASA radar instrument on an Indian moon probe found evidence of at least 600 million metric tons of water ice spread out on the bottom of craters at the lunar north pole. It is yet another supply of lunar water ice, a vital resource that could be mined to produce oxygen or rocket fuel to support a future moon base, NASA officials said.
More than 40 craters ranging from 1 mile (2 km) to 9…
The U.S. and Soviet Union Considered Detonating Nuclear Bombs on the Moon
With all the hubub about NASA blowing up the Moon last October, I thought disinfo.com readers would like to know the U.S. (and the Commies!) had it in mind all along.
Here’s another chapter from Russ Kick’s classic bite-size Disinformation book 50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know, published in 2003.
For more on Russ Kick, check out his website, The Memory Hole.
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You’d be forgiven for thinking that this is an unused scene from Dr. Strangelove, but the United States and the Soviet Union have seriously considered exploding atomic bombs on the Moon.
It was the late 1950s, and the Cold War was extremely chilly. Someone in the US government got the bright idea of nuking the Moon, and in 1958 the Air Force Special Weapons Center spearheaded the project (labeled A119, “A Study of…
Lunargate! Alex Burns Examines the Weird World of Moon Landing Conspiracies
The recent cuts to NASA’s budget, including the axing of the upcoming lunar missions, the Ares Rocket System, and the Orion Spacecraft, have left many of us quite scared for the future of the U.S. space program. This classic article from Alex Burns examines those that question whether or not NASA even got to the moon in the first place. Are we afraid to go back, or to go there at all?
Lunargate by Alex Burns
In a now infamous 1961 speech, US President John F. Kennedy pledged that America’s space program would “place a man on the moon before the decade’s close.” At the heart of cold war battles for geopolitical supremacy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs also became the vehicle for inculcating domestic populations with American values and belief systems.
NASA’s growing power, its protection by the Kennedy administration, and the rise of the Right Stuff astronaut as celebrity hid the steady growth of the Military-Industrial Complex that Eisenhower had warned about.
These anxieties — of monolithic social institutions controlling information, and the decline of US global empires — are the core of conspiracy theories claiming the historic Apollo moon landings were elaborately faked. The world was hoaxed.
Was the Moon Created by a Nuclear Explosion on Earth?
From the Daily Mail:
How the Moon was created and came to orbit the Earth has long puzzled scientists.
The most commonly held theory is that when the solar system was first formed, an object collided with Earth, knocking off a chunk of rock that fell into orbit around it.
But now two scientists have come up with a new explanation. They believe the Moon did not break away from the Earth because of an impact or an explosion in space, but because of a nuclear explosion on Earth itself.
Similarities: Lunar samples from moon landings have shown that the material of the moon is nearly identical to Earth’sTheir idea is based on the fission theory which was first outlined in the 19th century.
The fission theory suggested that the Earth and Moon were both…
Wolf Moon, Largest of 2010, Appears Tonight With Support By Mars
For those of you not in a part of the world too cold (or too far) to go outside and take a look, today brings a rare appearance of the year’s largest full moon, with a bonus appearance by planet Mars, just to the left of the moon. This report from National Geographic:
The biggest full moon of 2010 will rise in the east tonight, and it’ll appear with a bright sidekick: Mars will cozy up just to the left of the supersize moon.
January’s full moon is also called the wolf moon, according to Native American tradition associating this month’s full moon with wolves howling in the cold midwinter.
The 2010 wolf moon will appear 30 percent brighter and 14 percent larger than any other full moon this year, because our cosmic…
Obama Will Axe NASA’s Moon Mission
From the Orlando Sentinel:
NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there — that is, if President Barack Obama gets his way.
When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.
There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.
In their place, according to White House…
“Missing” Moon Rocks Found in File Cabinet
From CBS News:
Lunar Souvenirs From Apollo Missions, Mistakenly Presumed Lost, Turn Up in Locked Cabinet in Hawaii.
Missing moon rocks from the first and last human lunar landings have been discovered in a locked cabinet in Hawaii.
The rare rocks from the Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 missions were found last week during a routine inventory of gifts to the Hawaii governor’s office over the years.
The rocks were given to the people of Hawaii during the Nixon administration, but they were presumed lost when a noted moon rock tracker and former NASA employee said their whereabouts were unknown.
[Read more at CBS News]
After 40 Years’ Reflection, Laser Moon Mirror Project is Axed
From The Guardian:
US research that began with the first Apollo landing – and helped to prove that the moon is moving away from Earth – is to be axed.
An experiment, begun when Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left a mirror on the lunar surface 40 years ago to allow Earth-based astronomers to fire lasers at it, has been ended by American science chiefs.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) last week wrote to scientists working at the McDonald Laser ranging station at Fort Davis in Texas to tell them the annual $125,000 funding for their research project was going be terminated following a review of its scientific merits.
The decision means that four decades of continuous lunar laser research at the McDonald Observatory, run by the University of Texas at…
Moon Hole Might be Suitable for Colony
Via CNN:
Building a home near a moon crater or a lunar sea may sound nice, but moon colonists might have a much better chance of survival if they just lived in a hole.
That’s the message sent by an international team of scientists who say they’ve discovered a protected lunar “lava tube” — a deep, giant hole — that might be well suited for a moon colony or a lunar base.
The vertical hole, in the volcanic Marius Hills region on the moon’s near side, is 213 feet wide and is estimated to be more than 260 feet deep, according to findings published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
More important, the scientists say, the hole is protected from the moon’s harsh temperatures and meteorite strikes by a…
Avatar’s Pandora May Be Real
Several news outlets are running a story about the likelihood of there being habitable moons like the one in the revolutionary movie Avatar. [As an aside, if you have the slightest interest in moviemaking, or just plain filmed entertainment, go and see Avatar on the biggest 3D screen you can find, preferably IMAX; it really does live up to the hype.] From Discovery News:
As James Cameron’s animated sci-fi movie Avatar goes on general release, astronomers point out that the movie’s habitable moon called “Pandora” may exist in reality.
Although none have been found to date, “exomoons” orbiting exoplanets are sure to exist. Could an exomoon be detected? If so, could that exomoon’s atmosphere be probed? Yes and yes, according to today’s announcement by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), Mass.
Moon Water: Will Lunar-Base Humans Be Able to Drink It?
Rebecca Sato writes on the Daily Galaxy:
Scientists recently solved some longstanding lunar mysteries, including how the Moon is producing its own water.
While it turns out that the Moon is not made out of Swiss cheese (disappointing, I know—that would have been a food source for lunar explorers), it does act like a big sponge of sorts. The lunar surface is a loose collection of irregular dust grains, known as regolith. Basically, the regolith absorbs electrically charged particles given out by the Sun. These electrically charged particles interact with molecules of oxygen that are already present in lunar dust, and voila, you have H2O…
NASA Finds “Significant” Water on Earth’s Moon
From (CNN):
NASA has discovered water on the moon, based on data from the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, that plunged into the moon last month, the principal investigator for LCROSS said Friday.
Anthony Colaprete said at the start of his comments to reporters, “Indeed, yes, we found water.”
“The discovery opens a new chapter in our understanding of the moon,” NASA said in a written statement…
[continues at (CNN)]
Nuke the Moon: 5 Certifiably Insane Cold War Projects
Some fun mad science from Cracked.com:
The upcoming movie The Men Who Stare at Goats tells the story of a military operation that attempted to create Jedi warriors who could teleport through walls and kill goats by staring at them. It all sounds pretty far-fetched … until you realize that it’s based on a true story, and it’s just one of many bizarre operations Cold War-era militaries pursued seriously.
See, the Cold War was never really about physical combat. It was more like telling stories around a campfire: Whoever had the scariest idea, wins. And killing goats with your eyes was just the tip of the pant-crappingly crazy iceberg.
#5.
Project A119In the years before the first lunar landing, the United States was lagging behind a bit in the space race. The Soviets had both…
William Saffire’s Alternate Apollo 11 Speech: STRANDED!
Here is the speech he drafted for Nixon to read in case the Apollo 11 Astronauts became stranded on the moon!
It is a wonderful piece of alternate universe American history, in which President Nixon had to explain to a nation that Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were going to die on the moon.
One Giant Con for Mankind? – Out There Radio: Episode 14
Out There Radio – Episode 14: One Giant Con for Mankind?
Website • iTunes • Direct Download • RSS
You knew we had to cover it at some point… In the 14th episode of Out There Radio, we take on the allegations that the moon landing was faked. An interesting discussion of a subject that has received a lot of attention recently. Beware the deadly Van Allen Radiation Belt!
