Little drama, but lots of data from NASA's LCROSS mission

Listening to mission control, it was evident that the NASA folks were engaged & excited by this mission. We're developing the information required to support a permanent station on the Moon. There's no law that says the language spoken in space will be American English - this data will be in the public domain for whichever nation has the nerve to become explorers again. The benefits of living & working in space may be unimaginable, but based on past performance, they'll far exceed the invest made to get there.

No plume, but a firehose of data from NASA moon bombing - Ars Technica:
"Regardless of the public expectations, LCROSS clearly performed as planned. It recently separated from the Centaur stage that helped bring it to lunar orbit, and both of the spacecraft were directed towards the Cabeus crater at the Moon's south pole. The Centaur vehicle went first, creating an impact that could be observed from instruments on LCROSS, which followed it in. Less than four minutes later, LCROSS itself struck the lunar surface. The impacts were observed with a variety of telescopes on Earth and in Earth orbit, although the actual site of the impact was obscured by the Cabeus crater walls.

Clearly, a lot of people were hoping that dropping hardware onto the lunar surface would create a spray of debris that would rise above the crater walls, and be visible to the Earth-based observatories. Unfortunately, from the perspective of the Earth, LCROSS struck not with a bang, but a whimper, as if it had landed on a comfy pillow."