$79 Million Explodes Into The Moon

Jillian Bandes | October 09, 2009 6:34 PM

I've got to admit: I have a bit of a soft spot for space expenditures. I'm as fiscally conservative as they come, but when I think of NASA smashing stuff into the moon to find water, the first thing that comes to mind is: cool!

That said, NASA has suffered some pretty bad PR for the success of their latest mission: crashing the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, into the moon to explore what it's made of. The "Dear Nasa" Twitter tag has been running strong all day with criticisms against the U.S. space agency. "Please stop hurting the moon." "Wouldn't it have made more sense to send a couple of guys up to dig a hole?" "The money you waste to build new telescopes that cost in an average 100 million should rather be used in stimulus packages."

...or maybe to cut the deficit. Ok, I get that. But viscerally... blowing up moon rocks? That's just kind of awesome.