CU professor excited about moon crash

BOULDER - When it comes to all matters lunar, Jack Burns is the man to talk to. He's a professor of astrophysics and planetary sciences at the University of Colorado and he's looking forward to Friday's experiment.

"It's fun seeing something go pound, smash into the moon and see what it's going to do," Burns said.

He is also the chairman of the science committee on the NASA advisory council. Burns is also working on a multi-million dollar project funded by the space agency to find a way to place telescopes on the dark side of the moon.

Friday morning, NASA will take the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite mission to a new level. Researchers will take two parts of the LCROSS spacecraft and crash them into a crater on the surface of the moon.

A rocket booster will slam into the ground at about 6,000 miles an hour creating the equivalent of an explosion with 1.5 tons of TNT. The idea is to send debris about 6 miles into space. Then, the LCROSS "shepherd" spacecraft will fly through the debris looking for any signs of frozen water before it, too, will crash into the surface.

"This is absolutely a game-changing event as far as the moon is concerned," Burns said. "Because if there's water on the moon, it changes the perspective of what we would be able to do in terms of setting a permanent outpost on the moon."

A few weeks ago, scientists from India announced that their satellite detected water molecules embedded on the moon's surface. NASA's experiment, if successful, will show that a reservoir of water exists below the surface.

Burns says the water can be used to drink and grow plants. He says it can also provide shielding from the sun's radiation. He says water can also be used to make rocket fuel.

"You could literally live off the land on the moon," Burns said. "We need to learn to live off the land in an alien, hostile environment."

The exercise will take place Friday morning at around 5:30 Mountain Time. Burns says this could be as significant as the first landing on the moon 40 years ago. He says it could set the stage for a mission to Mars.

"From the perspective of what science will be revealed about water on the moon and from the perspective of exploring the moon and then the rest of the solar system, all this is coming together in one," Burns said.