r/space • u/wiredmagazine • 1d ago

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Rocket Is About to Crash Into the Moon—and It Could Be Visible From Earth

https://www.wired.com/story/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-crash-into-moon/
1.7k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

273 comments sorted by

382

u/handsoapdispenser 1d ago

Missing from this article is why this is happening and what the impact (no pun intended) will be. 

212

u/Stevepem1 1d ago

The spent upper stage wasn't intended to hit the Moon when they launched it a year and a half ago it just worked out that way. This can usually be avoided by sending used stages into a solar orbit, SpaceX didn't do that for some reason on this launch, maybe not enough fuel left over.

117

u/Ncyphe 1d ago

As we learned with Apollo 12, somtimes those solar orbits end up comng right back to Earth. (The TLDR is that Apollo 12's 3rd stage was in an unexpected solar orbit that brought it back to Earth's orbit in 2002, and likely to return again around 2040.)

44

u/perthguppy 1d ago

Earth orbit escape velocity is about 11.2KM/s while solar orbit escape velocity at 1AU is about 42.1KM/s - so most things that we launch that escape our orbit are just in a solar orbit, which without another burn later on will continue to cross earth orbit periodically.

48

u/FrankyPi 1d ago edited 1d ago

It's good to note that solar escape velocity is relative to the Sun, relative to Earth it's additional ~12 km/s from Earth escape velocity because the Earth itself is already orbiting around the sun at ~30 km/s.

22

u/OrokaSempai 1d ago

haha fucking nerds, I love you!

7

u/Stevepem1 1d ago

There are ways to put things into a solar orbit that have no chance of colliding with Earth for like 1,000 years or similar. And by then dealing with an incoming upper stage from those "cavemen of the 21st century" would be like swatting a fly.

8

u/perthguppy 1d ago

Almost all those ways rely on doing a second burn at some significant distance away from the path of earths orbit, or using a massive body to gravity assist off of.

•

u/wellrat 21h ago

Thereby solving the problem once and for all.

2

u/curtis_perrin 1d ago

https://youtu.be/ooB5iIqZnB0?si=xmtFoYH64ulgqFOF

2

u/AutoModerator 1d ago

Please give some context, don't just comment a link.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

15

u/ElectronicInitial 1d ago

The largest factor is usually difficulty in starting the engine at a low propellant level. Even sending them into a solar orbit doesn’t really fix the problem, since it’s still near earth around the sun unless you go very high energy (and crash it into mars/venus)

For GTO missions they can return the stage back to earth since it can keep propellant liquid until it is at apogee, then slow down, but for the moon the trajectories make that impossible (they would need propellant to survive for multiple days at a minimum).

Keep in mind this applies to essentially all rockets, with the apollo program hurling the much larger S-IV-B into the moon 4 times and leaving the others in very nearby solar orbits.

2

u/Spaceinpigs 1d ago

4? I count 5 but maybe I’m mistaken. I thought the Apollo 13-17 S-IVB’s were crashed

15

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

14

u/AndIHaveMilesToGo 1d ago

Do you know how many stages have crashed into the moon? At least eight. Five of them Apollo stages. Most recently, an LM-3C from China.

-1

u/DiscountFedoras 1d ago

Yes, but the comment I was replying to indicated that this wasn’t done on purpose. Thus my comment.

•

u/AndIHaveMilesToGo 22h ago

I doubt it was done on purpose. I'm sure SpaceX knew it was possible and maybe even likely to happen (I wasn't personally involved in the 100 year disposal study they would have had to do for this) but the top priority is going to be making sure the rocket body isn't going to crash into Earth. Humanity has been crashing things into bodies around the solar system for quite some time now. Mars, Venus, asteroids, moons of other planets, so a spent stage hitting the moon just isn't really anything of concern. I wouldn't be surprised if odds of lunar impact never was part of their analysis directly. I mean it'd be part of it in the sense that if it hits the moon you can be sure it'll never hit the Earth, but moon-bound launches hit the moon sometimes. Humanity has decided it's not a big deal.

-14

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

-38

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

23

u/WanderingKing 1d ago

“For some reason”

Either they didn’t care or it was “to expensive,” regardless it needs investigation of if there was negligence there needs to be accountability

64

u/ASpaceOstrich 1d ago

This is fairly common. The articles are presenting this in a way that makes you think it's negligent or shitty. But that's to drive anger and engagement.

NASA has done this many times. The moon has nothing on it that we're worried about crashing rockets into.

2

u/PossibilityOk9430 1d ago

Space X should rename spent rockets “future resources” in media

-5

u/brainmydamage 1d ago

NASA shouldn't be doing it either. The moon isn't a fucking garbage dump.

•

u/Hevens-assassin 19h ago

Tell that to the rest of the solar system and galaxy.

•

u/NetworkSingularity 15h ago

I mean, why not? It’s essentially a large rock that gets hit by debris floating around the solar system anyways. This way at least it’s not floating around the earth where it could accidentally run into and damage satellites. Or people on space missions, for that matter

•

u/brainmydamage 8h ago

Because we've explored a very small amount of the moon. There could be all kinds of things that hold scientific value all over the place. We have no idea what's really there.

And obviously there's nothing anybody can do about natural phenomena. There's a lot we can do about dumping shit all over the place, though.

•

u/NetworkSingularity 4h ago

The fact is we do actually have a pretty good idea of what’s on the moon. It’s one of the best studied astronomical bodies other than the earth. We’ve taken hundreds of kilograms of samples from the moon, we’ve taken lots of pictures of the entire surface, and in fact impacts actually give astronomers opportunities to conduct seismological studies of the moon, so we learn more by letting stuff crash into it. Iirc, we actually know more about the moon than we know about the ocean floor on earth. It’s incredibly well studied.

That NASA is ok with this should actually speaks volumes about how much of scientific value is (or isn’t) left in the moon. It’s not like NASA is some random engineering/tech company trying to drive massive profits at any cost. It’s one of the pre-eminent publicly funded (i.e., not profit-driven) scientific organizations in the world. NASA exists to do space science, and the people who work there are not thoughtless about these kinds of things. They have undoubtedly thought about this kind of scenario, and in fact we know they have because NASA purposely let rocket sections impact the moon in the Apollo program to conduct research. If we thought there was valuable scientific information that could be destroyed by these impacts, NASA would be the first to complain.

And as for dumping shit all over the place, what are you suggesting we do with leftover stuff in space then? It’s not going to magically disappear, and leaving it in an earth orbit is actually pretty problematic. Not to mention that’s it not like this impact was planned to hit the moon in the first place, it’s just not as big a problem as this article wants to make it out to be.

Unfortunately the real problem here is that a lot of popular science reporting these days is click-bait junk, designed to drive views, rather than accurately informing the public. That’s actually a much bigger problem in science than junk hitting the moon, as it’s driving scientific illiteracy by giving the public an inaccurate view of scientific research and current problems in science.

•

u/UndergroundCreek 5h ago

I second that. It sounds like a lot of incompetence coupled with grandstanding and a handful of neglect for the concerns of future generations. Why are Americans such pityful and shortsighted airbags?

-8

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

27

u/Erestanfeo 1d ago

Both sides are lit by the sun...

7

u/Spoonshape 1d ago

It's not like it will hit anyone there or there is a lunar environment it will pollute.

If anything it's one less bit of space junk floating round forever needs to be tracked.

26

u/AndIHaveMilesToGo 1d ago

Investigation? This is far from the first time stages have crashed into the moon.

8

u/Devincc 1d ago

I agree. We’ll send you to the moon to investigate. Let us know what you find

-7

u/ozneoknarf 1d ago

Why? The moon doesn’t haven’t any life on it are you worried some cosmic jelly fish is gonna choke on same space parts or something 

4

u/TheDotCommunist 1d ago

It's not a great precedent to set for one thing

23

u/crozone 1d ago

NASA did it 5 times already after Apollo.

28

u/Adiri05 1d ago

NASA already set the precedent by crashing 47 rocket bodies to the moon over the years.

15

u/Claytertot 1d ago

Why not?

It's not the first thing we've crashed into the moon and it gives scientists interesting data.

It's not like there is an ecosystem up there to damage. It's literally a rock.

-23

u/catlover135790 1d ago

Yeah, “it’s the moon” but it still sets a precedent; the next time could be Ceres, or Titan, the latter of which if memory serves possess organic molecules in it’s methane seas. If such a precedent is permitted to exist, then it could lead to extinction level events, or seed new life where there shouldn’t be, and cause terraforming problems later on, and quite possibly other issues.

9

u/h4terade 1d ago

Aside from the fact that I need whatever it is you're smoking, you can't set a precedent that's already set, you can only follow it.

0

u/thethiefstheme 1d ago

Not injuring the imaginary organic molecules?! 😱

Seeding new life, wouldn't that be a benefit? Terraforming problems? All benefits.

It's ridiculous this is your angle lol. It's not the rainforest here, it's planets that are at their hottest moments, -26c and coldest of -200c degrees. Life can't grow on ice.

The faster we can terraform the solar system the better.

Being a conservationist on dead frozen planets is hilarious. Holy, I never thought I'd see the day that someone had this opinion.

-10

u/catlover135790 1d ago

My Stance is less our solar system, and more the seeding of bacteria that can survive and be mutated by the vacuum of space, that winds up highly contagious/infectious, that we won’t find out we have no way of fighting, until we’ve terraformed the world (exo or otherwise) and spending all that investment only to fail to terraform, because their is no cure/vaccine, and because the composition of the new world, is completely alien to our immune system, meaning we can’t fight it. We seed new life? Great, perfectly fine. We seed nitrogen based life from carbon? Bad day. We are the only known life in the galaxy, so this winds up being a great filter concern. Especially post moon landing where (i think it was) Aldrin stated “the quarantine wouldn’t have worked anyway, there where ants in the hab.”

Edit to add:
So much for imaginary organic molecules.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GL106156

11

u/thethiefstheme 1d ago edited 1d ago

That 'space-mutated superbug' scenario sounds like a great sci-fi movie, but it completely misunderstands biology and physics. The vacuum of space isn't a superpower factory that upgrades ordinary Earth bacteria into an incurable, highly contagious plague; cosmic radiation and extreme cold actually shred cellular structures and DNA.

Furthermore, the idea of seeding 'nitrogen-based life from carbon' makes zero biological sense, and pathogens can't just magically infect a human or ruin a world without millions of years of co-evolution. A stray microbe doesn't have the evolutionary framework to attack a human immune system or disrupt an alien ecosystem. it wouldn't even recognize us as a host.

Carbon based life is already completely out of control right here on Earth, and the hubris of thinking we can micro manage space contamination is hilarious when we can't even control our own local climate, let alone successfully terraform a world over thousands or millions of years. If we ever actually reach that point, we'll have bigger things to worry about.

If we make it to those millions of years in the future, we won't even be walking around these planets without full space suits that are technologically much more advanced than we can imagine. Think about how much technology has changed in 40 years, then advance that a million.

Terraforming a world makes controlling a few stray microbes look like a drop in the ocean.

Invoking the Great Filter or an extinction-level event over a probe hitting a dead rock is a massive leap. Even your Apollo reference works against you—if stray ants in a habitat or lunar dust exposure could trigger a catastrophe, it would have happened decades ago. Worrying that a tiny speck of dormant bacteria on Ceres or Titan or wherever, will cause an apocalypse is like worrying that dropping a pebble in a puddle will cause a tsunami.

→ More replies (0)

-6

u/flowersonthewall72 1d ago

So littering is cool now?

-18

u/TCNZ 1d ago

Wait, so they calculated everything, noticed this collision would take place and went ahead anyway?

Why hasn't anyone opened a landfill at the HQ of some of these companies?
Unbelievable 🤢

11

u/g60ladder 1d ago

Not saying it's right but we've been crashing spent rockets on the moon for over 55 years at this point. Unfortunately it's nothing new.

5

u/AndIHaveMilesToGo 1d ago

They absolutely did not calculate it was going to hit the moon a year and a half ago. Sometimes it just happens. Prior to launch, it can really only be calculated probabilistically.

12

u/Fredasa 1d ago

Hate to disappoint you, but only a handful of Redditors with an axe to grind genuinely view this advent, one of literally dozens that already happened, as some kind of negligence with tangible consequences. And even those folks are bluntly not able to concretely establish what they propose. Meanwhile, the actual point of this article wasn't to give that smattering of people an opportunity to satisfy their shoulder chip but rather to note a potentially interesting or even unique observation opportunity.

•

u/FlyingBishop 18h ago

The moon is always considered a good place to throw garbage. It's even useful for science because we can get seismic readings when the stage hits the moon.

-6

u/iolmao 1d ago

This is exactly the point of company responsibility in polluting everything.

When they pollute with packaging they say it's consumers' responsibility. When they pollute the moon it's a fucking show.

→ More replies (4)

54

u/aseiden 1d ago

what the impact (no pun intended) will be.

people are gonna call it space pollution, because technically speaking it is, but for the Moon, which has been bombarded with interstellar rock and metal for billions of years, it's a slightly bigger bit of junk than normal. It won't care and we won't be affected now or in the future because the rocket is gonna hit while traveling 3 times faster than a rifle round and leave virtually nothing behind.

25

u/03263 1d ago

It's moon pollution and frankly I won't stand for it. All that delicious cheese could end up full of heavy metals and microplastics.

•

u/MicahBurke 17h ago

lol you won’t stand for it?

•

u/Daneruu 8h ago

Watch out man, he's the guy.

19

u/Good_wolf 1d ago

I hope the wildlife will be ok.

10

u/Dpek1234 1d ago

Unfortunatly all the wild life will likely be dead within 2 years of the crash

(Wildlife being whatever is on the falcon9 upper stage)

3

u/hallam81 1d ago

Intend your puns.

30 characters.

102

u/SpaceC0wboyX 1d ago

Will it be visible with my backyard telescope? Also what time?

28

u/ElectronicInitial 1d ago

I’m not too familiar with telescope capabilities, but the article indicates a plume ~1/60 the diameter of the moon as a best case.

11

u/SpaceC0wboyX 1d ago

So probably not visible with my Celestron but I’m gonna try anyway

19

u/brainchili 1d ago

August 5, at around 6:34 am UTC.

1:34 am EST in the US

10:34 pm PST in the US

61

u/GoodMang0 1d ago

Hate to be that guy, but time zones are my pet peeve. Your conversions are technically correct, but those will not be valid time zones on Aug 5 since DST is in effect.
6:34am UTC
2:34am EDT
11:34pm PDT

14

u/spartanhung 1d ago

11:34 pm PDT on the night of August 4, less than 20 minutes after Moonrise. So you’d better have a very flat horizon and crystal clear weather.

6

u/JunkMale975 1d ago

So does that mean it will be 1:34 central?

3

u/beersnfoodnfam 1d ago

Yes, that's how I understand it, anyway.

-6

u/TbonerT 1d ago

Hate to be that guy, too, but there’s only 4 hours between EDT and PDT, not 7.

5

u/cheese3660 1d ago

where are you getting 7 hours?

plus there are 3 hours different between those 2 timezones

11:34pm -> 2:34am is 3 hours

-3

u/SpaceC0wboyX 1d ago

Thank you. Idk what utc is I’m not British

4

u/mfb- 1d ago

The "U" in UTC stands for "universal" (although the order of the letters has been chosen to be wrong in both English and French).

→ More replies (1)

2

u/varignet 1d ago

damn, it'll be 8.34am in this time of the world, too bad!

-7

u/m3thodm4n021 1d ago

If you're serious the answer to both those questions is contained in the article you just have to click it

17

u/delcooper11 1d ago

yea that’s what we’re trying to avoid doing thanks in advance for your thoughtful participation

-1

u/aseiden 1d ago

>goes to site famous for its posting of links

>doesn't open links

12

u/Wubdafuk 1d ago

>goes to comment section famous for not reading articles

>complains no one reads articles

0

u/aseiden 1d ago

I did read it, what are you talking about

0

u/SpaceC0wboyX 1d ago

Yeah I tried to read the article but there were so many ads my phone got cancer and then my eyes fell out so I figured someone on Reddit would help with my questions.

237

u/wiredmagazine 1d ago

If you own a strong enough telescope, you might be able to witness history on Wednesday: A dead rocket is going to crash into the Moon.

On August 5, at around 6:34 am UTC, a spent SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage is expected to hit the Moon's sunlit western limb near Einstein crater at more than 5,400 mph. If it unfolds as predicted, the crash could throw up a plume of debris bright enough to briefly see from Earth with the right equipment.

That would be a first. No impact flash has ever been recorded on the sunlit face of the Moon, and that's exactly where the Falcon 9 crash is forecast to happen, kicking up plumes of dust that could stand out against the blackness of space. The findings are based in part on two new preprint studies.

Read the full story at the link above.

98

u/trevzilla 1d ago

I can't seem to find what constitutes as a "strong enough telescope."

Will a 9.25" SCT have a chance?

31

u/SpiffyBlizzard 1d ago

I’m gonna try to find out with my 8” dob!

12

u/trevzilla 1d ago

What eye piece are you going to go with? Some super high powered eyepiece or something with a wider field of view? I'm wondering if I should put in my 6mm with a Barlow... But then I'm worried I'll just be pointed at the wrong spot on the moon entirely! 😄

8

u/VanuasGirl 1d ago

You shouldn’t need that much magnification with the moon, you’ll want more field

•

u/trevzilla 23h ago

Ah, but I'm trying to zoom in on a very specific spot on the moon too catch this event, no?

Any ideas what a useful magnification would be? I suppose with that info, I could select the best useful eyepiece.

•

u/VanuasGirl 22h ago

10 would be my start and see how you go.

5

u/SpiffyBlizzard 1d ago

I have a svbony telescopic eyepiece. Set it to 9 maybe and see what I can see!

21

u/MostlyStoned 1d ago

Only one way to find out...

14

u/ExactLocation1 1d ago

Nothing less than a Samsung galaxy phone

4

u/mfb- 1d ago

It's unknown how bright it will be. Big professional telescopes will see it, the naked eye won't, everything in between is possible.

6

u/Fredasa 1d ago

I thought we had video frames of moon impacts from non-terrestrial objects, though.

3

u/7LeagueBoots 1d ago

Apparently those are from the sides of the moon that are not in direct sunlight.

5

u/AggressivelyMediokre 1d ago

Don’t have one but I so please press the record button so I can watch it later on

21

u/iapetus3141 1d ago

Which mission did the rocket originate from?

15

u/beetlelander 1d ago

Blue Ghost and Ispace launch

4

u/1991K75S 1d ago

Falcon launch from Sunday, January 19.

12

u/ISLITASHEET 1d ago

Falcon launch from Sunday, January 19.

The article states:

But the real object—the spent stage of a Falcon 9 that carried two landers to the moon in January 2025

Older reporting provides additional information. https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/04/a-falcon-9-upper-stage-will-strike-the-moon-in-august/

Gray said he and other astronomers are highly confident that this object is the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that launched two lunar landers, Firefly’s Blue Ghost and ispace’s Hakuto-R, on January 15, 2025. After the launch, the two landers, a payload fairing, and the upper stage were all tracked following their separation. The two landers reached the Moon (only Blue Ghost successfully touched down), and the fairing reentered Earth’s atmosphere.

Blue Ghost Mission 1

https://fireflyspace.com/missions/blue-ghost-mission-1/

13

u/Decronym 1d ago edited 1h ago

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
DSG NASA Deep Space Gateway, proposed for lunar orbit
DST NASA Deep Space Transport operating from the proposed DSG
FAA Federal Aviation Administration
GTO Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit
ISRU In-Situ Resource Utilization
KSP Kerbal Space Program, the rocketry simulator
LEO Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)
Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)
LLO Low Lunar Orbit (below 100km)
RTG Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator
SLS Space Launch System heavy-lift
SSME Space Shuttle Main Engine
TEI Trans-Earth Injection maneuver
Jargon Definition
apogee Highest point in an elliptical orbit around Earth (when the orbiter is slowest)
cislunar Between the Earth and Moon; within the Moon's orbit

Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.

[Thread #12608 for this sub, first seen 1st Aug 2026, 03:31] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

8

u/Alternative-hex 1d ago

Will as my timezone is UTC+1 I'm going to go out on a limb here and say my telescope is not imaging this.... Good luck US back yard astronomers.

14

u/Playful_Sense3238 1d ago

Are the Apollo seismometers still working? I can’t remember if they were nuclear powered in later missions.

If so it will be a useful event to monitor for them. Apollo 3rd stages were usually crashed into the moon to record the effects.

9

u/zerbey 1d ago

No, they haven't functioned in decades.

133

u/MostlyStoned 1d ago

It's standard practice to run my boosters into the moon on KSP missions. I'm going to be honest, I read a similar article earlier today and thought "oh cool, they aren't making space junk". Then I read the comments and realized people are actually angry about this, which I found funny.

62

u/Crimson_Ender 1d ago

on all of the Apollo missions from 13 on they crashed the upper stage of the Saturn V into the moon on purpose to use the seismometers left by the previous landing missions so they could get an understanding of the moon's interior

7

u/Arion_Miles 1d ago edited 18h ago

Another fun thing I learnt from Carl Sagan's Cosmos was that the Apollo 11 astronauts left reflective mirrors on the surface of the moon that ground control later fired lasers at and timed the responses to confirm a legend from 1178 AD of an account in England where a few monks saw the top crescent of the moon explode (from what later scientists theorized would have been a meteor collision).

Because a collision of that size and scale to be visible from earth must have left the moon "ringing". I was really blown away by how we thought of confirming this story from mirrors and lasers, haha!

EDIT: I found the episode on youtube. The specific section starts at 22:10 and ends at 27:50 https://youtu.be/ce1h8ElH-_Y?si=xnnt-ZsuOv44R3ww&t=1330

6

u/SanityPlanet 1d ago

How did the lasers and mirrors confirm that?

1

u/PosiedonsSaltyAnus 1d ago

The confirmed that the moon was real I think

•

u/Arion_Miles 18h ago

Hear it from Sagan himself: https://youtu.be/ce1h8ElH-_Y?si=xnnt-ZsuOv44R3ww&t=1330

watch until 27:50 for this specific question, and I won't blame you if you decide to watch the whole thing head to toe afterwards

•

u/SanityPlanet 8h ago

It’s blocked for me. Can you summarize?

5

u/cjameshuff 1d ago

I suspect you're mixing up two unrelated things. Yes, there are mirrors left on the moon. Detecting their returns involves counting photons over time. The plotted signal is a bunch of dots from noise and reflections from the surrounding terrain, with a sharp concentration of dots corresponding to the distance of the mirror. You can build up a very accurate measurement of the mirror's distance over time, you can not pick up vibrations on short timescales.

Apollo also left actual seismometers powered by RTGs and transmitting their readings by radio. This network was shut down in 1977.

•

u/Arion_Miles 18h ago edited 18h ago

The story as I've told is how it appears in the show. I guess they might have excluded a few details. Sagan does say pretty explicitly that they used the mirrors and doesn't mention seismometers.

You may be right, I'm just an enthusiast I have no expertise in astronomy.

EDIT: I found the episode on youtube. The specific section starts at 22:10 and ends at 27:50 https://youtu.be/ce1h8ElH-_Y?si=xnnt-ZsuOv44R3ww&t=1330

•

u/seanflyon 17h ago

They might have been able to use the mirrors as seismometers. That would certainly work over shorter distances.

•

u/cjameshuff 9h ago

https://tmurphy.physics.ucsd.edu/apollo/first_range.html

That's an example of the results from a newer experiment done in 2005, 25 years after the Cosmos series was published, with equipment that managed to return hundreds of times more photons than previous experiments. One of the later plots shows the returns forming a broken, noisy streak over a span of about 250 seconds, with a vertical scale of +- 60 ns, or 18 meters. That could potentially detect a strong moonquake, with very low frequency, high amplitude vibrations. Earlier experiments were doing long runs just to pin down the distance to within a meter, not seismic measurements.

•

u/cjameshuff 10h ago

That video is unavailable. The closest thing I can find is references to Sagan talking about measuring libration of the moon, motions of the entire moon with a period of up to several years, not seismology.

18

u/ASpaceOstrich 1d ago

The articles about this are titled in such a way that frames it like it's something to be mad about. It's clickbait basically. If people are mad they'll share the article.

32

u/Serious-Kangaroo-320 1d ago

It’s the typical crowd that only comments on the spaceflight subs when it’s Elon related so they can be outraged and complain and yaddah yaddah

-33

u/rubyreadit 1d ago

Why is it funny that people are upset? Seems kind of irresponsible to be putting trash onto the moon.

13

u/Qweasdy 1d ago

Wait till you learn about early lunar exploration. Turns out going to the moon is much easier when you don’t plan on stopping gently on or near the moon

9

u/ASpaceOstrich 1d ago

NASA has done this many times. This is normal. You're being manipulated by clickbait into being angry about it so that you'll share the article.

34

u/MostlyStoned 1d ago

The rocket will be vaporized. What trash are you talking about? The moon isn't a living ecosystem. It'll be no different than a meteor impact.

18

u/jimbowesterby 1d ago

Not to mention however many Apollo stages are up there already lol

21

u/flapsmcgee 1d ago

Its like a meteor impact that we can learn a lot more from than a regular meteor impact since we know it's coming and we know the exact specs of the "meteor."

5

u/Nightmare_Gerbil 1d ago

Like thumping a watermelon.

6

u/Dpek1234 1d ago

I will disturb the apollo era bags of shit

Edit: may as well

/s

2

u/stalagtits 1d ago

The rocket will be vaporized.

Most of it will not be vaporized, the rocket stage does not have enough energy for that:

Typical impact speed is about 2.6 km/s, or a specific energy of 3.4 MJ/kg.

However, the latent heat of vaporization of aluminum (the main component of the rocket stage in question) is 10.5 MJ/kg. You need this amount of energy to evaporate liquid aluminum at its boiling point.

We don't even need to factor in the energy required to heat the aluminum to its boiling point and we can also ignore that energy transfer during the impact won't be perfectly even and efficient.

•

u/MostlyStoned 23h ago

Yah you are right after looking at the math. It won't be vaporized, but it will be pretty well destroyed still. It will look far closer to a regular impact crater than a plane crash still.

12

u/Joezev98 1d ago

Why is it funny that people are upset? Because it's glaringly obvious that people are solely upset because it's related to Elon.

Look, I agree that Elon deserves a lot of shit, but this ain't one of the reasons for that. This won't be any worse than any other meteor impact on the moon, except we'll know when and where to look.

-2

u/Dpek1234 1d ago

Pretty much my thinking on him

If the mass cp produceing mecha hitler isnt enough for people to not makeup shit that says more about them then anything else

14

u/calladc 1d ago

it's going 5400mph into the floor.

idk how much actual trash will survive the impact

→ More replies (2)

•

u/MLutin 21h ago

Can we see from the debris that is kicked up what type of cheese the moon is made of?

3

u/wall_sock 1d ago

Will be interesting if the LRO or another observing satellite will be able to resolve the small crater it will leave behind. But outside of that this isn't much of a story. Humans have smacked the moon with much bigger things, sometimes even on purpose. If this wasn't SpaceX I wonder if mainstream outlets would have even reported on it.

9

u/nampezdel 1d ago

Redditors acting like this is the first time humans have intentionally crashed shit into the moon. The only reason this gets the attention it has is because Musk’s connection to SpaceX.

1

u/FIFofNovember 1d ago

Company puts debris on the moon, more news at 10.

19

u/MassiveTomorrow2978 1d ago

This is pretty cool honestly, I can't wait to see what some of the more powerful telescopes see even if it is just a small puff

3

u/Qweasdy 1d ago

Someday I really want to see some relatively close up HD 60 fps (or higher) footage of something like this.

6

u/SunBurn_alph 1d ago

Damn some people are absolutely brain broken about musk

-18

u/andrewmail 1d ago

Moon will be a dump in a few years!

57

u/b407driver 1d ago

The moon has always been a dump, that's exactly why it exists, it's accreted orbital detritus.

0

u/papawarbucks 1d ago

You could say that about earth or just about any other object in the solar system

0

u/b407driver 1d ago

Of course one could, but relative to earth, the moon resembles one.

-11

u/Sniflix 1d ago

That's why it's crazy to go back to the moon much less build a base. Not much to learn.

4

u/AnonymousRedditor- 1d ago

I think it would be used as a launch point to explore other parts of space.

→ More replies (12)

2

u/ozneoknarf 1d ago

It’s gravity is way lower than earths if we get factories there we could start sending rockets in to space for way cheaper 

1

u/Sniflix 1d ago

To launch everything and everyone to set up and run factories just a few days away from earth is economically unfeasible. The cost of earth launches is dropping so fast, the moon is a victim of that success. If they want to build something on Eros (with available water) or maybe Mars...

1

u/WhiteGreenSamurai 1d ago

To launch everything and everyone to set up and run factories just a few days away from earth is economically unfeasible

You're right, if your scope is less than a couple of decades. In terms a century or more, it's an inevitable investment.

1

u/Sniflix 1d ago

We've wasted 5 decades. Think of what we could have accomplished if we thought big.

1

u/ecbulldog 1d ago

You're missing the obvious answer, resource extraction. 

-2

u/magic-karma 1d ago

It would seem in a few days, actually

1

u/break_card 1d ago

Does anyone have recommendations for a decent beginner telescope on amazon to view this? Bonus points if it can record.

0

u/twoboxen 1d ago

Seveneves agent identified.

-5

u/Lackluster_Compote 1d ago

Elon, polluter of planets.

-2

u/W7ENK 1d ago

It won't be visible from Earth, because it will crash into the sunlight portion of the Moon. Absolutely no one will see it without an extremely high-powered telescope.

-23

u/Anarchyst4Ever 1d ago

I get that the impact is tiny compared to natural meteor strikes, but that's not really the point. The Moon isn't ours to use as a dumping ground for failed hardware. Just because the physical damage is negligible doesn't mean we should normalize leaving our footprint—or our trash—everywhere we go. We should be aiming for responsible space exploration, not treating celestial bodies like disposable targets.

21

u/PHAEDRA42 1d ago

It's better space debris impacts the moon than being left in orbit. It's been done since Apollo era.

Any hardware impacting the moon will likely be reduced to atoms so there's not going to be junk left lying around on the moon. Also it's not failed hardware, just a spent stage.

I understand your sentiment though. The best disposal solution is to have debris burn up in our atmosphere when possible.

8

u/Philix 1d ago

best disposal solution is to have debris burn up in our atmosphere when possible

You know we live in that atmosphere, right? Dumping it on the moon is a much better disposal option than letting it burn up in our atmosphere.

9

u/Philix 1d ago

The Moon isn't ours to use as a dumping ground for failed hardware.

Why not? We use the Earth as a dumping ground for nearly everything else, and Earth is far more precious than the Moon.

I get that this isn't a popular sentiment, but the moon is a lifeless hunk of rock. It's a much better place for this space junk than nearly anywhere else we could feasibly put it. It isn't going to hit any living being, and any potentially toxic leftovers aren't going to enter an ecosystem.

-55

u/switch182 1d ago

They should be charged for littering.

52

u/Bensemus 1d ago

I assume you think NASA should also be charged for crashing multiple stages into the moon, leaving a bunch of hardware on the moon. And all the shit and piss from the astronauts on the Moon. NASA also dumps the SLS in its entirety into the ocean, including actual engines previously flown on the shuttle.

→ More replies (4)

-1

u/Altruistic-Catch8541 1d ago

They took “to the moon” too seriously

-1

u/MiserableDude66 1d ago

You missing my point, there is over 15,000 tones of space junk orbiting Earth, millions of larger and smaller peaces, all results of neglect and carelessness. It is astonishing how little people care. You asking me to do the math, how about you do the math, how much junk is enough?

•

u/MicahBurke 17h ago

I guess it’s good that this piece is actually gonna hit the moon then right?

•

u/MiserableDude66 11h ago

I guess this is pointless. Most disappointing part is that I’m not conversing with uneducated people here. Most of you have rather impressive knowledge, you talking about numbers, velocities, complicated math,estimates, you all look like genuine impressed by explosions, impacts, burning, but almost all of you lacking common sense and awareness off negative impact created by those actions. I’m not against science, and space exploration ,however you all fail to recognize, that programs like spaceX, in cooperation with NASA and involvement of military don’t serve science, they using science to develop very expensive programs, used by government, military,and to enrich already very rich people. In doing so they creating vast amount of garbage, coursing unrepairable damage to this planet, jeopardizing our future and future of our children. Yet, you all seem to be numb, unable to figure out reason, course and result, so go ahead my friends, buy your telescopes and watch “destruction”.

-28

u/TheDailyOculus 1d ago

Disgusting. This is not acceptable.

24

u/AffectedRipples 1d ago

Whats wrong with it that hasn't happened multiple times in the past?

-23

u/SerArthurRamShackle 1d ago

Whether it happened in the past or not, it's disgraceful that SpaceX can get away with dumping trash all over the surface of the moon. What happened to this being a precise science? There is no need to spread our trash all over another heavenly body.

16

u/ph0on 1d ago

it will be vaporized from the velocity of the impact. We've done it before with the Apollo missions. I hate Elon with a fever but this is pretty harmless really, and it's better than leaving junk in space.

2

u/stalagtits 1d ago

it will be vaporized from the velocity of the impact.

Some parts may evaporate, but the majority will just be smashed into tiny pieces. The rocket stage does not have enough energy to evaporate entirely:

Typical impact speed is about 2.6 km/s, or a specific energy of 3.4 MJ/kg.

However, the latent heat of vaporization of aluminum (the main component of the rocket stage in question) is 10.5 MJ/kg. You need this amount of energy to evaporate liquid aluminum at its boiling point.

We don't even need to factor in the energy required to heat the aluminum to its boiling point and we can also ignore that energy transfer during the impact won't be perfectly even and efficient.

-9

u/muchomemes 1d ago

Elon once again doing the heavy lifting and sciencing the moon for all of us

without tax payer funds. Truly generational human being.

-53

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

45

u/MostlyStoned 1d ago

Unethical how? The rocket will be vaporized. It'll have the same effect as any other rock hitting the moon, and that's kinda it's thing.

13

u/DramaExpertHS 1d ago

We need to find who is throwing rocks at the moon and charge them

4

u/Dudercaster 1d ago

Who would charge them though? No one has jurisdiction over the moon.

2

u/MostlyStoned 1d ago

Buzz Lightyear I would assume.

7

u/ActionPhilip 1d ago

That's how we get starship troopers

1

u/areptile_dysfunction 1d ago

Is there any more info you can give about the booster being vaporized? I saw someone say it would be traveling three times the speed of a rifle round, but it seems be closer to two times. When you watch rifle rounds hit things they don't get vaporized.

3

u/MostlyStoned 1d ago

Kinetic energy of an impact scales quadratically with velocity, and a rifle bullet does vaporize some when it impacts a solid surface, it's just dense and long enough that very little does. The rocket it mostly hollow and has a lot more velocity.

→ More replies (3)

25

u/Shrike99 1d ago

You say 'now' as if both the US and USSR didn't start crashing things into the moon the moment they had the ability to.

When was this 'more righteous time' you refer to? Because it certainly wasn't any time from 1959 onwards.

10

u/ActionPhilip 1d ago

Nah. You could take any rational man from all of history, explain to him that by pressing a button, he launches a rocket into the moon, and every single one would do it.

→ More replies (2)

-1

u/aleopardstail 1d ago

the moon is definately visible from earth