Nasa Moon Bombing Live

Millions watched live online as at 12:31pm British time an empty rocket plunged into the Moon's south pole at 1.6 miles per second. A probe followed close behind, flying through the six-mile-high shower of debris kicked up by the impact, before crashing into the surface itself four minutes later. 
Telescopes on Earth and instruments on the probe itself scoured the huge impact cloud to see if there is any water or ice spraying up. 

The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) booster rocket successfully smacked into the Cabeus crater at 7:31:53 am ET this morning sending up a plume of lunar dust with the twin impacts. The $79 million mission aims to break up any lunar ice trapped underneath, propelling it above the moon’s surface, allowing NASA to detect the water molecules.

The world’s leading space agency is trying to ascertain about the water on the moon following its probe showing that water was there on the moon.

Very recently NASA and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research successfully launched a small rocket using an environmentally-friendly, safe propellant comprised of aluminum powder and water ice, called ALICE.

"This collaboration has been an opportunity for graduate students to work on an environmentally-friendly propellant that can be used for flight on Earth and used in long distance space missions," said NASA Chief Engineer Mike Ryschkewitsch at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "These sorts of university-led experimental projects encourage a new generation of aerospace engineers to think outside of the box and look at new ways for NASA to meet our exploration goals."

Using ALICE as fuel, a nine-foot rocket soared to a height of 1,300 feet over Purdue University's Scholer farms in Indiana earlier this month. ALICE is generating excitement among researchers because this energetic propellant has the potential to replace some liquid or solid propellants. When it is optimized, it could have a higher performance than conventional propellants.

"By funding this collaborative research with NASA, Purdue University and the Pennsylvania State University, AFOSR continues to promote basic research breakthroughs for the future of the Air Force," said Dr. Brendan Godfrey, director of AFOSR.

ALICE has the consistency of toothpaste when made. It can be fit into molds and then cooled to -30 C 24 hours before flight. The propellant has a high burn rate and achieved a maximum thrust of 650 pounds during this test.

A 2,200kg rocket stage was first to collide at 5,600 miles per hour, excavating about 350 metric tons of the moon and leaving behind a hole about 65 feet wide, 13 feet deep. Trailing four minutes behind, a second unmanned spacecraft packed with science instruments analyzed the contents of this dusty cloud before it also crashed into the Moon. NASA will release briefing information on the impacts extent at 10 am ET, however it will take a couple of weeks to analyze the data to identify water and other components. Finding sources of water on the moon would make future lunar missions easier and less costly, if there is no need to transport water from Earth.  To the many readers who humorously commented on our preview story of this event here, good news, the sky is not falling 

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