NASA's LCROSS Lunar Mission Pays Homage to Hitchhiker's Guide

John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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NASA's LCROSS Lunar Mission Pays Homage to Hitchhiker's Guide



Moments before crashing into Earth's Moon, NASA's LCROSS probe paid homage to Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novels via ... Twitter, of all things.

The Twitter feed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCROSS] keeping the Internet posted on the mission status - how fast it was traveling and how far away it was from its destination.

Moments before impacting the crater-scarred landscape, the final mission updates paid homage to a suddenly-created cetacean on its way to a space collision of its very own in the classic sci-fi comedy series, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In the book, two missiles aimed at the protagonists' spaceship Heart of Gold find themselves suddenly turned into a sperm whale and a bowl of petunias by the power of the ship's Infinite Improbability Drive. As The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/oct/12/nasa-lcross-hitchhikers-guide-twitter] sums up:

[blockquote]The whale spends the last few minutes of its life pondering its existence - "Ahhh! Woooh! What's happening? Who am I? Why am I here? What's my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I?" - before it crashes into the surface of the planet Magrathea.[/blockquote]

LCROSS may not have been pondering its own existence (at least not as far as we know), but the probe did recount the ill-fated whale's words as it plummeted towards a final collision: "And what's this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round ... it needs a big wide sounding name like 'Ow', 'Ownge', 'Round', 'Ground'! ... That's it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it'll be friends with me?"

The probe's impact failed to produce the hoped-for 10km column of dust and rock that would have been scanned for traces of ice (the presence of which would have been a strong argument in favor of colonizing Earth's biggest satellite), but it succeeded in bringing the late Adams' words into space. Where else could possibly be more fitting than that?



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Katherine Kerensky

Why, or Why Not?
Mar 27, 2009
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Ha!
That's Brilliant! and the Original Hitch Hiker's Guide, no less!
I'm so glad they did that... I have people to tell this to...
 

wolfy098

New member
May 1, 2009
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On twitter

Happiness went Up

Then fell through the floor and out the other end of the earth at the word Twitter
 
Sep 4, 2009
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Again, I'm relieved nothing went catastrophically wrong. Like a smooth landing on the moon.

*I wonder if it will be my friend?*
 

Zacharine

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Apr 17, 2009
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Nice to see humour has not died out even in the more seriously minded scientific circuits.

Oh, and 'We apologize for the inconvenience' would have been a fitting memoir to the second crash.
 

Cargando

New member
Apr 8, 2009
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Brilliant. I know there's an asteroid called 'Arthur Dent' out there somewhere. I think there's also a 'Douglas Adams' one.
 

AceDiamond

New member
Jul 7, 2008
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In before all the people whose souls are held down by gravity come in here and start complaining about how we spent billions of dollars that could've been better spent on domestic issues to make a tribute to Douglas Adams.
 

cleverlymadeup

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Mar 7, 2008
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that's awesome, still one of the funniest parts of the book. at least they weren't saying what was going thru the bowl of petunias
 
Feb 13, 2008
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Ubernerd that I am, I read this while in the pub. Now I have to apologise to the barstaff who have just watched me cheer.

Sheer genius, I'm certain DNA would approve.
 
Mar 16, 2009
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It's been said, but thanks for mentioning this. I wouldn't have likely found this, and it is perhaps the greatest use of a Hitchhiker's reference I have ever seen.

This has convinced me there is still good in this world... maybe I should lay off of all the lunar colonization research. I don't need to pour billions of dollars into NASA for memory-foam and living on the moon. I have forgotten the way of Adams, but now my eyes are re-opened. Thank you, CantFakeTheFunk, you have shown me the light, and I am going to push to have NASA closed.
- Barack Obama
 

ben---neb

No duckies...only drowning
Apr 22, 2009
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Captain Pancake said:
Heh heh... The Guardian...
Yeah, did you know for example that it's been proven that 89% of all Guardian buyers burn the paper without ever reading it. And that the remaining 11% are criminally insane.

What no one realises is that no actually programmed the probe to do that. It just read the books and became a fan.