Life imitates art: moon to be equipped with frickin' lasers?

Up until now, if you wanted to test some theories about the Moon, its distance, or deviations from general relativity, you would have to shoot a laser from Earth to a group of old, dusty and imprecise reflectors from the Apollo era, which sit on the surface the big cheese -- but that might all be changing. NASA announced recently that it's funding development of a moon-based laser system, which would answer the laser bursts from Earth with its own, thus cutting down on fluctuations in readings and allowing for a more accurate study of the Moon's distance. Because there's no better way to spend several million dollars than sending a laser up to the moon to clarify a few millimeters of uncertainty.

[Rainier @ Jun 25th 2007 6:22PM]

An "evil" laser?

[kasmir @ Jun 25th 2007 6:22PM]

FREAKIN LASER!!!!

[Rainier @ Jun 25th 2007 6:28PM]

An "evil" freakin laser?

[KL @ Jun 25th 2007 6:44PM]

will it be attached to a shark's forehead?

[Stefan @ Jun 25th 2007 6:52PM]

why are we putting these frickkin laser beams on the moon again? how about the money go to more important places... like i dunno... anything?

[Asha @ Jun 26th 2007 12:21AM]

But we need lazers on the moon. They are important, like a bloated military budget, corporate buy outs and flying the President all over place when he can do most of his work from the White House.

[TheGuy @ Jun 25th 2007 6:55PM]

"Mini-me, stop humping the laser."

Here's the Engadget version:

"Engadget, stop humping the iPhone."

[Paradox @ Jun 25th 2007 6:56PM]

That's no...! Oh wait. I guess it is a moon.

[Chris @ Jun 25th 2007 7:00PM]

Doesn't it have already have mirrors?

[Jeremy K. @ Jun 25th 2007 7:24PM]

I love the photo! LOL

[RJ @ Jun 25th 2007 7:36PM]

This is the #2 reason why the NASA space program needs to be put to rest.

The #1 being the fact that NASA's greatest acheivement in the last decade was the memory foam mattress.

[Charlie @ Jun 25th 2007 7:57PM]

Thats the stupidest I've heard.
Being a child of a NASA employee, living next to astronauts my entire childhood, you cannot fathom how much earth science is being discovered through NASA. Global warming studies (besides what that damn suit nasa director said), extra-terrestrial life, basic discoveries of the universe. Of all things, its underfunded so that the only programs that are funded are the space exploration missions.

The entire city of Houston would suffer without Nasa, as it brings educated people to a town, continues to educate the children, and provides great learning experiences.

Now, the significance of the "Moon's drift" is large, because then we will learn about our own gravitational force in relation to other objects in the solar system.

Why in the hell would you want to disband a purely peaceful, completely scientific program that has done more for international relations than most other programs?

[Charlie @ Jun 25th 2007 7:58PM]

And mind my incoherent sentence structure. Russian was my first language.

[Will @ Jun 25th 2007 8:03PM]

Um... Cassini? Galileo? The MERs? Magellan? Etc? Our knowledge of the Solar System has grown by an order of magnitude in the last 10 years. To distill my argument down to it's essence, you're stupid.

[Spherehead @ Jun 25th 2007 8:11PM]

You, RJ, are an idiot!

[RJ @ Jun 25th 2007 9:21PM]

Charlie: "Being a child of a NASA employee..." that line right there says it all, thank you.

Will: "MER, Galileo, Magellan"... ? Will, I sure as hell hope one of those BILLION dollar space probes finds an alien that pisses oil because in 10 years when gas prices have quadrupled, global-warming has increased dramatically, and the social gap has increased beyond control I hope you sleep comfortably on your "memory foam" mattress knowing that your hard earned tax money went to more urgent matters like lazers on the moon.

[DarkMirage @ Jun 25th 2007 10:52PM]

NASA deserves every cent it gets. In fact, it deserves more. Look at the DoD's budget and look at how much the war is costing. NASA's budget is a really tiny fraction of that.

Will the war in Iraq achieve anything for human progress or even American national interest? Not a thing. In fact, you should ask yourself what is the cause of raising gas prices. Certainly not NASA. As a non-American, I find NASA to be the only government agency deserving respect. Investing in scientific progress is an investment in humanity's future. It's your future too, stupid.

[Tim @ Jun 26th 2007 1:09AM]

Hey RJ,
NASA has invented tons of things that help people every day. To name a few: Kidney dialysis machines, medical CAT scanners, cardiovascular conditioner that led to the development of physical therapy, Water purification technology, surface enhancement coatings (helps ya make pizza!!), MRI technology, vacuum metallizing techniques (think insulated outer garments), cordless power tools, a hollow retroreflector (this allows us to detect the presence of hazardous gases in oil development, chemical plants, waste storage sites and locations where gases could be released into the environment). The TV Satellite dish, joystick controllers, advanced plastics (like the ones in your computer). Man I’m tired that took all of 10 minutes to look up. So next time your laying on your memory foam mattress watching Dish TV, drinking a nice tall glass of bacteria free water, eating a pizza, and NOT inhaling toxic fumes from the dump down the street, waiting to go to physical therapy because you took a cordless power tool (maybe a drill) and put it through your head trying to remove some of the plastic from your computer, and they found the drill bit using the new imaging techniques; Just remember to thank NASA you moron.

[RJ @ Jun 25th 2007 11:49PM]

"I find NASA to be the only government agency deserving respect. Investing in scientific progress is an investment in humanity's future." - DarkMirage

Congratulations sir you have made one of the dumbest comments ive ever heard. The only agency deserving respect? Ever heard of the US Dept of Education? How about the Environmental Protection Agency? OR maybe youve heard of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).. yeah.. theyre the ones that has thrown Billions into whatever idiot-spawning country you are from just to have smart-asses like you come over here and not know a damn thing about goverment agencies. "investing in scientific progress is an investment in humanitys future"?? Nice catch phrase but it doesnt make any sense. NOT all scientific endeavors are an investment to humanitys future. Ever heard of the Nuclear Bomb? Yeah we should give that thing the nobel peace prize for protecting humanitys future. Dont talk to me about the future because you obviously have no idea what the future entails if you think spending Billions on a laser on the moon will be of ANY help to us.

[Will @ Jun 26th 2007 12:23AM]

"Will, I sure as hell hope one of those BILLION dollar space probes finds an alien that pisses oil because in 10 years when gas prices have quadrupled, global-warming has increased dramatically, and the social gap has increased beyond control "

Rest assured, those problems would still be with us whether NASA got it's cash or not. But if you'd like to take money from other government agencies to try to combat them, I'd skip over NASA's ~$16 billion per year, and go right for that, y'know, $1.2 trillion dollar war. Yeah, maybe skim some cash from that, and build a new ozone layer out of Spandex or something.

And if you think 'memory foam' is the best consumer item that's come from NASA, you're even more of a moron than you come across as. Do you like your LCD display? How about that satellite TV? I know every day, I rely on NASA-developed fabrics to protect me in flaming buildings while I do my job, and I sure like the replacement knee joint that NASA made possible. That and knowing more about the universe around us? I'd pay double taxes for that. Too damn bad that the government sees fit to waste my money in other ways.

[LordFarkward @ Jun 26th 2007 1:39AM]

Don't feed the troll, especially one that can simply use 'nuclear bomb' and 'mattress' to dimiss the entirety of NASA and call it a day (while calling everyone else 'idiots')

i'm not a huge fan of the US (and the politicians) but mad respect for NASA, yo

[Stranger @ Jun 26th 2007 8:09AM]

I support the opinion of RJ. While NASA have contributed to a lot of scientific discoveries they have also consumed a hell of lot of resources which could have been used in more efficient ways. And the magical words is _more_efficient_. You don't see BMW, Intel, Electrolux or DuPont researching the outer space even if the knowledge they could gain by doing so could be used in future products (cars, chips, owens and chemicals).

[DorianGray @ Jun 26th 2007 12:17PM]

@LordFarkward

Word. I find it interesting that one day we get an asshole railing about US military weapons research, then the next we get a jackass ragging on DARPA general scientific research, and now, today we get some assclown berating NASA's purely scientific, peaceful, internationally-focused research.

There will always be forum troll assbags camped out, ready to complain about the hot topic of the day. It's too bad they can't shut their farking holes and appreciate the cozy, cush life they enjoy at the hands of scientific advancement.

[The Truth @ Jun 26th 2007 12:34PM]

U.S. Dept. of Education?! Environmental Protection Agency?! Are you SURE you want to list those two as your examples?

Let's see, the United States lags behind other developed nations when it comes to education, in particular mathematics. We are also the ONLY developed nation that has a problem believing in evolution. Heck, the education system from the president's own home state of Texas is second to last, LAST!

Let's talk about the EPA. hmm...under this idiotic republican regime, we have more wetlands. Why? Well, this proves that 1) global warming is a farce because we aren't losing wetlands in the U.S. we are gaining. 2)golf courses (yes, GOLF) are now classified as wetlands.

But my personal fav is USAID. Yes, a FINE upstanding organization. It is SO upstanding that the chief, Randall Tobias, resigned so that his prediliction towards prostitutes didn't make national news (ooops, to late. hmm...where's ken starr when you need him?)

But that's not enough for USAID, nope. You see USAID doesn't do anything for countries unless they agree to our stipulations on how to spend the money we "give" them. Wait, "give?" Can you say oxymoron? For example, Tanzania, had to agree to 1)give out condoms and (this is great) 2) teach ABSTINENCE!!

If only your parents had practiced abstinence RJ.

[Jamie Lor @ Jun 25th 2007 7:43PM]

...
"I'M-A CHARGIN MAH LAZER!" ?

[Mike @ Jun 25th 2007 7:49PM]

Discovering deviations from general relativity? That might actually be considered a valuable contribution to our understanding of the universe. Hell, if we're going back anyway, we might as well set up a couple of lasers. Of course, all that money might be spent better by invading Iran. The rest of the universe is of no interest to us - until a frikkin' big astroid heads our way and all we can do is kiss humanities collective ass goodbye ("damn, wish we'd built some frikkin bg lasers on the moon").

[lydia @ Jun 25th 2007 11:10PM]

Your English is VERY good. Very natural too, I didn;t notice anything incoherent about your sentence structure. As far as I am concerned, you talk like a literate native! Although, of courese, many people on this forum play to run through everyone's comments with a fine tooth comb, looking for the most minute spelling/grammaticar errors, and attack them in order to... well I'm not exactly sure, I don't think like them. But it is completely uncalled for, irrelevant to the topic of the article, and gets VERY annoying. They have to make everything personal, they get so whiny when people present their opinions concisely and with adequate support, that when they cannot refute in a similar, intelligent fashion, the only thing they can turn to is the small and insignifant aspect of typos.

SO, maybe the whiners will find a place where there is a period instead of a comma, but I'll let you know that I am not like that, I got the GIST of what you said, and I must say, Amen brother, Amen. I'm behind NASA and their professional, worthwhile scientific research and experients 100 percent.

[Gregory Kimball @ Jun 25th 2007 8:19PM]

NASA should focus some of its $16+ billion annual budget on developing a spacecraft that can send "let's not worry about climate change" Michael Griffin to the moon. It'd be better for him, too - there isn't any global warming on a giant rock with no atmosphere.

[logyk @ Jun 25th 2007 8:40PM]

They can use it to test the one way transparent self healing bubble shield Darpa is developing.. and then collectively test how much BS tax spending american citizens are willing to put up with.

[Mickey Jones @ Jun 25th 2007 10:46PM]

Mr. Powers, I plan on focusing an intense laser beam on Uranus. And yes, they will be mounted to shark heads.

[funkiscrazy @ Jun 25th 2007 11:16PM]

"Put any three to four letters together and chances are you've come up with a government association that they public could profitably do away with"
Milton Friedman.

[Joshua @ Jun 26th 2007 12:10AM]

WOW The hole global warming thing is funny that it is brought up about laser in space. How do we know that these lasers are not the cause of the global warming? Ever thought of that? Carbon dioxide can kill people but a laser can kill people and rockets and who knows what else? Lasers seem more powerful than a single gas. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

But why do we need to know the exact location of the moon to the earth, is it going to throw us off of our rotation anytime soon? But then again it cant hurt to know we might find out something interesting say that global warming is caused by the moons rotation and not an invisible hole in the atmosphere. Oh wait that wouldn't work then people would have no idea why the weather is changing and WE MIGHT NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT.

[0bliv!on @ Jun 26th 2007 1:07AM]

Wow. got incoherency?

NASA is probably one of the least funded agencies of the US govt; not that all its pursuits are worthwhile or relevant to the world, but it DOES advance human scientific understanding and does NOT develop weapons specifically designed to kill/make killing easier. Next to the DoD (esp. DARPA) and the trillions spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, NASA isnt even a drop in the ocean.

[zoara @ Jun 26th 2007 7:35AM]

Yeah, that's right, lasers cause global warming. I don't even know where to start on that one, but obviously neither do you. Try finding out about lasers from anywhere other than movies, maybe?

[whatthe @ Jun 26th 2007 1:58AM]

You see, I've turned the moon into what I like to call a "Death Star".

[hemmy @ Jun 26th 2007 10:34AM]

Lazer cats are not amused.

[FourStringPhunk @ Jun 27th 2007 3:58PM]

Hopefully the earth lasers won't engrave CHA in the moon.

[Theron @ Mar 26th 2008 4:55PM]

wow, just wow.
This'd be a fun statistic; Ratio of blog post with flaming to blog post without flaming

but wait, there's more. Ill just save everyone the time and flame my own post


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Man, your insane. No way that would be a usefull statistic. Your stoopid. you need to get out more and get a girlfriend, like me, cus im soopa intelegent and wotnot, and better than you in every regard, and your stoopid, How can you say that about NASA, and blog posts, no way its true, uh uh, nooooooo


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No, i think he, this random person was infact right, and this would be an important statistic. You, replyerer need to just die, i hope you die, and like die and stuff. From his text, i managed to detect his precise emotion, even tho its like totaly imposible, and then use my awsome huge brain, and my girlfriends brin ( i doubt you have a girlfriend ) to surmise his level of sarcasim\ and wit to the nth degree, and while we are on topic and all, id like to talk about building huts fromstraw, i like staw hut, reminds me of the time i was with my girlfrind


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Extrapolate to infinity

[phrank @ Mar 27th 2008 1:01AM]

You know, I wish these trolls would come out into the world and share their flames with people they meet on the street. Like Prometheus. Only instead of giving us the gift of fire, their gift is their own mass extinction.

I wish I could say that RJ has a point, but yeah. You are kind of more of an unthinker than I'd care to associate my opinion with.

If someone said, "You know, the Arecibo message was a pretty ridiculous misspending of funds, considering the extravagant amount of energy needed to send information to one single star, and considering the 40,000 year round-trip," I would say, "You've got a point."

If someone said, "NASA's progress is very interesting, but I think that this is money that'd be better spent on earth," I would say, "You've got a point."

I would counter by saying what's already been said, that NASA really doesn't cost us all that much money, and if you had to get rid of your tomtom or any of the previously aforementioned terrestrial toys we enjoy thanks to them, you might appreciate them more, etc., etc., blah blah blah.

But when someone says that the EPA is more effective than NASA, I say, "somebody get me some gasoline and a match."

And not to nitpick or anything...But the article did say "several million dollars." Billion came out of your mouth. But to give you some context, a billion tax dollars works out to around three dollars per person. You know what? I'll pay three bucks for a long-distance space probe to tell me more about the solar system. If that's not your bag, vote Republican. I hear they're not big into spending your hard-earned mone- Oh wait. Vote Democrat. Oh wait, you probably don't care for that one either, they're into science. Move to...crap. I'm sure there must be somewhere on earth that doesn't tax!