Nasa CoLab recently hosted the twelfth Luna Philosophie salon, with guest Brian Day, Educational Technology Technical Lead at NASA Ames Research Center, who gave a great mission briefing on the coming LRO/LCROSS mission to search for water and landing sites for an antarctic station on the moon. NASA CoLab was set up to help build direct and open collaborations between the public, including mission briefings, data collaboration, great educational materials for kids and adults, and a host of other ways to interact, get involved, and get tremendous amounts of information on NASA missions. NASA has truly embraced the open-source culture and it’s great to see NASA CoLab working so well.

About LRO/LCROSS:

In 2009, NASA will return to the Moon with the combined launch of two robotic probes, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS). The two satellites will be launched together aboard an Atlas V rocket and these robotic missions are precursors to the planned establishment of a human outpost on the Moon. The LCROSS mission will use the Centaur upper stage of the launch vehicle as a kinetic impactor in the search for possible deposits of water ice that might occur in permanently-shadowed craters near the lunar pole. LRO will orbit the lunar poles for up to five years. Just after launch from the Kennedy Space Center, LRO will separate from LCROSS.

Another cool thing about Luna Philosophie (besides the cute host and the rest of the fun nerds like me who show up), is that it’s always held on (or close to) the full moon.