Studying the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

On Thursday, NASA will launch the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, and the LCROSS or Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satelllite. So we've set about studying the LRO first, to see what it looks like, what its payload will be, and how long its mission will take. The kids then took some clay and made their own LRO displays. The second one is a little more free-form, sine my 5-year-old mainly wanted to make a Lunar landscape, but you get the idea. The LRO is kind of a blunt-looking vehicle, and that's the moon over on the right. We used clay and then colored it in with paint and markers. You can see more about it on the NASA site.

This is gonna be some cool stuff and tell us a whole lot more about the moon. They're going to study radiation, craters, resources, and more. I'm hoping we can see the launch on Thursday!

On another note, I heard that there's actually astronaut poop on the moon. I'm not kidding. I mean it makes sense, given the *ahem* in's and out's of those space suits, but that's certainly not something I had considered. I've said enough - if you want to know more, you can go here.