Thanking Kurt

[Jim Mosher]

This seems an appropriate time to publicly thank Kurt Fisher for his
tireless efforts to promote the LCROSS project to the amateur
community.

Although we have not always seen eye to eye on his interpretation of
information, his enthusiasm has been infectious, and his tremendous
diligence has brought to light many references that might otherwise
have gone unnoticed. For example, I don't know if any amateurs
followed his suggestion, but Kurt early-on pointed out reports of
significant amounts of sodium being generated by meteoritic impacts,
and the possible importance of observations with a narrow band sodium
filter:

http://groups.google.com/group/lcross_observation/msg/1ad4ef9218a9e084?&q=sodium

The correctness of that suggestion in the present case seems to have
caught many commentators, and perhaps the LCROSS scientists themselves
by surprise.

I have myself been somewhat distracted by other matters in recent
weeks, and although the results may have seemed disappointing at
first, I think we can all thank Kurt for keeping our attention focused
on this mission.

It will be interesting to see what conclusions are reached from the
data collected.

-- Jim