Treehugging, possibly lycanthropic web-2.0 campaigners have launched a petition intended to “stop NASA from bombing the Moon!”.

The organisers of the petition claim that the space agency is turning unspoiled lunar wilderness into a “firing range” for space weapons, and that US “imperialists” intend to colonise the moon “without regard for ecosystems or indigenous peoples”.

The petition refers to “NASA’s LRCROSS plan to bomb the dark side of the moon”, but it seems clear that the authors – “the Chicago Surrealist Movement” – are on about the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite mission. LCROSS involves crashing a spent Centaur upper-stage rocket into the Cabeus crater at the lunar south pole this Friday; the following LCROSS sniffer-probe will then plummet through the resulting debris plume a couple of minutes later, transmitting readings back to Earth until it too crashes into the Moon.

According to the Chicago Surrealist Movement, posting a petition at the “Care2” treehugger-petition Web-2.0 portal, this is actually a space-based weapons test.

The excuse given is that this is an effort to find water deep under lunar surface. But it also serves as a live-fire test exercise for US war strategists with an interest in the precision of orbiting satellite weapons… in other words, the southern hemisphere of the Moon will be turned into a firing range, making this mission one giant leap for the global reach of space warfare.

NASA does indeed say it is interested in the lunar antarctic craters for their possible ice deposits, which would be of great value to future Moonbases. Quite apart from drinking water, the possible polar icebergs would also furnish oxygen for breathing and ingredients for rocket fuel – potentially far more cheaply than hauling it in from Earth. But this is colonialism, according to the right-on petitioneers: and colonialism is Bad.

Historically, the purpose of exploration has always been the exploitation of resources and the colonization of territory without regard for ecosystems or indigenous peoples, and clearly the Moon is the next territory coveted by imperialists. This so-called “NASA experiment” is a hostile act of aggression and a violent intrusion upon our closest and dearest celestial neighbor.

It isn’t clear who the indigenous people of the Moon are, and given the apparent complete lack of life there it also seems a bit of a stretch to say there’s really any “ecosystem” present. But there are always the Clangers to be considered.

Thus far the Care2 petition has only 560 digi-signatures, and it seems fairly clear that the surreal(ist) campaign against NASA’s unprovoked Moon-missile strike isn’t exactly sweeping the world. The campaigners suggest that there may be alternatives to mere protest, however. Elsewhere on the web they offer a fuller version of their lunar-loony manifesto, in which among other things they describe the Apollo moon landings as having been instigated by “a powerful syndicate of military-industrial criminals”. They also suggest direct action:

What can we as surrealists or lunatics or astrologers or naturalists or anarcho-primitivists or Greens or werewolves or pagans or psychics or UFO groupies or other concerned members of the general public do? We must soothe the Moon, we bandage her. We implore other celestial bodies and entities to aid her. We will not let her endure this crime or its grim aftermath alone.

We need to communicate to the Moon. Talk to her in our dreams, trances, or meditations, and prepare her for this shock and wound as best we can. Hold her, send out imaginative protection to her, and put our dream bodies out there in front of the bomb. Collectively, we can sabotage the bombing or by imagining all manner of things going wrong, or encouraging the Moon to increase her own magnetic shields. Sing to her. Give her back just a tiny portion of all that she has done for us. We are all created from Moon dust.

What more, indeed, could any astrologer, werewolf etc be expected to do than that?

Hat-tip: The Register for the scary article.