see http://www.denverastrosociety.org/chamberlin.html

Oh yeah, they are crashing the probe into the moon this morning.

I wonder if I could get in and watch?

The South door was locked, but the North door was open.

I was wondering if I was going to get arrested or something. But, like my Beagle Strider, sometimes the potential reward is worth the risk. He might get a piece of bacon and, well, so would I.

I peeked in the main room and there was a small group of men watching the atmosphere jiggle the image of the polar cap of the moon. At the center of the dancing image was the crater targeted by NASA in their search for water on the moon.

One of the men approached me with a very friendly grin and introduced himself. He was the President of the Denver Astronomical Society, Ron Mickle. I didn’t tell him the truth about who I was. After all, I was this little, mischievous boy of about nine sneaking in to take a peek. That wouldn’t do, so I told him I was one of the neighbors driving by and just wanted to look.

I mentioned I had read it cost $50,000 per pound to get water to the moon from the earth. They didn’t know that. Encouraged, I then rattled off a bunch of facts about the observatory. How it was financed by an early Denver real estate developer who later on went broke in the panic of 1893. How the first director of the observatory laid the foundation stone of the platform on which the scope was mounted.

Ron said it sounded like I had read the book.

I asked the quiet man with the beard who he was. It was the director of the observatory. He was also the author of the definitive history of the observatory, the book upon which I had based my comments.

I was invited to take a peek through the telescope before they shut things down.

What a thrill. Watching the moon just as the dawn was painting the fall dappled trees with its crimson kiss.

To cap everything off, meeting the author of Denver’s Great Telescope.

I have only one problem: How do I explain to my granddaughter Isabel why she wasn’t with when all this happened?

“Maybe liquid water exists below the surface. Maybe the moon has caverns or is hollow and contains a secret world with life a la Jules Verne. Imagine if all the time, energy and resources that are used for war around the planet were instead used for science and exploration. Or if some of those billions of dollars used to bailout corrupt corporations had been directed towards science. Wasted opportunities.”

For what? Liquid water exists below the surface of the Earth as well as above, has caverns and contains a secret world with life ala Jules Verne.

idlex (04:57:00) :
The argument that the moon is a dry, desolate place no longer holds water.

They’re just making a big splash. And trying to flood the airwaves. It will cut no ice with Dry Moon fundies. They’re not going to water down their convictions. They can see that you’re trying to rain on their parade. And pretty soon it’ll all just be water under the bridge anyway.

Not to be a wet blanket, but I’ve always found wading through these sorts of exercises to be quite draining. On the other hand others seem to lap it up.

I wash my hands of this whole moon business :)

Would you drips dry-up with the puns already?

<"[...] Who knows what else we will find on the moon of value, maybe gold?"

Yeah but… it'd be too expensive to ship it back to Earth.

idlex (04:57:00) :
The argument that the moon is a dry, desolate place no longer holds water.

They’re just making a big splash. And trying to flood the airwaves. It will cut no ice with Dry Moon fundies. They’re not going to water down their convictions. They can see that you’re trying to rain on their parade. And pretty soon it’ll all just be water under the bridge anyway.

Not to be a wet blanket, but I’ve always found wading through these sorts of exercises to be quite draining. On the other hand others seem to lap it up.

I wash my hands of this whole moon business :)

The moon IS a dry place. The water they found would be in ice or gas form, a solid most likely. Dry/Wet would be used to describe a liquid…any kind of liquid for that matter.

As far as my understanding goes the moon as no pressure, and therefore a liquid form of water couldnt even exist on it currently as far as weve currently dug down into it.

Yeah, they switched the target crater about a week prior to impact. Data from LRO indicated that there was a stronger hydrogen signature in Cabeus, so they switched to that crater and informed all of the professional, Earth based telescopes, that were participating and they all understood. The original target provided a good clear view from Earth, the final target was blocked from view by a high ridge. The decision was made because the primary goal was to collect data in the search for water, not to put on a show for the public. In the final assessment, science won over spectacle. (and the crowd rejoiced)
That being said, some Earth based telescopes did detect the plume above that ridge, one of them even detected an abundance of sodium in the plume. Apparently some fine dust and vapor went as high as 30km or more.

We’ve been talking about the LCROSS mission for a couple of months on Thunderbolts forum, including a few successful predictions and discussion of chemical reactions producing water.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2402