Moon crash produces much data, little drama

Originally posted by RoofMonkey
That would be radar sounding It's not just bouncing the pulse anymore. Terrain make up and composition determines the return echo that you get. Multiband operations will resolve ambiguities in the echo, and INSAR / ISAR technology will get the data details down to a gnats arse. BTW... done right, you can get a ground penetrating function out of the right radar choice. That's how the fossil rivers under the sands of the Sahara were discovered.

And those experiments ruled out bedrock and/or thick ice did they?

I am not the one that STATED that the plume would be that high. NASA was, or at least it was derived from NASA's normally optimistic projections that tend to leave out the possibility of FAILURE.

If you paid attention you'd know that LCROSS was given a higher level of risk tolerance due to its tight budget nature and after-thought-like design. The possibility of mission failure was not left out, but a surprise result is not failure, it is new and useful information. Like Thomas Edison, sometimes you must find 999 ways not to build the light bulb to figure out how one is properly built.

I'm guessing your lack of a response to my personal observation is a retraction of the claim that I don't know whether NASA was lying to me about it or not?

[edit on 11-10-2009 by ngchunter]

Originally posted by Hal9000
NASA just posted some pictures of the plume.

Infrared:



The flash:



www.nasa.gov...

It is very small, but it looks pretty conclusive that they did not miss.

Of course some will claim that the images are chopped.

[edit on 10/11/2009 by Hal9000]

Too bad the source is NASA. I really would like to trust the photos but these are the guys who want us to keep giving them money.

Originally posted by ngchunter


I'm guessing your lack of a response to my personal observation is a retraction of the claim that I don't know whether NASA was lying to me about it or not?

[edit on 11-10-2009 by ngchunter]

Better go back and read again bright one.


Your rapid umbrage taking has left you responding to a draft of the post.



For the rest:

127mm reflector images of the Cabeus crater and surrounding area.

spaceweather.com...

and

spaceweather.com...

[edit on 11-10-2009 by RoofMonkey]

NASA scientists are grappling with a mystery. What did the debris go? Last Friday morning, Oct. 9th, the water-seeking LCROSS spacecraft and its Centaur booster rocket crashed into the floor of crater Cabeus near the Moon's south pole, on time and on target. But the debris plumes that were supposed to issue from the impacts failed to materialize.

...even Palomar's sensitive adaptive optics system registered nothing

www.spaceweather.com...


So... the only evidence we have that anything happened, is supplied by NASA.


Go figure.


NOTE: At Spaceweather, there is a sped up mpg of the crater and impact area that encompasses 12 minutes. Frame by frame, I looked with the brightness and contrast pushed using VLC, and could still make out no indication of any parts of the inbound space craft, or of the impact.

From the viewing angle, the frame is about 80 to 120 miles accoss and extends upward to about 100 to 120 miles in altitude. The probe(s) were supposed to be traveling about one mile per second. This means that the object(s) should have been in the field of view for about 2 minutes. Sure, it would not be perfect... but there was ample oportunity to see glints and specular reflection from the craft(s).

What do you see? Nada, zilch., nothing.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/502f085d48f8.png[/atsimg]

BTW... about 100 miles from the impact zone.. is the location of the 1998 lunar prospector.

At the end of its successful orbital mapping mission, the Lunar Prospector spacecraft was intentionally crashed into a crater near the lunar south pole. It was hoped that the impact would release water vapor from possible ice deposits in the crater and that the plume would be detectable from Earth, however, no plume was observed.

Current link to the Palomar footage.





[edit on 12-10-2009 by RoofMonkey]

Originally posted by RoofMonkey
Better go back and read again bright one.


Your rapid umbrage taking has left you responding to a draft of the post.



For the rest:

127mm reflector images of the Cabeus crater and surrounding area.

Not only is my telescope larger and more powerful than the 127mm reflector mentioned, but a webcam style imager is capable of missing the flash between frames or even simply too insensitive to it whereas the human eye is both more sensitive and capable of detecting much faster, briefer flashes of light without fail. You were better to just leave my first hand observation alone.

Originally posted by RoofMonkey
So... the only evidence we have that anything happened, is supplied by NASA.

Wrong. I saw it myself, but in addition to that we also have amateur images of the impactor on its way to the moon proving it was on course for lunar impact.
www.backyardastronomer.com...

Originally posted by RoofMonkey
NOTE: At Spaceweather, there is a sped up mpg of the crater and impact area that encompasses 12 minutes. Frame by frame, I looked with the brightness and contrast pushed using VLC, and could still make out no indication of any parts of the inbound space craft, or of the impact.

And you expected to see a spacecraft in images set to properly expose the bright lunar terrain WHY? Just look at how long the amateur images of LCROSS were in the above animation; he was able to detect a very small dim galaxy in the same field and LCROSS itself was a streak. That's another reason why it's entirely possible that even larger observatories could have missed a very dim flash; if they set their imagers to properly expose the bright lunar terrain with a fast exposure setting expecting a much brighter flash, they could have missed it simply because CCD imagers don't have the kind of dynamic range to simultaneously detect dim objects, stars, and flashes as well as bright lunar terrain. A CCD's response to light is linear, the human eye is logarithmic.

[edit on 12-10-2009 by ngchunter]

Amazing how you have deluded yourself.

It's a pity. Really.



Ya better get ahold of NASA.... they would love to see your results.


I also think that there is more than one paper or news outlet that would be willing to pay through the eye-tooth for your imagery.

[edit on 12-10-2009 by RoofMonkey]

Originally posted by ^anubis^
reply to post by ROBL240

 

wouldnt they had discovered this when they stuck the American Flag into the ground?

[edit on 9-10-2009 by ^anubis^]

Common sense strikes again. Thank you for pointing out the obvious. For complex reasons, the simplest answer is the hardest to see.

Originally posted by ngchunter
... small dim galaxy in the same field and LCROSS itself was a streak. That's another reason why it's entirely possible that even larger observatories could have missed a very dim flash...

Ya know, rather than being personally pissed off at derisive comments directed at NASA's observability predictions, you ought to be interested in a couple of points that have come up in our discourse. (There is real usable science in there ... somewhere... lurking)

I have stated that NASA has the tools and experience to make a much more accurate determination of what the probe should have done. Just a mere 100 or so miles away, also in the polar region, Lunar Prospector went "thump" back in 1998. It also produced no plume and stymied NASA at the time.

So... 11 years later, NASA repeats the experiment (crashing a probe into the polar lunar surface)... and expects different results.


... I'm not gonna site the quotation about this. It's worn-out and has dubious origins.










[edit on 12-10-2009 by RoofMonkey]

reply to post by RoofMonkey


Maybe they tried it again at a higher velocity and maybe still didn't get what they expected. Sometimes you don't get the results you expect. It happens. I don't see why folks like you are so critical of NASA.

If they knew for sure what the result of the experiment would be, there wouldn't be any need to do it.

Originally posted by RoofMonkey
Amazing how you have deluded yourself.

It's a pity. Really.

You go on thinking that, I really don't care. I know what I saw. I don't have a photo of it which is precisely HOW I was able to see it. Had my camera been recording an image at the time, the mirror would have been flipped up and I would not have seen anything through the camera's viewfinder. Basic SLR operation 101.

Originally posted by ngchunter

Originally posted by RoofMonkey
Amazing how you have deluded yourself.

It's a pity. Really.

You go on thinking that, I really don't care. I know what I saw. I don't have a photo of it which is precisely HOW I was able to see it. Had my camera been recording an image at the time, the mirror would have been flipped up and I would not have seen anything through the camera's viewfinder. Basic SLR operation 101.

Man.. you have got to be one of the more pissed off people on the net.

Okay.. I'll go the ad hominem route since you think it's all about you.

You are delusional.

NASA, with it's best theories and equipment can not account for the LACK of the predicted plume.

All they have to show for it are some instrumental imagery results and data that THEY produced.

Unless your eyes suffer some X-man like feature of being able to see IN THE INFRARED, then you have some sort of mental / cognitive deficiency. I recommend you seek professional help before you hurt yourself.

Originally posted by RoofMonkey
Ya know, rather than being personally pissed off at derisive comments directed at NASA's observability predictions, you ought to be interested in a couple of points that have come up in our discourse. (There is real usable science in there ... somewhere... lurking)

Rather than make derisive comments maybe your time would be better spent trying to understand the real reason for the outcome of the experiment, which is far more telling than snide remarks.

I have stated that NASA has the tools and experience to make a much more accurate determination of what the probe should have done. Just a mere 100 or so miles away, also in the polar region, Lunar Prospector went "thump" back in 1998. It also produced no plume and stymied NASA at the time.

Lunar Prospector was far lighter than a Centaur stage. A mere 158kg in fact. It makes LCROSS itself look massive by comparison! If in the future hit they were to hit Cabeus again with a S-IVB and still got a negative result, that wouldn't mean they should have predicted a negative result based on hitting it with a lighter Centaur stage. This isn't science, it's exactly what you called it, derision.

So... 11 years later, NASA repeats the experiment (crashing a probe into the polar lunar surface)... and expects different results.

Centaur stage mass: 2000kg Impact Velocity: 2.5km/sec
Prospector mass: 158kg Impact Velocity: 1.69km/sec
Do the math. 5000kN vs 267.02kN. When you "repeat" an impact with almost 19 times the force you used before you shouldn't necessarily expect the same result. Try again.

Would a very small 'plume' indicate the soil is being held together by something? I mean... unsettle dry dust, and you get a lot of that dust rising. Unsettle moist dust and you don't get a lot of anything.

Originally posted by RoofMonkey
Man.. you have got to be one of the more pissed off people on the net.

Says the guy openly admitting to engaging in derision and ad hominems.

Okay.. I'll go the ad hominem route since you think it's all about you.

Ad hominem = fail. Since you're so fond of distrusting NASA, what makes you believe that their visible light detectors were set to be sensitive enough to detect fainter flashes, especially since they were expecting a bright flash that would flood a sensitive setting?

[edit on 12-10-2009 by ngchunter]

Originally posted by ngchunter

Originally posted by RoofMonkey
Man.. you have got to be one of the more pissed off people on the net.

Says the guy openly admitting to engaging in derision and ad hominems.

Okay.. I'll go the ad hominem route since you think it's all about you.

Ad hominem = fail. Since you're so fond of distrusting NASA, what makes you believe that their visible light detectors were set to be sensitive enough to detect fainter flashes, especially since they were expecting a bright flash that would flood a sensitive setting?

[edit on 12-10-2009 by ngchunter]

That's my point... NOBODY has any imagery. And they were expecting it. They knew it was coming.

Show me the European, Japanese, Russian.. even French who have some indication of a recorded plume.

Think about it. This was FREE science. All they had to do was watch and get a spectrographic reading. Where are the announcements that they have something to look at?

So far, the only entity making noise about having something...anything... is NASA.


And NASA has a vested interest in having something. More money.


Edit Add: As for openly partaking in derision and ad hominem, yup. And YOU are the one who took offense that I was making derisive comments about NASA's credibility. It wasn't your issue... you injected yourself, personally, into that argument.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not some moon landing denier. I was glued to the TV during the Apollo missions. I was (and still am) a fanbois of sorts with regards to that. But NASA is no longer what NASA was. The bureaucracy has grown, metastasized. It has become hungry like all bureaucracies do. It craves money.




[edit on 12-10-2009 by RoofMonkey]

Originally posted by RoofMonkey
That's my point... NOBODY has any imagery. And they were expecting it. They knew it was coming.

Show me the European, Japanese, Russian.. even French who have some indication of a recorded plume.

Think about it. This was FREE science. All they had to do was watch and get a spectrographic reading. Where are the announcements that they have something to look at?

I'm not arguing about the non-existence of a detectable plume. We were expecting a plume, we didn't get one over 2.1 km high, I'm not contesting that. A plume is not the same as a flare, try again.

So far, the only entity making noise about having something...anything... is NASA.

Again, I saw something, enough to know it wasn't a hoaxed show put on for money.

Edit Add: As for openly partaking in derision and ad hominem, yup. And YOU are the one who took offense that I was making derisive comments about NASA's credibility. It wasn't your issue... you injected yourself, personally, into that argument.

You claimed no one saw anything, and yup, I object because I DID see something. You say I'm delusional, fine, other posters here have disagreed with that label on other threads. And again, ad hominem = fail. It's unfortunate that you feel it's necessary to resort to that.

[edit on 12-10-2009 by ngchunter]

Originally posted by ngchunter

I'm not arguing about the non-existence of a detectable plume. We were expecting a plume, we didn't get one. A plume is not the same as a flare, try again.

flare
(flâr)
v. flared, flar·ing, flares
v.intr.
1. To flame up with a bright, wavering light.

Hows that?

Again, I saw something, enough to know it wasn't a hoaxed show put on for money.

I didn't say it was hoaxed. I said they may have missed. This is based on some of their historical bonehead mistakes... such as getting the units wrong in a critical calculation.

You claimed no one saw anything, and yup, I object because I DID see something. You say I'm delusional, fine, other posters here have disagreed with that label on other threads.

I claimed no one has reported seeing anything. From this lack of hoopla I inferred that something is seriously wrong with NASA's statements about what we should have seen. They have all the tools to get it reasonably correct, yet they didn't. (even an impact from a probe 100 miles away in the same region to use as a predictor)

Lot's of hype, pretty much no show.

That's generally what you see from a marketing department.






[edit on 12-10-2009 by RoofMonkey]

Originally posted by RoofMonkey

flare
(flâr)
v. flared, flar·ing, flares
v.intr.
1. To flame up with a bright, wavering light.

Hows that?

You really don't get the difference between a flare and a plume do you?

I didn't say it was hoaxed. I said they may have missed. This is based on some of their historical bonehead mistakes... such as getting the units wrong in a critical calculation.

Of course that theory is inconsistent with what I saw, and it's still a hoax/conspiracy with regards to their results, when in the past lost probes were admitted to be lost. Meanwhile we have optical confirmation from amateurs that the probe was on course where it was supposed to be, so how could it have missed?

I claimed no one has reported seeing anything. From this lack of hoopla I inferred that something is seriously wrong with NASA's statements about what we should have seen. They have all the tools to get it reasonably correct, yet they didn't. (even an impact from a probe 100 miles away in the same region to use as a predictor)

What part of "19 times the force previously used" did you not understand (or are you just unwilling to admit)? That alone tells more about the integrity of the surface than we previously knew, and in combination with spectroscopic results of the impact as seen by the probe we may yet find out the exact composition of the material there.

[edit on 12-10-2009 by ngchunter]