Sending A Rocket To Do A Robot's Job

Quick question — do you have 80 million dollars lying around? On the chance that you do, and you feel the need to spend it all in one place, do I have a deal for you. It just so happens that the going rate to fire a rocket into the moon is just over $79 million. That's assuming you go with the lowest cost option, of course. You can certainly spend a lot more if you feel the need.

Let's make a couple of things clear. No, you don't get to ride on the rocket or go to the moon or anything awesome like that. And there's no remote controlled vehicle that will drive around on the moon collecting data or anything scientific like that. There's a rocket, which flies to the moon, orbits it a few times, then crashes into it. But don't worry, there's also a 'shepherding spacecraft' that flies along behind to take pictures. Then, to ensure maximum value for your 80 mil, it crashes into the moon as well.

I know what you're thinking, because I'm thinking the same thing — why would anyone spend 80 million dollars to crash stuff into the moon? The long answer is that this is one component in a larger mission with a potential plan to one day establish a permanent colony on the lunar surface. The short answer is to see if there might be any water up there. The really short answer is because we can.

I'm not opposed to space exploration. Not at all, I think it's generally nifty and it helps get kids interested in science. But the notion of firing a rocket with the express intention of colliding it with the moon just strikes me as absurd. It's the NASA equivalent of throwing spaghetti against the wall to see if it's done.

Of course, it stands to reason that while firing a rocket at the moon and hoping the dust plume it kicks up has some ice in it may be straightforward, it's not exactly, well, rocket science. This is only slightly more advanced than Will It Blend. Would it not be more effective to send robot or a lander of some sort, something that actually lands and reports data, and by data I don't mean a mushroom cloud. Besides, humanity has dropped enough remote control vehicles on Mars to open an interplanetary hobby shop. And last time I checked, the moon was a bit closer than Mars.

Now, I understand that doing it this way is a whole lot cheaper and faster than sending astronauts or even robots to go and see if there's any water to be found up there. It's too bad no one thought to do this back 40 years ago, back when going to the moon was a semi-regular thing. Of course, that would have required planning and foresight. And if, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, the best we can come up with is slamming a 2000 kilogram rocket into a lunar crater, we obviously are a little short in the planning and foresight department.