How much did this moon mission cost?
 

In these days of crisis, don't know if this mission was that important.

CNN: NASA smacked two spacecraft into the lunar south pole Friday morning in a search for hidden ice. Instruments confirm that a large empty rocket hull barreled into the moon at 7:31 a.m., followed four minutes later by a probe with cameras taking pictures of the first crash.

But initial photos show that the moon didn't give the reaction to the double jabs that NASA expected.

And the public definitely didn't get the live explosive views they may have anticipated from the mission called LCROSS, short for Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite.

The unexpected lack of pictures of a plume could be because the plume was at a different angle, hit slopes or wasn't high enough to show up, he said. Or the lunar soil could have compressed down and not tossed up as much dust as expected, he said

I was watching the Today show as well, and couldnt see "anything" and wasnt the cost 75 mil. or 79 mil. I seriously think we have more vital things to spend our money on like.....oh I don't know a cure for cancer~! What a waste of money for these times.

Well, considering water is going to be in increasingly short supply in our lifetimes, an experiment like this can easily be rationally explained as a reasonable expense.

Plus, at this point, does another $86M really matter in the grand scheme of things?

It's worth every penny.

Space exploration produces technology that can be incredibly useful in other areas. For example, a mass spectrometer developed for use in European expeditions to Mars and looking for water on comets is being adapted for use in detecting tuberculosis in humans. The current method is unreliable and slow, and the new spectrometer will make diagnosis easier and quicker. Two million people die of tuberculosis every year in poor countries around the world, and things like this will make a huge difference.

Without space exploration, nobody bothers to develop technology like this.

Less than this country spends on pornography in a single day, I'm sure. But there will always be those who expect that spaceflight can be achieved for the cost of a cup of coffee. :rolleyes:

I'm probably in the minority opinion on this one but I'm all for this. It's "chump change" as far as the big picture is concerned (and I honestly don't think that it would make any difference at all if "spent elsewhere"; and in my honest opinion is VERY productive.
Anything that expands horizons, shows kids what's possible, etc. is a very good thing, in my opinion. Even with some loss and mistakes along the way. And I really do think that the moon is VERY important strategically and will be more and more so in the future. I honestly don't think that's far-out dreamy Star Trekish thinking; for me it's the reality of the situation. Imagine what the consequences could possibly be if we don't do this.
A long-term problem? It's only a couple of hundred years away. ;)

(And I really do for real think that it's healthy for a nation - and the entire world - to be thinking in those terms. That's what's important about it, more than anything else.)

I think it's a great idea. I read the articles from NASA and they say that if they find water they can also use it as a mixture in space fuel. Having a space station in place on the moon will make it less costly to travel to Mars, they say. And water on the moon will make it possible to sustain life there.
But I must say that I feel queasy about drinking water that does not come from earth.

A fairly prominent astronaut for NASA went to my school and she came and spoke about a month ago. She talked to us about this plan and she is very confident that NASA will attempt to create semi-pernament residencies on the moon within the next 30-40 years.

Who the heck wants to live on the Moon? What is the surface temp, -280 degrees or something like that? :laugh: