Fucked

Fucked fucked fucked. We are. Yes, in the doomed sense, but also in the senses of priorities and way of thinking.

NASA's much-hyped mission to hurl a spacecraft into the moon turned out some worthwhile data after all, scientists said.

New images show a mile-high plume of lunar debris from the Cabeus crater shortly after the space agency's Centaur rocket struck Oct. 9.

"We were blown away by the data returned," Anthony Colaprete, the mission's chief scientist, said in a report Friday from the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., which managed the launch. "The team is working hard on the analysis, and the data appear to be of very high quality."

In media coverage before the impact, many observers said they were disappointed at the lack of spectacle.

But scientists said the mission was carried out for "a scientific purpose, not to put on a fireworks display for the public," said space consultant Alan Stern, a former NASA associate administrator for science.

By creating the debris cloud, scientists were able to use the $79-million Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite to sample and study the dust. The LCROSS itself crashed into the same crater four minutes after the Centaur's impact, right on schedule, while its companion spacecraft, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, was flying in lunar orbit 50 miles above the site to gather still more data...

Finding significant amounts of water on the moon would be a major discovery, making eventual colonization easier than it would be if settlers had to transport water from Earth.

Ah yes, fucking wonderful. Crash $79 million into the moon, deliberately. Makes a lot of sense, when you think about it. Everything around here is about taken care of, so why not?

Colonization, golly gee. Can't wait for that one. We've done so well by this planet, the universe has surely earned more of us.