In 1998, NASA launched the $63 million
Lunar prospector in order to stare more inanely at that
cold piece of desolate rock that floods small villages
in Devon.
In March of that year, it was announced that there might
be suggestions of water ice in some of the deepest darkest
craters on the lunar surface. This caused a huge flurry
of excitement over the prospect of putting Disneyworld
on the moon. Not that anyone would want to go there, but
the sooner that smarmy rodent is blasted into space the
better.
The possibility of lunar choc-ice sustaining
a colony of 'loonies' created a buzz about space travel
that has not been seen since Buzz and Neil arrived home
to confirm it was very dusty and would need one heck of
a clean before health and safety would allow Ronald McDonald
to sell the first McLunar sandwich. Even the obviously faked
alien sightings have failed to arouse enough interest in
living on the surface of the moon.
Once the Lunar prospector probe had
outlived it's productive life, NASA decided to use the probe
for one last cosmic ram raid. Someone overpaid in the ideas
department decided it would be a great idea to crash the
probe into the moon to see if the impact kicked up any water.
Amazingly, no-one actually laughed at this 'obviously flogging
a dead horse' scheme and everybody thought it would actually
be a very good idea indeed.
Waving aside all images of astronauts
standing around on the moon with umbrellas and buckets ready,
NASA lined up the craft and readied it for the nosedive.
There was, of course, the possibility that the craft would
just crash and sit in a crumpled heap, failing to do anything
else other than create a new crater and smudge a few of
Neil's footprints. But it was worth a shot, it might just
work. No, obviously it wouldn't, I know that. You know that.
But they... well, they're NASA, they spend billions of money
proving things like this. The moon is a rock... we know.
A cold desolate one.. yes already. Inches are not centimetres...
yep, check.
On July 31st, the probe swooped in and crashed...
NASA have not been contacted over
this article at all, I just wouldn't know what to say.
