Analyzing LCROSS' Plume

We are all waiting to see those results!

You bet we are :) Nice of the article to throw a bone to the NG satellite team (I was the Flight Software Lead), seems like the avionics always get a back seat to the science. Tony and crew are indeed being 'mum' - even us guys who built LCROSS are waiting on the edge of our seats.
My LCROSS photo blog: http://tinyurl.com/lcross-is-go

Emory

Alas no news is bad news methinks. We were told at the presser that there would be announcements after two days (nope); two weeks (nope) and two months. The latter presumably at the American Geophysical Union Meeting on December 14.
Apart from the "you see there WAS a plume" (One dubious smudge amongst many :) ...there has been nothing but speculation. The LCROSS Team had a window of opportunity to make some important immediate impression on the Great American Taxpayer but fluffed it. The news cycle is over and the boring details will be published and perused only by fellow academics. And the Lunatic Fringe, myself included, whilst the the bulk of humanity are wondering how much they can afford to spend on the kids this Christmas. (Your equivalent solstice celebration may vary.) Time to bury bad news?
"Any new information will undergo the normal scientific review process and will be released as soon as it is available." (LCROSS blog.) Hmmm. Personally I would have 'leaked' an internal memo stating that *no* alien structures had been found and that any such rumours should be quickly denied by NASA. Then watched the media frenzy up until the actual results were released with as much positive spin as one could impart.

I think they are waiting so long to tell us anything because they uncovered a 1x4x9 black monolith

From the article, it doesn't sound like any significant ice deposits were hit, though there isn't enough information in the article to totally rule it out.

I'm glad to get some confirmation from people way more qualified than I am, Schultz and Hermalyn, that my contention in previous posts that a Centaur isn't an ideal impactor has some merit. That does not mean I'm critical of the mission, because a Centaur is what was available, and was essentially free.

It would be nice to see another mission using a purpose built impactor, with a much higher impact velocity. Absent a finding of substantial water from LCROSS, though, I think the odds of getting funding for such a mission would be very low, since the mission's PR hasn't worked out as well as one would have liked.

I think everyone involved with LCROSS should be proud of the work they've done, and ice or no ice, I look forward to seeing more of the results.

The PR mess was NASA's fault releasing all the flashy CGI of what the impact should look like. Nasa Built the hype and paid for it in the end with a big "was that it?" from the general public and the media. I have been waiting on the results myself and nothing but "The data is still being analyzed" or "We received A lot of data the spacecraft performed perfectly". We get it the mission was a great success, in its execution. But Data would be nice considering I to was very excited and told several people about the upcoming impact. (never once did I call it bombing the moon. media :| )You did good releasing a montage of the previous probes results for Hydrogen detection. You built up to the day. What did you do you let the media have it and on CNN they were acting like it had been launch that morning. BOMBING THE MOON! I Almost threw up when I heard them refer to it as that. You set up big viewing parties all over the Viewing Areas( or what you thought would be the areas which the impact could be seen). You have a video showing of something that looked like 1960's Apollo era landing video.Then to top it all off your big fancy computer generated animations? Albeit great to say the least were just that CGI. Exciting the public was a good idea but it really bit you in the ass in respect to public opinion and NASA. Beyond that To hell with the naysayers. I will sit on my hands just like a did for the raw LROC .tiffs and be a good little tax payer.