By CHARLES OWENS
Having been without television cable service since about June, I was admittedly surprised to learn in a newsroom budget meeting last week that NASA was planning a galactic smackdown with the moon.
The story proved to be the talk of the newsroom that evening. As we now all know, someone at NASA apparently thought it would be a good idea to crash two spacecraft’s into the lunar south pole last Friday. The project was dubbed Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, for short. It was undertaken with the hope of finding hidden ice on the moon.
Having watched too many asteroid movies, I immediately asked myself, “Why are they wanting to shoot the moon?” Do they know something we don’t know?
NASA also decided to launch this mission on the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. I’m not sure if the timing of the mooning landing was intentional, or just a coincidence. Although I was up early last Friday morning, I forgot to look outside to see if there would be a galactic collision. Apparently, the show wasn’t that spectacular for the folks who were watching via telescopes. The whole thing apparently was a little anticlimactic.
However, the whole mission was interesting, but probably a little uneventful for folks who were expecting to see something dramatic in the early morning sky.
As most folks know, our region has enjoyed a little bit of flirtation with NASA thanks to the story of Homer Hickam, and the real life Rocket Boys of McDowell County. Hickam and his fellow Rocket Boys were of course inspired to pursue their dream of rocketry after witnessing the launch of the Russian satellite Sputnik 1 — an event that is also credited with the birth of the modern space age.
Their story of course was chronicled in the 1999 motion picture “October Sky,” which helped create a nice little connection between the good folks in Coalwood and NASA.
Last Friday’s unique lunar mission also helped to bring back memories of other memorable space moments. Remember Skylab? The year was 1979, and the sky was falling. I was pretty young back then but I vaguely remember all of the excitement.
Skylab of course was a giant and dead satellite that was falling — and on a direct collision course with Earth. The hysteria at the time also turned into a marketing campaign — as folks were selling everything from Skylab T-shirts to Skylab survival kits.
The big satellite did fall to earth on July 11, 1979. It left some debris across Western Australia and the Indian Ocean. But it certainly wasn’t the disaster that many had feared.
Growing up as a child during the whole “Star Wars” era, I was always a little interested in things dealing with outer space. Back then there were a whole lot of movies dealing with space travel, including “Star Wars,” “Star Trek,” “The Black Hole,” and even the original “Battlestar Galactica” television series.
I remember “The Black Hole” movie was quite interesting. It was a Disney film, so it was family friendly. But the ending was a little troubling because, if memory serves me correctly, it ends with several folks, including a robot and at least one human, being trapped inside of a black hole. So it wasn’t the happy type of ending you would expect from a Disney movie. But it all added to my childhood fascination with the whole science fiction genre.
I also remember back when a moon rock came to Bluefield several years ago. I had the assignment of covering the story when the moon rock was brought to the former science center in Bluefield. While it was a fascinating story, I had no desire to get to close to that rock, and I certainly didn’t want to touch it. It was a rock that came from outerspace after all — and apparently the moon. You never know when such a rock might be carrying intergalactic germs.
I also — by complete coincidence — had the opportunity to visit the Kennedy Space Center in Orlando a few years ago on the same weekend that the movie “Armageddon” was launching at the box office. Bruce Willis, and other stars from the movie, were in town for the big premiere. So it was a nice coincidence.
Maybe I can blame it all on the whole experience of covering the Rocket Boy story since day one, but I’ve always been a little fascinated with the space travel thing.
So seeing a headline about NASA trying to shoot the moon certainly got my attention. It’s a headline you don’t see everyday — even if the whole mission proved to be a little anticlimactic.
Charles Owens is the Daily Telegraph’s city editor. Contact him at cowens@bdtonline.com
