How a science editor fuels conspiracy theories
On June 18, 2009, NASA launched the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The orbiter will collect scientific data about the Moon, and create a 3-D map of the Moon’s surface. Piggy-backing on the launch of LRO was the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS). It is designed to watch and perform analysis of the impact of the launch vehicle’s upper stage on a permanently shadowed region near the south pole of the Moon. The impact will produce a plume rising about 6 miles (10 km) from the surface. NASA hopes that spectral analysis of the impact plume can tell us if there’s water ice on the Moon.
But now the LCROSS mission is the target of conspiracy theorists. It turns out the fantasy of those conspiracy theorists is fueled by bad science, actually produced by a science editor of a newspaper. Yes, that’s right, a science editor…
On October 9 this year the spent upper stage of the launch vehicle, with a mass of about 5,100 pounds (2,300 kg), will strike the Moon with a velocity of 5,600 mph (9,000 km/h). LCROSS will fly through the debris plume, then crash on the Moon as well, about four minutes after the impact of the upper stage. Analysis performed by LCROSS when it’s flying through the debris plume, together with Earth-based observations, should tell us if the debris plume contains traces of water.
The impact of the upper stage will leave a crater on the Moon, about 28 metres in diameter, and 5 metres deep. But many websites of conspiracy theorists claim the impact will produce a crater that’s five miles wide…
According to the conspiracy theorists NASA plans to “bomb the Moon“, with a “2 ton kinetic weapon“, that may cause a conflict with an extraterrestrial civilization that has a lunar base on the far side of the Moon. I’m not making this up, they really seem to believe this. Here’s a website promoting this nonsense, here’s another one, and here, and there. And there’s a petition on Facebook, “NASA needs to stop attacking our Moon“.
What is the origin of all this crap? If the correct crater diameter was reported, then nobody of the conspiracy theorists would probably care, but a crater five miles wide sounds really impressive, of course. Enough to trigger the fantasy of conspiracy theorists, apparently. Those poor people don’t seem to realize that the Moon is full of impact craters, and rocks from outer space still hit the Moon, producing craters. One tiny man-made crater more on the Moon is really not going to make a difference. So where did that five miles disinformation come from?
It’s coming from a science editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, David Perlman. In a piece on the SFGate, the online version of the San Francisco Chronicle, he writes: “The rocket will crash into the crater at 5,600 mph, creating a new crater – perhaps as large as 5 miles wide.” Clearly he hasn’t checked the facts about the impact, and worse, he lacks any scientific understanding about such an impact. As a science editor it should be no problem to find information on how craters form on the Moon, and the amount of energy an impact must have to produce a crater with a certain diameter. It only takes a little high school math to calculate that producing a crater five miles wide, you need 23 million times more energy than the actual impact energy of that spent upper stage.
Perhaps this doesn’t tell you that much, so let’s put this number in perspective. Pretend for a moment that the impact energy of the upper stage equals the detonation of a small amount of TNT, only a pound and a half. Then the energy needed to produce the big hole Mr. Perlman is talking about would be the equivalent of the detonation of the nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima…
Mr. Perlman is lucky that I’m not the editor in chief of the San Francisco Chronicle, I would tell him – like Donald Trump – “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Update: I found out that Mr. Perlman has been with The San Francisco Chronicle since the 1940s. He’s 90 years old! Undoubtedly he wrote good science articles in the past, but readers today should also expect accurate stories in the newspaper, and it doesn’t matter if the editor is 20, 50, or 100 years old. Perhaps it’s time for him to pass the torch. In that case, the editor in chief of the San Francisco Chronicle should tell him: “YOU’RE RETIRED!”
How do I get in touch with a science editor in relation to a science conspiracy that I prove. I have a science conspiracy that is a fact. Go to anoter of my wen pages http://www.questionablescience.net.
A Conspiracy in Science in Progress
What you are about to read is the mother of all the conspiracies in science.
Every conspiracy that Science ever thought up such as the Critical Density Conspiracy or the Dark Energy Conspiracy, or any conspiracy connected to science is in place to protect this theory they hide from anyone outside physics from becoming known. The conspiracies in place do the hiding of the Mother Conspiracy so well that in three hundred years no one that is not part of science got a sniff about what the Mother Conspiracy entails. The Mother Conspiracy is in place so that students in physics are Brainwashed by instigating the deliberate sanctioning of Mind Control through their practising of enforcing Thought control they unleash on students. I reveal the Mother Conspiracy and I show why it is in place. I prove that the Mother Conspiracy is in place. I show how every student including you reading this has been brainwashed to believe science is true and to believe in science. This book is for free; I make no money so why would I be dishonest? Download it and get the nastiest surprise of your life. Then you can also read how the cosmos truly apply science and read Explanations of what was never Explained before and how the explained factors interlink
Peet, there is a difference between speaking the truth and stating facts. You may be telling the truth as you see it but that doesn’t make it fact.
Also, a helpful tip; If you want to get people to at least consider your scientific theories you probably shouldn’t label it as a conspiracy. Particularly when your page reads like the ramblings of someone who need to up their meds. But good luck anyway.
Reaction from Peet Schutte (received via email)
Hello Jojo, I appreciate you comment. I have been in touch with about 2000 Universities, Academics about my work and there is just no response from their quarters. I have written more that forty books and I have written one Theses in 8 part wherein I prove there is no such a thing as mass. There is weight but not mass. If mass did apply why are the two smallest planets on either end and the largest plants on the middle. How do you then marry that arrangement of planet location with 4π2a3 = P2G(M + m). You can visit Lulu.com by going to Google, request Peet Schutte books then go to Peet Schutte storefront and download many books I wrote for free. It has been 15 years that I just want a reply from them on any of their Newtonian mass that is producing gravity nonsense. On earth we have weight we might also call mass. In the Universe everything floats in space equally because of the buoyancy density. If you study Kepler’s tables, you will see that T2 / a3 is more or less in all cases 9.8. This means that T2 / a3 = k-1 because Kepler that wrote the tables from his calculations declared a3 = T2k. The Newton with a bizarre twisting of mathematical principles came to the conclusion that a3 = T2. What this means is that when you a3 look into your mirror T2 which is (2) two dimensional versus your location as three dimensional a3 you must be able to climb into your mirror and out again because the two dimensional object is equal to your three dimensional person. On this they base the foundation of F=G(Mxm)/r2 and the truth is their is nothing even closely resembling mass. My friend, I have made a thirty five year study on this case and I have just written a book which was published this week on Lulu.com in which I show how the Universe started before the Big Bang, before their was light or material. No University on earth would read it although I sent it to countless Universities. But accepting my vision about science makes the science Academics no present as being science fiction, which it is. Visit my other websites, The Absolute Relevancy of Singularity (connect by link) or you can download for free A Conspiracy to Selectively Withhold Science Information linked as http://www.free-ebooks.net/ebook/A-Conspiracy-to-Selectively-Withhold-Science-Information. You can go to Google and request Peet Schutte books and you will see two books witrh simelar titles but downlaod the one with the title A Conspiracy to Selectively Withhold Science Information. Read this book that is for free and then decide on what is a conspiracy and what is blameless.
I am sure you will be a little bit wiser afterwards.
Peet Schutte