NASA HQ, Groom Lake, Nevada - (X-Files Mess): Officially it's Centaur rocket target practice on a particularly alien patch of the Sea of Tranquility.
But NASA's proposed exploratory moon crater nuking by the unmanned robotic Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) probe aims to destroy a terrible cold war secret.
For somewhere in the Moon's Fecunditatis basin lies hidden a massive Pentagon prototype laser gun, dumped in 1982 on Presidential orders after Nancy Reagan's astrologer said "Nuke the Bastards!"
The ray gun's existence has been a huge thorn in the US military's flesh after Bush Administration warmonger Donald Rumsfeldt 'accidentally' sold a huge swathe of exploration rights on the lunar surface to the Zion Oil Prospecting Corporation.
This week's liftoff will see NASA's accompanying Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on hand to video the entire proceedings, map the trail of destruction and sell the resulting footage to the highest bidder on eBay.
Buzz Aldrin is 104.
