@ 25 (me)

… not only does this letter writer have no idea about LCROSS, not only hasn’t he (?) heard of – d’uh! – craters; s/he thinks the Moon controls our *weather* and *atmospheric pressure* for pity’s sake! Plus he (?) seems to imply that scientists aren’t even human or, as AE sexist~ally (not a word? It is now!) put it, “man”. Depressing really. I’m writing a response to hopefully go in the paper too but we’ll have to wait & see if that gets published.

Update :

It did! Took a while but finally my letter in reply to that anti-science whackjobs ravings was indeed published :

I’d written :

***
[QUOTE] In a letter texted to the[I] ‘Sunday Mail’ [/I](2009 Oct. 18th) A.E. Swain of Semaphore spouted & I quote verbatim:

”Are NASA insane? Bombing our moon that controls our weather, tidal changes and atmospheric pressure? It won’t be man that causes his own destruction it will be those silly scientists.”

Well A.E. Swain, haven’t you ever heard of craters? Our Moon is naturally covered in them. Hundreds can be observed with a decent telescope and many are visible even through your garden variety binoculars. All these naturally occurring craters are considerably larger than that made by the LCROSS impact – which, by the way, was not a “bomb” but a spaceprobe. There was absolutely never any danger to Earth or of causing any real harm to the lifeless rock which is our Moon. Incidentally, A.E., I think you need to do a lot more research and thinking before you write your next letter because our Moon has nothing whatsoever to do with our planets atmospheric pressure or weather and where you got such silly notions is beyond me. Finally, A.E. Swain, I can assure you that scientists and “man” are not mutually exclusive but the same thing – scientists are men and women too! In fact they are intelligent, compassionate and curious women and men who merely seek to understand and learn from our wonderful cosmos in ways that very often benefit humanity – for instance being responsible for the computers and mobile phones we use to convey these messages! [/QUOTE]

***

This was published albeit in slightly edited & toned down form in last Sunday’s ‘Sunday Mail’ (2009- Nov -8th) “letters”, page 72, second letter down under the header : “Its not rocket science.” (I’d have preferred ‘Hasn’t AE heard of craters?’ & there were a couple of typos of their making too but still quite buzz.

Just thought I’d let y’all know.

Noted this on the BAUT too – see :

http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/90153-lcross-lunar-crater-orbiting-sensing-satellite-mission-4.html

I have never really believed there will be water, or at least that the crashes will be able to find it, because I think that at all temperatures the water evaporates (or sublimates), and given enough time all ice will eventually disappear.

Not necessarily.

If we assume that any water on the moon is delivered there by comet impacts, then all we need is for the rate of accumulation of water to exceed the rate of water loss through sublimation. And the rate of sublimation at any point will depend on the local vapour pressure of the ice, which will depend on temperature. So in a permanently-shadowed crater, the ice will be very very cold and hence will only sublime very very slowly.

I don’t expect that you’re still reading this post, but that isn’t the way baking works. You can’t simply double or halve batch recipes and expect it work exactly the same way. There are an *enormous* number of variables involved in baking that can change the outcome (air pressure, humidity, bacterial concentrations in the food (and types), type of oven (thermal, convection, induction, microwave, infrared – the size and power output change things drastically as well, as does the exact design used), and even the types of fungus that are common in your area… California sourdough rye bread tastes different than everywhere else because of a type of spore that is common in the air there but isn’t common elsewhere. The fungus changes the taste enough to be noticeable).

Suffice to say that any given recipe only works in a small region. Once you find a recipe that works for you, you stick with it. Changing that recipe *might* work… or it could destroy it. Trial and error is really the only way to go about finding out (at this time), and you rarely hit it exactly right on the first try. Food manufactures spend billions doing T&E research to create perfect recipes. Individual bakers learn the ins and outs of a precious few recipes over the course of a lifetime, and are never more than mediocre at recipes that they haven’t trial and errored to death. I don’t have that kind of time or money;). Fortunately “mediocre” from a practised baker still tastes pretty darned good.

Note that none of this applies to cooking. Cooking and baking are two entirely different disciplines,. Cooking is all about experimentation, and making it up as you go along. Not so with baking.

see:

http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/water-on-the-moon/

because scientists should take science advice from Hollywood, of course *facepalm*