Moon mission scientists 'blown away' by data

NASA | Team analyzing results of spacecraft's impact

LOS ANGELES -- NASA's much-hyped mission to hurl a spacecraft into the moon yielded some worthwhile data after all, scientists said.

New images show a mile-high plume of lunar debris from the Cabeus crater shortly after the space agency's Centaur rocket struck Oct. 9.

"We were blown away by the data returned," Anthony Colaprete, the mission's chief scientist, said Friday from the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., which managed the launch. "The team is working hard on the analysis, and the data appear to be of very high quality."

In media coverage before the impact, many observers said they were disappointed at the lack of spectacle.

But scientists said the mission was carried out for "a scientific purpose, not to put on a fireworks display for the public," said space consultant Alan Stern, a former NASA associate administrator for science.

By creating the debris cloud, scientists were able to use the $79 million Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite to sample and study the dust.

But Michio Kaku, a professor at the City College of New York and host of "Sci Q Sundays" on the Science Channel, said NASA may be jumping the gun in calling the results "a smashing success."

"To be a spectacular success, we had to find large quantities of underground ice," Kaku said Saturday.

Finding significant amounts of water on the moon would be a major discovery, making eventual colonization easier.