A moon crash is planned for Friday morning

2 days in a row of space news....and today's entry is an exciting one. NASA plans to crash a spacecraft into the moon at 5:30 MDT Friday morning to try to determine if there's water ice at the bottom of at least one crater near the moon's south pole.

When the 79 million dollar spacecraft crashes into Cabeus crater, it's expected to send a plume of whatever is at the bottom of the crater into the lunar sky, where scientists can analyze it. If it turns out that there IS water ice on the moon, it could be a BIG boost to the space program.

What I seem to be missing in most of the news presentations of this topic is why it's so important. (In fact, "ha ha ha, we're going to bomb the moon" seems to be the most popular approach)...but IF, in fact, there's ice in the deeper craters or just below the surface of parts of the moon, it opens up a world of possibilities for space exploration, including the potential to refuel a spacecraft with hydrogen from a sufficient supply of ice. Doesn't seem quite as much of a joke now, does it?

This is a follow-up to several other unmanned missions to the moon that have either suggested, or tried to confirm the existence of water ice.

In 1994, the Clementine satellite was launched (called "Clementine" because it carried only enough fuel to complete its mission, after which it would be "lost and gone forever", like in the song), and recorded some data that seemed to indicate what might have been water ice near the moon's south pole.

4 years later, in 1998, Lunar Prospector returned to try to verify the presence of ice, but the results were negative (which might mean, we just missed the right spot).

Now, scientists are optimistic that the "big boom on the moon" will settle the question, and perhaps open up some options for returning manned missions to the only other object in the solar system where humans have walked (and driven dune buggies and hit golf balls, etc.) by 2020.

NASA plans to televise the impact in it's cable/satellite channel, and there are plenty of outlets on the Web that will let you see it as well...and if the sky is clear, and it's still dark in your time zone when the impact occurs, you should be able to see it for yourself, even with a fairly modest telescope.