The Javelin Probe concept is just one physically slender and otherwise small and affordable step for science and humanity, at being a relatively moon-dirt cheap and physically compact item (as little as 1 kg each to as much as 10 kg each javelin), that's offering us a reliable and worthy method at that is providing the science capability of obtaining a good 3D look-see at the lunar innards as well as keeping track upon the affects of the cosmic influx plus the unavoidable solar winds and of all the many secondary/recoil of anticathode radiation factors, the atmospheric density of which includes sodium plus other heavier elements and possibly even detecting whatever is being retained as physically delivered via solar wind because, since there's so little atmosphere and still a reasonably good amount of gravity that'll influence upon whatever's being run into and of otherwise having been attracting such stuff, chances are fairly good of our moon having accumulated all sorts of solar debris plus that of various solar and cosmic atoms as well as for any passing spores that must have been arriving for billions of years are not only still there but to some degree still arriving upon each and every hour. In other words, what an absoute treasure trove (aka cosmic and solar system morgue) worth of nearly all there is to know, yet we seem to know so little if anything.

Here's another little something that's looking a bit lunar back-side suspicious, and I'll bet that you haven't seen this one as offered from the likes of anything NASA/Apollo, of a somewhat massively squared off crater with one heck of an interesting center attraction. In fact, most of such terrific looking official Apollo images as believably obtained from their supposed nearby orbit are typically somewhat sequested if not media taboo The 3-D Moon Peaks.
Tsiolkovsky crater 2-D Moon Peaks

BTW; if you so happen to see any of the official color images of our moon as being a rather deep golden brownish orb with a few patches of other deeply rich colors of elements as having a good deal of carbon/soot involved, along with our vibrant bluish Earth as situated in the same frame, just forget about these relatively dark and rich colors of our moon because, according to our Apollo EVAs of having taken actual unfiltered Kodak moments, our guano island like moon is actually coated with a relatively clean and thin layer of 50/50 portland cement and cornmeal, without any hint of UV nor such being the least bit reactive nor electrostatic charged.

Besides the spendy informercial-science as issued on behalf the proposed "Polar Night" as published in ASTRONONY(aug. 2004), that which at best isn't to even happen until 2007 (may not even be supported by way of anything NASA, however there's already their long past-due and even spendier alternative "save thy butt" lunar data gathering mission as based upon Japan's LUNAR-A w/Penetrators
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/tmp/LUNAR-A.html

This LUNAR-A orbiter is to obtain an inclination of 30 degrees and bring Lunar-A within as little as 40 km of the Moon's surface. The spacecraft will deploy two 13 kg penetrators over the course of a month. They will be individually released and impact the Moon at 250 to 300 m/s, burrowing 1 to 3 meters into the surface. (obviously the penetrator final release point has to be established at less than 200 meters off the deck in order to achieve such an extremely slow Vf at the point of entering the surface). Considering the unrestricted delivery of advancing along at 1.62 m/s/s and of nothing in aerodynamics for that of establishing and/or maintaining proper alignment with the intended target, whereas the initial release and subsequent robotics on purely internal guidance and rocket science needs to be entirely AI, especially since the timeline until impact is only seconds away, meaning things are happening way too fast for any remote piloting.

These lunar penetrators are missile-shaped cylinders, 90 cm in length and 14 cm in diameter, and are attached to the sides of the orbiter body between the solar arrays with their long axes oriented in the same direction as the cylinder axis. The penetrators have deorbit rocket engines which are fired after separation. During free fall descent side-jets are used to orient the penetrators. The deorbit motor and attitude controls are jettisoned before impact. Each penetrometer contains a two-component seismometer, a heat flow probe, a tiltmeter, an accelerometer, a radio transmitter and an antenna. The instruments are powered by Li-SOCL2 (super lithium) batteries with an expected lifetime of one year. The penetrators are designed to withstand an impact force of 10,000 G.

Even though I may have unintentionally slipped another cog or two on behalf of my math, this following suggestion of deploying robust Javelin Probes is yet another updated effort about what I believe can be affordably accomplished on behalf of Earth and absolute loads of invaluable lunar sciences, at least it's been technically doable as of a decade ago, and most certainly as of today, of implementing the as-is and where-is of present day technology that's been on hand, and quite possibly accomplishing much from inventory that's already bought and paid for (some of which I believe has been paid for several times over) that's existing within surplus or as perfectly usable as-is prototypes that'll far exceed the requirements of telling us what we need to know.

This time around, I'm even getting myself a bit more correct on the kinetic impact energy calculations, whereas previously I was a little outside the box by way of under specifying, such as by not having the most likely V_f (final velocity) factored in. Though after reading from the "Polar Night" and the "LUNAR-A" specifications, it's more than clear that this Javelin Probe notion is a sure-fire method of deploying robotic instruments via impact is of what honestly can be accomplished, and with an alloy outer shell, hardened circuitry and the sorts of instrumentation as per surviving this proven method of delivery isn't the least bit unproven. As otherwise, for any sort of controlled soft landing of anything upon the lunar surface simply isn't a sure bet, much less if that has to include any recovery of whatever samples, as only the Russian have supposedly accomplished that feat, although even that much isn't the least bit documented as being the truth and nothing but the truth, as after all, the USSR was every bit as much into their side of our perpetrated cold-war of snookering all that could be snookered, and for pretty much the same power and money grubbing plus extended employment benefit reasons of what our NASA/Apollo effort was all about.

Thus there's clearly been a whole lot more than just one fox in this cold-war chicken coop.

I've even taken the advise of others still thoroughly snookered upon anything NASA/Apollo, where I honestly looked extensively for the 100th time in searching for documentation via NASA, badastronomy, USSR, Russian and/or of absolutely anything independent upon those supposed robotic lunar landers.

Not that's it impossible that such didn't take place, it's just a wee bit odd that there's no scaled to suit Earth's gravity accomplishments of anything that's managed any such robotic soft landing upon Earth via rocket science, much less "trundled about the Moon quite happily" and then returned squat that wasn't available here on Earth, and/or easily modifiable as to suit whatever their "nondisclosure" cold-war science decided was sufficiently worthy of snookering whomever.

Seems rather odd that not even our NASA has obtained footage of their prototype landers running through their essential R&D stability and robotic AI sorts of routines necessary for accomplishing your ever accelerating drop-in "Landing on the Moon is easy" task of dealing with a lack of any perceptible Vt, dependent of fully modulated rocket energy that would have been necessary. There's not even a decent report upon the fairly massive and/or powerful flight stability gyros that would have been required.

Folks need to realize that getting whatever safely down to 100 km, then continuing downward to being reasonably stabilized at such a reduced rate of orbit and as such essentially falling controllably from 10 km above the deck, that in of itself is fairly a neat robotic trick, especially if that's having to controllably retro-thrust and down-range this 5,300 kg package to below 1 km, then continuing to skillfully AI fly-by-wire itself entirely upon it's own smarts and applied rocket science onto an absolutely harsh meteorite and shard strewn dark surface that's essentially the ultimate morgue of razor sharp debris is one hell of a neat trick for even the best robotics of today, and I certainly wouldn't bet upon any those surviving.

I'm not accusing Russians of snookering us, though pretty much their efforts against our perpetrated cold-war was in fact a deadly game of smoke and mirrors, whereas dollar per dollar they seem to have achieved a hundred fold more bang for their sorry buck than we did.

I have no doubts they honestly tried every trick in their book as to making their Ye-8 Lunar Lander and subsequent unmanned lunar soil sample return actually happen. Perhaps some day there'll be coverage of such deployed from an aircraft cruising at 5 km, by which the onboard AI robotics takes over and subsequently the craft lands in one piece. By way of excluding the recovery/sample return portion of this demo test-lander, and a few other adjustable aspects of mass, plus the terrific terminal velocity advantage of our atmosphere should offer loads of energy reserves as for accomplishing the task of demonstrating stabilized down-range and soft landing.

I'll offer that I don't know about your under-appreciated and under-funded space programs, but if I had the one and only fully operational AI robotic lunar lander that actually worked, and that included a sample recovery technology that could be easily demonstrated on Earth, I'd certainly brag my stinking butt off about it, as well as demonstrate such as to making those dirty rotten lying Americans warmongers eat my shorts.

Secondly, the notion of delivering these rather minimal 1 kg javelin mini-probes isn't as such limited persay to 1 kg, as I am merely suggesting upon what's seemingly doable with the sorts of micro/nano circuitry, and of what's having to impact into a potentially rock-like (basalt) surface needs to be of a tight and robust package, as even if that surface is a nasty collection of lose meteorite rock, impact shards and lesser debris that's become meters deep, as such the deceleration of a given javelin needs to survive the event while leaving a portion of itself exposed, and/or deploying a trailing portion that'll remain exposed on or at least slightly above the surface (that could be as little as a trailing antenna) so that the interactive nature of each javelin probe/instrument functions with respect to a transponder satellite, and/or remains interfaced with that of Earth based stations. Since the moon is so close by, there should need but a few pulsed mw worth of transceiver energy. And, if need be the individual javelin probes could be those of 10 kg or greater mass.

Thus 1 kg, 10 kg or possibly even for considering as much as per delivering a load of bunker-busting 100 kg javelin probes that can be seriously chuck full of multiple instruments and subsequent greater capabilities have been doable for decades, though obviously the 100 kg versions requiring their zero velocity deployed from a somewhat lower altitude of perhaps not greater than 1 km (impact Vf=1.623 km/s @100 kg creates a rather nasty KE = 263.4e9 joules/s) and subsequently limited to perhaps a dozen or so units per javelin deployment mission that would become somewhat inclusive of way more than superseding the "Polar Night" which intends to manage just three such seismic and spectrometer probes of perhaps 1000 kg each that would need to arrive at perhaps a Vf of 100 m/s in order to implant those even slightly into bedrock, or simply as buried under several meters worth of the lose surface accumulations, possibly having to trail or tether a portion of itself as the surface transponder pod that would remain sufficiently exposed as their data transceiver. Of course, unless I've missed something about there being a substantial lunar atmosphere, as otherwise in order for the "Polar Night" probe to arrive at their suggested 100 m/s means a descent dead-stop release point at merely 60 meters prior to accommodating each of their individually large lithobreaking impact probes (I'm actually not at all sure that's sufficient impact velocity as to accomplish that task).

Supposedly the moon has no atmosphere, or does it?

A little atmosphere can make a measured difference upon the final impact of any such future deliveries to the lunar surface, yet we seem to have uncovered another intellectual as well as scientific vortex leading into another blackhole with regard to such matters of the lunar atmosphere, of which probes have such to deal with, along with a little influence of a 30+km/s jet-stream or headwind factor that's perhaps another issue of which has to be contended with, unless you're accessing deep into a crater or planning upon staying entirely underground.

Mind yourself that it's not the actual wind that's a problem, as that's of relatively slight density/m3. However, of whatever that wind brings along as a love note from God only knows where, as that's capable of doing a real number upon any notions of your surviving whatever a dust-bunny can represent, much less an actual micro-meteorite that's arriving at 30+km/s.

from NASA's "Moon Fact Sheet" http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/moonfact.html
The NASA/Apollo total mass of the lunar atmosphere: ~25,000 kg (25 tonnes)
Surface pressure (night): 3e-15 bar (2e-12 torr), Abundance at surface: 2e5 particles/cm3
Estimated Composition (of their 2e5 particles per cubic cm):
Helium 4 (4He) - 40,000 ; Neon 20 (20Ne) - 40,000 ; Hydrogen (H2) - 35,000
Argon 40 (40Ar) - 30,000 ; Neon 22 (22Ne) - 5,000 ; Argon 36 (36Ar) - 2,000
Methane - 1000 ; Ammonia - 1000 ; Carbon Dioxide (CO2) - 1000

At 25 tonnes worth of lunar atmosphere, and 38e12 m2 of lunar sphere to cover = 25e6 / 38e12 = .658e-6 g/m2, which is almost nothing if you're attempting to involve a little Vt into the equation of getting whatever onto the moon. Of course, according to the all-knowing as well as pro-NASA/Apollo bible, one can be standing within a meter of a mega tonne worth of energy relase and supposedly you'd hear nor feel absolutely nothing due to the 3e-15 bar worth of atmosphere (for some reason I'm not going out of my way as to test that logic).

LUNAR SODIUM ATMOSPHERE (could have boosted the lunar atmosphere by a million fold)
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~sprague/planatmos/tenlunar.html
Apparent geopotential scale height varied from 279 to 435 km, indicating an extended atmosphere. Of course this is without the benefit of a few too many meteors impacting the moon, especially to the point of trailing off better than 800,000 km worth of a sodium vapor cloud of perhaps only a conservative 5e21 m3.
Sodium density at the surface is 57 + or - 20 atoms/cu cm and the scale height is 79 + or - 8 km

Remember folks; wherever there's such a horrific cloud of sodium atoms created via impact(s), there's bound to be loads of heavier atoms that are also being created, and them heavier atoms tend to stick around. Thus by artificially impacting the moon with whatever we'd care to direct at the moon, as such all sorts of new atoms for the lunar atmosphere could be generated via impacts exceeding 1,700 km/s if need be, unless of course there far more existing atmosphere than we've known about that would moderate such efforts.

Lunar Atmosphere? a cloud seemingly emerges from a crater: http://www.holloworbs.com/Lunar_Atmosphere.htm

BTW; I'll just have to bet it takes a great deal more than 57 atoms/ccm to becoming something that can be conventionally photographed as cloud like, and perhaps even somewhat more than the 2e5 atoms/ccm at the supposed 3e-15 bar worth of atmospheric density as imposed by our NASA/Apollo wizards. As per my ongoing efforts at obtaining a factor of terminal velocity of space travel, and that's including of whatever portion of travel pertaining to having to divert peskiy items from otherwise impacting the lunar surface has thus far turned up absolutely nothing except the usual lack of information, disinformation and/or an entire lack if folks willing to share squat upon anything specific that matches up to any other research/report, or even by way of those laws of physics which I'm told clearly links atmospheres to the gravity and temperture of a given planet, whereas the sorts of intellectual and scientific flux of essentially disagreement simply should not be the case, especially of our moon if our NASA/Apollo wizards accomplished even half of what they've stipulated as fact.

The Moon’s atmosphere: http://www.iac.es/galeria/mrk/atmo_lun.html
Most of the atmosphere is made up of Hydrogen, Helium and Neon captured from the solar wind.
Argon (at 10000 atoms per cubic centimetre it is one of the major components of the atmosphere)

Overview of Lunar Materials and Their Utilization: http://www.permanent.com/l-overvw.htm
This wonderful site has become chuck full of just about everything except serious specifics that you can take to the bank, especially if there's anything that could possibly upset their mainstream status quo of whatever their pagan NASA/Apollo religion reported as fact. With their objectives entirely skewed into the nearest space toilet by their apparent lack of offering anything that's honestly doable, much less affordable or even that of any survivable plan, or just per say that of offering even the most basic understanding of the lethal environment of what even a robotic usage of the moon represents, as that which needs to at least be considered as opposed to entirely ignored as though there's absolutely nothing whatsoever to worry about. This site make me doubt that even their NASA hasn't a freaking honest clue (other than a good deal of speculation) as to what's what about our moon.

The moon is quite unlike Earth, in that whatever's available in the way of space debris, dust-bunnies, spores or flying-diatoms dislodged by solar winds from the upper atmosphere of Venus would have been further attracted by the influence of gravity as to landing upon and staying with the moon. Since there's so little atmosphere to deal with, the lack of any significant terminal velocity offers zilch worth of deflection or absorbson prior to impact. Thus the moon offers an absolute terrific morgue of such collectibles, as unlike Earth whereas the vast bulk that attempts to enter is deflected or absorbed prior to impacting the surface, and of even what manages to impact the surface is slowed by a fairly respectable Vt that'll prevent significant damage unless it's a reasonably large item of a thermally tolerant substance at that, such as displaced moon rocks of mostly basalt and having a density of perhaps 3.5 g/cm3 are perfectly good candidates for reaching the surface of Earth at being 90+% intact.

The consequences of our moon having this slight atmosphere isn't trivial, especially if it's actually of much greater substance than the 3e-15 bar as suggested by our NASA/Apollo data, and if this greater atmosphere so happens to contain what's heavier than sodium, such as those of oxygen, CO2 and xenon like elements that the prevailing 30+km/s jet-stream or headwind should be capable of knocking you on your EVA butt (actually, at 3e-15 bar should also have to include having to deal with a little of whatever the 224 km/s worth of whatever else our solar system is traveling itself through), especially since there's so little depth to that thin lunar atmospheric layer, as for any EVA being exposed to such a worthy gauntlet of whatever the moon and of it's atmospheric sucking companion planet are running themselves into, not to mention the mega-tonnes worth of whatever the solar weather at twenty fold greater speed so happens to be delivering in the way of those seriously nasty atoms of iron. Of course, this again is where s simple and relatively low power laser, given a spectrum diffusion or quantum/FM component could have been either sending us such absolute matter of fact atmospheric and influx related data, or that of a wee bit more powerful version as merely directed at Earth could have been giving Earth based and/or satellite based instruments an entirely new spectrum of easily recorded truth and nothing but the truth of whatever's what with regard to the lunar environment.

Robotically speaking, I believe this sort of simplistic moon based interactive instrumentation and interplanetary communications capable technology should have not only been clumping-moon-dirt cheap, but as of three decades ago another absolute done deal. That is if in fact those Russian robotic landers actually functioned, whereas for a scaled down version of merely 1,000 kg instead of their original 5,300 kg should have been more than adequate if there's no sample recovery aspect to deal with.

Of course, absolutely anything the least bit associated with close imaging of the moon, understanding and thus obtaining the actual surface environment specifics as a scientific knowledge base, and/or of actually utilizing the lunar surface for any sort of instrumentation or interplanetary worth, even Earth science aspects of what such lunar surfaced deployed technology could offer humanity has been and remains as entirely off-limits, as in taboo if not worse.

Exactly what's within NASA's intellectual crapola and otherwise disinformation space toilet is the hell wrong with all of these guys, and otherwise how absolutely dumbfounded and subsequently snookered are all the folks that otherwise claim as being part of this warm and fuzzy "Skull and Bones" intellectual nightmare of their skewed science running along as their ultimate amuck club from hell, or what?

As usual, I may have inadvertently lied to folks about the fact that so much nowadays is NOT being of rocket science anymore, whereas for this following portion on delivering these smaller and mission proficient javelin probes is entirely about our rocket wizards having to implement their seriously applied "rocket science", though it's still not of what's intended nor as demanded as for the complexities in accommodating the likes of rocketry fly-by-wire as for any notions of getting mankind to/from the moon, at least not until we've actually learned first hand about the for-real physical environment conditions that exist on the moon, and hopefully mapped out whatever is available of hollow rilles and/or sufficiently large geode pockets worth our utilizing.

Our moon is by far (bar none) absolutely unique to Earth, even though it might have originated out of the Sirius star system as being dragged along by Sirius/c that became our geologically new Venus. Regardless of where these two bodies initially arrived from, we should have been utilizing various lunar resources and easily accessible energies, as well as having numerous surface robotics interactively accommodating Earth science and extreme astronomy related capabilities as of decades ago, as well as for the future benefits of humanity as well as the future of honest to God space exploration by way of our having eventually established the LSE-CM/ISS as the ultimate mission-impossible gateway/depot in the sky. This LSE-CM/ISS consideration could have been started as of at least a decade ago, as there's no time better off than before the likes of China, Russia or perhaps the ESA group of apparently dumbfounded fools gets first dibs.

As opposed to those traditional topics upon what's affordable and what's not; clearly of anything manned is going to become spendy and time consuming, not to mention potentially lethal unless we're better transported to/from and otherwise surrounded by an extremely robust lander. As such, I propose that mostly robotics be the case, rather than having to roast, TBI, and/or risk pulverising another batch of astronauts. Of accomplishing the task at perhaps not 1% of the manned expedition and subsequent CO2 impact seems like yet another win-win for the environment of Earth, especially since we'd be avoiding nearly all of the related tonnage of artificial CO2 created per tonne of whatever is sent to the moon, as opposed to any manned multi-hundred tonnes worth of any to/from fiasco investment. Thus in terms of saving the environment by a factor of 1000:1, it seems that alone has got to be worth saving a few billions in itself if you'd care being entirely honest about the entire cycle of what must otherwise transpire.

Instead of our achieving the likes of a sub-frozen, TBI and pulverised to death Mars or bust expedition, perhaps we should affordably focus our limited resources and talents upon doing our moon, at least robotically at first, then start with creating the LSE-CM/ISS as a necessary gateway process before the likes of Osama bin Laden gets in there before we do.

Thereby, instead of our flushing those hundreds of billions and further decades worth into that sufficiently frozen and otherwise thoroughly irradiated to death Mars space toilet, only then having our Mars expeditions continually dodge them lethal meteorites and micro-meteorites that are so easily entering the micro-thin atmosphere of the Mars environment, whereas I do believe this initial robotic lunar goal of deploying various multi-task probes is worthy of supporting, even if this task must be accommodated via our resident "so what's the difference" WMD snipe hunting warlord. Though as for starters, it is my contentions that before there's anything LSE attempted, I do believe we may require some actual (first hand) honest to God lunar science data, that's of "real time" and of the truth and nothing but the truth, and as such we simply can not accomplish this task from the likes of satellites or missions orbiting the moon.

After all, if we're not sufficiently motivated as to the notion of our getting there first, it'll either become the likes of China or perhaps Russia, or even by way of the ESA group that certainly has nothing to lose and absolutely everything imaginable under the sun to gain.

As just for an example of improving upon the controlled impact;
I'm thinking that of a modern day probe with a suitable robust battery and compact PV cell array that's either tightly integral with the primary javelin hull and/or subsequently deployable as a hard wired departure that would remain sufficiently exposed on the surface upon javilen impact, that perhaps this form of micro instrument and of it's surface data/transponder criteria could be comprised of as little as 1 kg. Of course, of the typically superior "all-knowing" sorts of folks might otherwise insist upon creating their spendy probes of 100 kg < 1 t, along with those items having to survive the truly horrific impact from a much lower altitude of numerous potential consequences to boot, as otherwise I very much like what their spendy "Polar Night" or perhaps most likely upon what the "LUNAR-A" mission proposes to accomplish in 2005.

As for my initial delivery scheme, and of just another such crazy notion, I'm thinking of involving hydrogen or actually of nearly whatever gas filled mini/micro-balloons, and actually quite a good number of such structurally robust balloons incorporating various smaller balloons within one another, and of those obviously are not the least bit intended for their buoyancy but, as for spreading out the impact to a rather sizable zone of at least 1 m2, to perhaps as much as 10 m2, as opposed to the instrument probe-tip impact zone representing as little as a mere 0.001 m2 (25 mm upper body with a tapered 25 mm > 5 mm spike/antenna end), of perhaps as little as 1 meter in LOA or if need be as long as 4 meters, and of what this relatively small instrument/probe may be looking somewhat like a miniature spear or half javelin if the remaining exposed butt-end was of the 25~50 mm diameter.

Naturally, of a larger Javelin Probe of 100 mm diameter might require 3~4 meters in LOA and/or of a more cone like shape as clearly being of considerably greater mass has to get rid of the energy without vaporising itself upon impact. Although, according to the Polar Night team, such a large and robust probe would in fact survive, though entirely depending upon the altitude of release/deployment and nature of the lunar terrain opposing the probe entry leaves a good deal of what-if considerations on the table.

This notion of using javelins is somewhat like throwing darts at the cork board, although instead of the velocity being continually slowed by an atmosphere, and the trajectory being nicely managed along by way of aerodynamics, none of that atmospheric benefit apples to darting our moon. In fact, just the opposite is true, in that if achieving a zero velocity deployment point of release from 234 meters is going to expedite whatever by delivering such probes at a final velocity(Vf) that's greater than the ballistics of your typical 357/9mm, and without benefit of aerodynamics is going to require that the entire javelin probe being spun at sufficient rpm in order to give some sense of controlled vertical alignment prior to impact (easier said than done). Perhaps a counter rotating aspect of the upper/lower portions of this javelin is another option worth considering.

As for my way of calculating these Lunar Javelin impacts, and/or "Dust Bunny" impact factors:  Though I'm fairly certain that you'll be capable of offering that all inclusive formula that'll supersede these three primitives individual methods that I've utilize. And BTW; you should accomplish this task as for a free fall of 120 seconds and so forth, then try this out upon an actual spec of hard sand at perhaps 20 mg, or a somewhat larger particle of 200 mg worth of iron, and so forth. I've actually done this for a regulation baseball of 146 grams as deployed form merely 19 km that yields 30.8 km/s and better than 69e9 Joules (69 giga joules) as opposed to the 42 m/s and 129e3 Joules (.129 MJ) as here on Earth regardless of the initial altitude or even of whatever initial velocity.

1/2*M*V2 = impact energy or equivalent mass, whereas the V² being derived form the V_f created by the distance traveled at the lunar g = 1.623 m/s/s, or somewhat lesser amount of gravity influence as the further away you get, such as what a drop from 19 km yields a rather nasty V_f = 30+km/s. Thus it's imperative that the release point be much closer, and of thereby adding little if any of it's own insult-to-injury worth of velocity.

I'm also suggesting that the initial impact of this small and obviously pointed javelin probe can be artificially spread conservatively by at least 1000:1, therefore if the raw velocity at impact were to become a mere 5 km/s, such as the 1 kg/probe that was surrounded by another kg worth of crushable substance (perhaps a thick coating of sub/micro balloons), that as a whole would impact at an overall worth of 25 GJ, though if this energy is subsequently spread over the 1 m2, thereby the actual javelin probe tip of 0.001 m2 should become merely 25 MJ, though applying another 10X fudge factor makes for 250 MJ, which is still but 1% of the original 25 GJ impact.

Another workable notion for other than bedrock is simply that of using slender cones as the implement of choice for the lose surface debris that's more like a pile of meteorites and shards that have only been compacted by their own weight and zero moisture, either of which isn't all that much on the moon. A cone ratio of 100:1 representing if the point were of 2 mm and the rear end of 200 mm, or of whatever is proven as the weapon of choice for accomplishing the task of implanting such probes without destroying their inner functions, not to mention going too deeply or too shallow, thus various tapers might be deployed in order to insure that a few would not only survive but become correctly implanted as planned.

Any way you'd care to slice it, even 25 MJ/kg worth of probe impact energy is still representing one hell of an impact that must transpire in a millisecond, whereas that of a 357/9mm bullet of just 2 grams is delivered as 140 KJ, though after reading about the proposed "Polar Night" and "LUNAR-A" mission using those robust bunker-busting technologies that have to survive 1,500 < 10,000 G worth of Earth gravity, as such I tend to believe this slender javelin probe impact should be survivable, especially since the notion of delivering any decent probe that will ideally need to be firmly implanted into lunar soil of meteorites, shards and bedrock, whereas the deeper the implant the better, as long as an upper portion remains sufficiently exposed and/or within range of a surface transponder for receiving and transmitting it's data.

Obviously, if this impact turned out as having to be the raw 25 GJ worth of impact per kg survival, as representing too much to ask for, then enlarging upon and/or extending the numbers of the smaller balloons within should further spread/absorb this impact, thus decelerating and taking the brunt of the probe delivery impact energy. Whereas another avenue is always to merely lengthen upon the spike end, at the risk of increasing the mass, as the compression of this semi-hallow javelin nose portion will also absorb whatever is necessary. Obviously the deployment and desired free-fall vertical positioning will also need to become gyroscopic, where the probe itself could be initially set spinning at perhaps 100,000 rpm if need be, as another method of insuring the vertical entry, as well as for adding somewhat of a friction drilling capable attribute into the probe impact formula.

The lunar soil (supposedly of mostly basalt, meteorites and impact shards that's offering that average 11% reflective index, and of that retro-reflective clumping moon dirt or perhaps portland cement like nature like all of those Apollo or bust finatics keep imposing) should account for another degree of impact deceleration, rather than of having to penetrate solid basalt rock, as I'll have to keep assuming some degree of compression of the javelin alloy probe tip itself should absorb whatever remains. At least if all else fails, the investment per micro-probe isn't going to bust the world bank, nor stress the technology expertise to any breaking point, as if need be a dozen of every required instrument function can be deployed, so that if only a few manage to survive their delivery, we've accomplished the task.

Unlike those Apollo landers (prior to their supposedly accomplishing the real thing), every facet of these javelin probe deployments can be fully tested and absolutely confirmed on Earth, Thus insuring that we'll actually know for certain our survival odds, and science can subsequently take that knowledge to their data bank prior to our ever launching another damn thing towards the moon.

Of course, having a fully fly-by-wire robotic lander like my LV-22 Osprey (without those useless rotors) would certainly be nice, though a wee bit horrifically spendy if in need of delivering 100 tonnes, as I'll suppose that of some day our crack NASA teams will actually obtain that degree of purely rocket powered and reusable fly-by-wire lander of sufficiently stabilized flight capability (having the fuel and energy to spare), as otherwise the next best technology is obviously what the recent Mars probes had utilized as their one-shot rocket blast in order to decelerate their final approach velocity at an extremely critical altitude, and then using their reliable balloon impact energy absorbing method of what a one-way landing could accomplish for such a highly compacted and purely robust robotic package that no human DNA could have survived.

Since there's so little difference between the thin Mars atmosphere and that of the moon, other than the moon being at least another thousand fold less than Mars which offers almost nothing, where actually the lesser gravity of the moon should almost offset this lacking atmospheric disadvantage, so that such a well proven method of essentially dropping objects safely onto such a foreign surface seems almost like way-overkill for the task of delivering such small (1~10 kg) probes onto and preferably as becoming partially impaled into the moon, though dozens if not hundreds of such probes might become safely deployed by one such velocity breaking maneuver of perhaps a 1000 kg cluster delivery package, comprised of potentially several hundred javelin probes, as such bringing everything to a vertical velocity of zero at the elevation of as little as 1 km would certainly accomplish wonders for subsequently alleviating the otherwise horrific impact that's likely to be faced with the unobstructed 1.623 m/s/s influence of lunar gravity.

However, considering the lunar atmosphere as speculated by the NASA/Apollo team is in fact real (at least 25 tonnes worth is supposedly real), though still quite thin and perhaps of a sodium or possibly even a touch of xenon gas could be the case since there's so little gravity as to hold onto much of anything that's much lighter. Even so, the terminal velocity factor as applied towards slowing down the Javelin Probes isn't going to provide all that much of any measurable deturant until the last hundred or so meters worth, and still so thin as opposing such little surface area that there's not going to be all that much reduction in the ever increassing velocity (free-fall) of the sorts of items having relatively small volumes of considerable densities associated with everything from those 2 mg dust-bunnies of perhaps less than 4 mm3 to those of full-blown and nasty meteorites offering perhaps 10+g/cm3.

Even that regulation baseball of 74 mm diameter, offering a volume 137,000 mm3 at the mass of 146 grams = 1.066 mg/mm3, or a density of 1.211 g/cm3 which is absolutely nothing compared to the average sort of mineral rock having a much greater substance density that's arriving as entirely unanounced and from just about every conceivable direction you can imagine.

Perhaps ideally establishing three such javelin deployments, offering the cluster spread or separation of 1000 km per site as for achieving the combined seismic data, whereas from such wide disbursements shuld enable a good degree of triangulating data, and thus offering a good 3D look-see into the lunar crust and core. Natural meteorite impacts will do quite nicely for ringing the moon, subsequently giving us the much needed geological information.

The actual drop altitude could be established as anything from 1 km to perhaps 10 km, depending entirely upon javelin probe engineering and of the desired impact affect. Though to some more of my testy calculations that keep getting corrected, a 50 second free fall from zero velocity of roughly 4 km should offer just about the limits of what such a metallic probe could utilize in order to sufficiently embed itself without entire destruction of the probe.

The 1 kg javelin probe arriving as a 2 kg package, as being released at zero velocity from an altitude of 4 km = 6.492 km/s at impact, of which = 42 e9 Joules at impact (that's somewhat like the force of personally implanting each javelin probe with the leverage of applying 42e3 tonnes for a full second, however the much faster velocity implant isn't going to take but half a ms).

10 kg javelin probe arriving as a 20 kg package, as being released at zero velocity from the same 4 km = the same V_f, yields 420e9 Joules at impact, and so forth. Thus the heavier formula of javelin probe being not only more robust but might need to be zero velocity deployed from as little as 1 km if not less.

Keeping in mind, that shape and/or size of an object is not a significant velocity limiting factor, at least if that's of whatever's traveling under 1%"c"(3e6 m/s) as other than for spreading impact energy over a greater or lesser zone, whereas the Hindenburg of 242 metric tons and of representing roughly 250,000 m3 worth of structural envelope will obtain the exact same impact velocity as a bowling ball, or even that of a micro dust-bunny, each achieving nearly identical velocity as long as each were introduced from the same altitude. However the Hindenburg zone of impact and resulting physical carnage is going to become spread out over at least 1000 square meters as opposed to the javelin probe displacing possibly as much as .01(1%) square meter, though if we talking purely of impailing beadrock could represent as little as .005(.5%).

Worth taking further note;
Venus atmosphere of mostly CO2/N2(@r6052 km) offers 2e21 atoms/cm3
Earth atmosphere (sealevel being of one bar) offers 2.4e19 atoms/cm3
The Moon (as upon the lunar deck @3e-15 bar) offers 2e5 atoms/cm3

At 25 tonnes worth of lunar atmosphere, and 38e12 m2 of lunar sphere to cover = 25e6 / 38e12 = .658e-6 g/m2

Besides the notion of accommodating a free-falling item arriving at 30 km/s (keeping in mind that this is not my suggesting that probes would survive such speed of impact), though what if there were to be a lunar jet stream of 30 km/s, as such it would most likely be represented as flowing near the surface, whereas the kinetic energy of KE=.5MV2 becomes somewhat interesting. Excluding any notions of solar wind along with whatever influx of debris, of excluding upon other cosmic dust of any sort, as well as of meteorite kicked up moon-dirt that would add a great deal of insult to injury, and if we just focused upon what the raw 25 tonnes worth of that atmosphere has to work with;
Thus 25 tonnes worth of atmosphere re-interprets as KE = .329e-6 * 900e6 = 296 joules/m2
And at 100 tonnes of atmosphere is interpreted as KE = 1.316e-6 * 900e6 = 1184 joules/m2

As usual, upon each edit I'll likely catch those math mistakes, and perhaps even some of those best effort refinements are going to be unintentionally in error, though at any time others which claim as being so smart may provide their more correctness, and as such I'll certainly share and I have not problems whatsoever in giving all the credits possible, which by the way, seems to be far more than our smoke and mirrors NASA has ever done for you.

Of course, this is so much simplier because it's all based upon a purely "one-way" ticket, of zero life support, thus hardly any radiation shielding and never given a second thought of our retrieving anything but the desired data, nor of otherwise having to sustain human or other life by shielding them from the truly horrific elements of various lunar exposures and of getting them back home. Eventually there'd have to be a manned lunar landing (first time for that as well), and next there'd be the LSE-CM/ISS effort, whereas at that time all those javelin probes implanted earlier could be collected, and/or of those still functioning left as is.

I believe such small/compact probes can be engineered to survive these sorts of deployment impacts, as well as remain sufficiently immune to such horrific radiation, and even of their avoiding most meteorite impacts due to their smaller size and robust nature, as their odds are greatly improved upon by the sheer fact that these compact probes represent such a small target, though they'll each eventually demise as being pulverised by something within a decade.

If we should only obtained a threesome of these probes surviving per their deployments, though as preferably spread out over a several km2 of lunar surface, obviously of the extrapolated data upon seismics alone should become more than worth this effort, telling us much more than we've known about lunar innards, as well as for all of the surface exposure environments. Of course, this well be relatively dirt cheap information, and somewhat real-time as compared to anything Mars, so there's certainly not going to be all the hype necessary in order to justify the expenditures, just those tediously boring amounts of hard numbers that honest scientist can actually utilize for making a difference.

As for my interpretation of kinetic energy (KE), I've often applied the value of KE in terms of kg instead of joules because, most Americans can't hardly calculate worth squat (myself included), much less in kg, and hardly ever of anything in terms of "joules" isn't even possible unless it's been something commercially hyped and wrapped up into a "happy meal".

Once again, here's the raw KE formula:
1/2*M*V² = impact energy of joules or equivalent in mass, whereas the V = 1.623 m/s/s, and don't forget to square the velocity like I've more often than not managed to forget. The fact that I frequently make certain unintentional mistakes in math, such as within what I'd originally posted as this following;

A raw javelin probe of 1 kg, as dropped from 1 km, should arrive at nearly 1623 m/s, impacting at roughly 1,317 t (1.317e9 Joule), and as such I believe that's something well within survival specifications of certain fortified Toys-R-Us javelins.

KE = 1/2*M*V2 = impact energy or in equivalent mass, whereas the V = 1.623 m/s/s

From the above example altitude release/drop of just 1 km;
As for that javelin impacting at 1,623 m/s,  whereas the Velocity squared = 2.634e6

As you can surmise, the impact energy from a 1 kg item, as for that being initially deployed from 1 km of having a zero initial velocity, as such there's certainly a good deal of implant worth of kinetic energy to being managed and/or capitalized upon, though you or I should assign an energy value of watts, or whatever instead of the 1.317e9 J/s (1.317e3 t/s) value at lunar impact (assuming a purely 90º downward event and of nothing much getting in the way, such as any foolish astronaut strolling about in some flimsy moonsuit, or of any lander comprised of nearly aluminum foil).

Of course, since these lunar impaling javelin probes are going to be stopping their SOA in less than a millisecond, so I'd have to suppose that their peak energy release might actually become 1.317e12 J/ms. And, always keeping in mind that of whatever shape and/or size of an object is not offering any terminal velocity factor, other than spreading the impact energy over a greater or lesser zone, whereas the Hindenburg of 242 metric tons and of representing more than 250,000 m3 in gross volume will obtain the exact same impact velocity as that of any javelin, or even that of a dust-bunny is going to obtain the identical velocity as long as each were introduced from the same altitude.

This closing part is only a wee bit off-topic, although entirely related to what the moon has always been good for, such as for the likes of Calling Venus or any other planet (that is if we're not being allowed to officially look at Venus from Earth, much less even discuss the what-if possibilities, then it certainly can't hurt focusing a few lunar based laser cannons upon it). Or we can establish the ultimate VLA-SAR imaging via moon deployed robotics of those small and reasonably energy efficient aperture receiving modules that should be good for 100 mm or better resolution of Mars or Venus, and in 16 bit format at that.

If you're perchance the sort of individual that's more interested in the truly viable prospects of our achieving interplanetary communications (contacting ETs without utilizing inefficient as well as ineffective radio), as for that relatively simple and extremely efficient quest, I've certainly added lots of notions, if not a little too much quantum packet information into this following page;
https://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-interplanetary.htm

If perchance my wordy gibberish is simply offering too many words to deal with, then merely asking a simple question and I'll try to deliver something under a thousand words that's focused just upon whatever it is that I think I know about the subject, or I might edit an existing page and suggest that folks take another look-see at what I'm attempting to convey, whereas obviously the spit and polish of a NOVA class infomercial simply isn't going to happen unless I'm allowed to aim my lose cannon at the butts responsible for this grand intellectual and scientific ruse of the century.