Wile E. Coyote Hired by NASA!

Well, not really. After all, despite being a self-described super-genius, good ‘ol Wile E. is a coyote … and fictional. But still, if the cartoon canine somehow could take over a NASA mission, and if he somehow suspected the Road Runner was on the moon, the result would probably be something along the lines of what’s going to happen Friday morning. Starting at about 7:31 a.m. EDT, NASA will continue it’s “let’s smash stuff open and see what’s inside” method of exploration by having it’s LCROSS mission impact the moon, not just once, but twice. First the LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation Sensing Satellite) will separate from the empty Centaur rocket stage that helped send it on it’s mission. The rocket stage will be sent crashing into the lunar crater Cabeus. The LCROSS itself will be close behind, first monitoring the results of the Centaur impact, then impacting itself. The purpose of all this is to look for signs of water ice near the lunar south pole. Such a find could be a great boon to future manned moon missions. If you have a backyard scope ten inches or larger in diameter, you may be able to see the debris plume kicked up by the impacts yourself.  Check out this SPACE.com article for more information on when and where to look.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 8th, 2009 at 4:59 pm and is filed under Missions and Launches. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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