On Sky news now...

Science guy is saying first indications suggest the mission was a flop!

NO REALLY?

Apparently NASA will be making an announcement in the next few minutes.

IRM

[edit on 9/10/09 by InfaRedMan]

NASA's press conference is in 5 minutes (10:00 EDT).

They'll tell us if they got a lot of data (remember, a visible light camera is probably the least important of their instruments).

Watch it on NASA TV or NASA.gov

Everybody was expecting a huge dust plume from the impacts, maybe there was no impacts onto dust, maybe NASA found the water it was looking for and the probes splashed down into moon ponds?
We certainly aint gonna see no huge dust plumes then are we?

If this mission was a flop, the worst thing about it will not be the flop in and of itself, but those who will use this as PROOF! that there are alien bases on the moon.

Originally posted by DataWraith
Everybody was expecting a huge dust plume from the impacts, maybe there was no impacts onto dust, maybe NASA found the water it was looking for and the probes splashed down into moon ponds?
We certainly aint gonna see no huge dust plumes then are we?

No -- the intsruments show that it made a crater the size that they expected. Therefore it seems it hit solid/dusty material.

They are not sure about the size of the plume, but Earth-based telescopes did collect data from the impact. Being able to see the plume is visible light is probably the least important aspect of the mission (especially since the impact site is in total darkness). Infrared and spectrometer data is much more important.

They are talking about this now (started at 10:00 AM EDT) in a press conference on NASA TV and NASA.gov

[edit on 10/9/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]

Actually, What I think is the worse thing about it all is how much money was spent on something so stupid!!! If it was a flop, that just adds insult to injury.

Is this like the emperor's new clothes? I mean, no one saw a thing but we all pretend like we did?

Okay... great job NASA!!! WTG! Woo hoo!!!

Ahem.

Listening to this women explain the findings is in itself entertainment,

Quote " here we have two squiggly lines, thats exciting, anyone can see that these two lines are different, We don't know what that means right now, but we are analyzing the data to find out. "

this is NASA. This is a Ball, Bounce the Ball, fun, yes Fun, what was I talking about again?

Originally posted by Starseed32
Actually, What I think is the worse thing about it all is how much money was spent on something so stupid!!! If it was a flop, that just adds insult to injury.

Well, if we ever want to put bases on the Moon, the presence of a lot of water there would be very important. Water is very heavy, and humans need a lot of it, so it would be best it humans did not need to take their water with them on Moon missions.

...by the way, it doesn't seem like it was a "flop" whatsoever. NASA got loads of data from the impact. They said it appears they got enough data to answer their questions.

Remember -- being able to "see" the plume in visible light is not a crucial aspect of the mission. The most important science is done by other data (non-visible light).

[edit on 10/9/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]

Well, if NASA can't hit the broad side of a moon with a shotgun maybe we don't need to be sending people up there.

HA HA!

Why did the cameras go out approx 10 seconds before impact? Someone said that a heat plume was registered somewhere - that was the moonies blasting the LCROSS out of the sky before impact -

Jeepers what a PR mess. The WWF 'flash the screen' trick or not? How long does it take to crop some photos?

Weird - this is all speculation however.

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People

No -- they detected the flash of the impact exactly where they expected it, and they saw the crater in infrared exactly where they expected it (and also the size of the crater is what they expected...

...So, yes -- LCROSS did hit its target successfully.

Ummm... don't extraordinary claims deserve a little extraordinary proof? How about even a little proof?

Oh heck... I'll just believe on faith alone.

Originally posted by GhostR1der
Jeepers what a PR mess. The WWF 'flash the screen' trick or not? How long does it take to crop some photos?

Weird - this is all speculation however.

I don't understand what you mean by a PR mess. They hit their target and collect a lot of data. The plume was expected to be so small that I'm not surprised the ground-based photos have not detected them yet. I expect that the plume will be visible after the photos are further processed.

Even if the wasn't a plume -- that's very telling to the scientists. That means that LCROSS did not hit water ice but instead hit hard bedrock. Either way -- no plume or big plume -- the result would be telling to scientists (even though the common person may find the result boring).