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- szelij, on 10/12/2007, -5/+23"The measuring probe — called the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS — will be cobbled together largely from leftover parts from other probes."
TRANSLATION: "We're cheap damn bastards and we don't have any money so we'll use whatever we have lying around in the workshop"
POLITICAL TRANSLATION: "Hey China, i know what you're doing but back off ass-face, the moon is OURS!!"
Lol.Seriously, if you can go to Mars with Opportunity and Spirit, why can't you make a decent rover to go on the moon? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15I wait for the day when missions to the moon aren't carried out by governmental organizations, but instead is fueled by the unending reserves of private business.
- glStation, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10LCROSS was an add-on mission to the current LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) mission. They are sharing a launch vehicle, and the requirements stated that it needed to be under 1000 kilos total and under 80 million to build. The best way to do that is to use existing parts, especially since this is a one shot expendable mission. Do you know how much satellites generally take to build? And rovers are being planned right now, but there are multitudes of things that need to be made (as well as it taking years to do well). This is a good, quick to build mission to determine one very important thing about the moon - is there water?
Also, this is a way to get to mars. Mars would be expensive (fuel wise) to send anything large, so if we could build a refueling station on the moon, we'd be set, hence the need for water on the moon. Water = hydrogen and oxygen, which are needed for rocket fuel. Also it would allow a semi-permanant base to be placed on the moon. - szelij, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13But then you'd have parts of the moon being owned by Microsoft and Intel and Tesco.
- Portwineboy, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13Luckily, NASA has quite a bit of experience at crashing probes into things.
- astroroach, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13I can't believe there are still Moon-Landing conspiracy believers out there. You want to know why you can't see the Apollo landing sites?
"The theoretical resolving power of a telescope, measured in arc seconds, is calculated by dividing the aperture of the telescope (in inches) into 4.56. The largest telescope on Earth is the 10-meter Keck telescope in Hawaii. The theoretical resolving power of this telescope is 0.012", however the Earth's atmosphere limits the resolving power of any ground-based telescope to about 0.5"-1.0". The Hubble Space Telescope does not suffer from this limitation; thus, with an aperture of 94 inches, HST's resolving power is 0.05". At the Earth-Moon distance of 239,000 miles, the smallest object that can be resolved by HST is about 300 feet. The largest dimension of any hardware left behind on the Moon is 31 feet, which is the diagonal distance across the LM's footpads. No telescope, presently in existence, can see the Apollo hardware from Earth."
On the other hand, the retroreflectors left at lunar landing sites DO reflect laser pulses and are routinely used to measure various characteristics of the Earth, Moon and gravitational physics.
See http://www.braeunig.us/space/hoax.htm for a concise debunking. - colebarnes, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9personally, I'd rather be owned by Microsoft than pretty much any government... pick a government, any government...
- BloodJunkie, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11anyone else notice that they called the moon a planet in the first paragraph? boy, will NASA's faces be red when they discover it's not actually a planet.
cutting. edge. journalism. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Or later on, by private citizens.
- ahhell, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Umm...yeah ok. Judging by your post it sure sounds like he's been good for the school system.
- aplusplus, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11Get real.
Maybe you should stop watching an Alex Jones documentary, close the "PROOF MOON LANDING WAS HOAX!!!2" framed website with animated UFOs trailing the curser and actually read up on it.
Some good material can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_moon_landing_conspiracy_theory
Make sure not to conveniently pass over the rebuttals. - antoniojvr, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6in·fla·tion: n. A persistent increase in the level of consumer prices or a persistent decline in the purchasing power of money, caused by an increase in available currency and credit beyond the proportion of available goods and services.
- samdu, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@basementoffice
Not really. If we can establish a base on the moon, it will require far less effort to get to Mars. The reason we don't "slingshot probes around the moon" is that they have to be launched from Earth anyway. The issue isn't what to do with spacecraft after they're in space, it's getting them INTO space. Launching from the Earth requires tremendous amounts of effort and resources to break free of the Earth's atmosphere. No such constraints exist on the moon. So, no, it's not like "going around your ass to get to your elbow." - rodrigo74, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7If I were the project manager I would just say "use whatever metric system you wish, this one is supposed to crash anyway!"
- fantasticFlan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5You can't kill conspiracy theories, just inspire new ones.
- pjh3000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Don't forget Canada!
- farfromsubtl, on 10/12/2007, -6/+9NASA press release in 2008: "Unfortunately, a miscalculation has cause us to blow up the original landing site. Destroying any and all evidence we have been there before... which we have... seriously.
- dhughes, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5 Yes I noticed that too, and also "NASA announced today it will send a rocket to crash into the moon, an early step to delivering the first astronauts..." I wouldn't want to be one of the astronauts on a rocket *crashing* into the moon. :P
Maybe this story was written by a student intern working for ABC for the Summer. - tdeletto, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Awesome! Way to see the US charging into...the late 1960s...
What happens first, we get our asses out of Iraq or we (for no reason) put more people on the moon? How do you spell 'distraction'? - NCC1701A, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6To the Moon - MythBusters Style!
- yakiyaki, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4"They went to the moon and brought back rock. The trouble is we've got rock. That was the one thing we didn't need.
Officer: Rock, Neil? I don't know whether you looked at the planet but it's made of ***** rock.
Neil Armstrong: But it's moon rock.
Officer: This is earth rock, Neil, come on. Earth rock with special minerals. It's rock, isn't it? Have you heard? On the stock market, rock's gone up three points. No, it hasn't, has it? Cos it's ***** rock. We wanted diamonds or sherbet or a squirrel with a gun.
So on the moon they found rock. They've found ice as well. Rock and ice. What an exciting planet. Obviously a party planet.
They went to Mars and found more rock but it's red this time. We've got the most boring solar system I've ever heard of. And I've never heard of any."
-Eddie Izzard, Dress To Kill - aldenhg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I wonder if they'll find "CHA" engraved on the surface anywhere...
- newevilmind, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7I thought we were going to spend all of NASA's resources trying to get people to MARS???
- PlainJoe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Too bad we've already sold off parts of space...
Anyone remember the Pepsi commercials from the International Space Station?
I remember reading about a satellite that was launched to crash into the moon last summer. For a fee you could add your business card to this piece of space junk. Networking on the moon?! - Murdats, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3yes idealy
but in the capitilist world we live in, small immediate profits take precidence over large long term profits that require effort and research,
hence why you see people declaring that we could have these technologies withing x years, and 20 years later they are still nowhere to be seen, because no company wants to put in the effort to bring these things to the present rather then a distant dream. - vertinox, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I'd rather be owned by Microsoft than pretty much any government... pick a government, any government...
Ok...
Norway
Finnland
Sweeden
Iceland
Maybe Switzerland... - gsmithEIDW, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You have a very good point there.. please bury both my posts here..
- JackQuack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This will cost billions of dollars, and accomplish nothing. It would cost tons less to send a robot, and be much more efficient, but they send people. Why? To win voters. The moon doesn't offer much. Why are they messing around on the moon? There are much better things to spend billions of dollars on. World hunger perhaps?
- Jozer99, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2This combines two things NASA is very good at:
1. Spending lots of money on very expensive rockets and probes.
2. Crashing said rockets and probes into planets. - grizwald, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6you cant get to mars without a cool ship, you cant build a cool ship on earth.
i guess you want to build the enterprise on earth, strap some rockets to its back and launch it into space. if you want to build a cool ship, you gotta build it outside of the earths atmosphere so it doesnt have to worry about being launched into space. the first step in building cool spacecraft is establishing a real working base on the moon. the first step in building the cool base on the moon is scouting and looking for water.
just an FYI - uttles, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5yeah, because private citizens/corporations are just tripping over one another trying to be the first to the moon...
- DWatch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2The Russians had the first object in orbit (sputnik), the first man in space (Gagarin), the first man to orbit the planet (Titov), the first long duration flight (Vostok 5), the first woman in space (Tereshkova), the first spacewalk (Leonov). The fact that America was the first to land on the moon was due in most part to Kennedy's inspirational speech.... that and the fact that we devoted nearly a quarter of the country's GNP towards the project. From the start, we were playing catch-up with the Soviets.
Since the collapse of the USSR, America just hasn't had anyone to compete with it in space, until this past decade. With the EU space agency, and now China, we finally have a reason to compete in this arena again. The problem is, though, I seriously doubt that Americans are willing to devote 25% of the countries income to get back to the moon again. NASA is going to have to figure out how to do it on a shoestring budget. - blasphemer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Manned moon mission not until 2018? wtf...
I think someone should hold a prize for the first successful moon landing and return to earth by a civilian or company, similar to the contest for building a successful manned rocket held a year or so ago... you know the one carmack from ID software participated in. - tedlick, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I'm fairly sure the reason the shuttle doesn't go deeper into space is a fuel economy one, not due to the electromagnetic belt shielding the earth from solar radiation. The astronauts' exposure to solar radiation when on the moon would not have been long enough to do lasting harm.
However, solar radiation DOES pose a problem when extended periods of time are spent in space. I'm pretty sure that IS a reason why the international space station is in near earth orbit and not further out.
But serious discussion about whether the moon landing was faked or not is about as hard as seriously discussing evolution with a creationist, because that type of belief isn't swayed by scientific evidence. - fantasticFlan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I want my half-hour back.
If anyone's interested, this is the guy that Buzz Aldrin punched, which is the high point of the video, 'cause he ***** deserved it. He manages to get interviews with Apollo astronauts and asks them questions beyond their qualifications, being closer to test pilots than scientists, wants them to respond live to a tape they haven't had time to even think about, and finally asks them to swear on a Bible, under penalty of treason and eternal damnation, that they walked on the moon. It's disgusting and would only convince someone stupid enough to think they could understand the science involved without spending a significant time studying it in school. - peter303, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Catching up to 1964 forty five years later?
The first lunar missions (Rangers) were photograph-until-crash
beacuse they did want the extra work of landing. - cyclotron, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3HAHAHAHAHA. You voted for George Bush, didnt you?
- cyclotron, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2OMG! Is George Buh responsible for this too? Damn him. Damn him all to hell!
- petro62, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Man I don't want to wait another 12 or so years for a manned mission to the moon. I really wish they could just rebuild the Apollo program with lots of updates and use it till they get their new transporter of the future. Might not be the most economical idea, but I don't care I am just for progress and the money going towards that than nukes to hit Iran with.
- dougbdl, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2The reason NASA has its panties in a bunch to land on the moon is because China announced that they are going.
- jonnyeh, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2@basementoffice:
It's like going to a gas station before a road trip! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Just watch, when they land on the moon, they won't find the american flag or the footprints.
- Manhigh, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Tagline is wrong. NASA and DoD sent Clementine to the moon to do mapping just a few years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clementine_mission - Tomholius, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2ABC news seems to be slightly unintelligent for many reasons, but the biggest being that they call the moon a planet. It is not a planet, it is a satellite.
- Manax, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2"Ethical"? That is probably not the word you meant to use...
And you do realize ALL those craters on the moon are caused by stuff crashing into it, right? And your complaining about one little probe smacking into the surface? - gookie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Oh dude, it's the 21st century, it will be on 2008, it's gonna be a lot harder this time than back in the 60s.
- opcnup, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Not crashing into planet, crashing into moon.
People talk about How we should easily do things with our new technology, but the fact of the matter is that it is expensive to make any of this stuff even in older generations of tech. Everything needs to be near perfect and its not going to be mass produced so you can't spread the cost out like you can with cars. - DWatch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Conspiracy theorist are usually borderline nuts.
Some people just have a predisposition towards the paranoid. Trying to convince them that they have a deluded outlook on life is nearly impossible. Kinda like telling a schizophrenic to stop hearing voices. They cant do it. They cant wrap their minds around it.
One thing that the tinfoil-hat club members never seem to bring up... the fact that our sworn enemy and biggest rival at the time, the Soviets, had the technology, the financial means, and the spies in place to detect and blow the lid off of any faked landing. And they would have, too... in a heartbeat.
Add to that, the fact that actually going to the moon would be easier than faking it and keeping thousands of people quiet, pretty much convinces me that we actually did go to the moon. And the fact that I saw it live on TV at the time when I was a kid. Very exciting. - ,,|,_, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1It may just be me, but I think we need should invest the cash in getting our ***** together on this planet before we go jaunting off to another planet.
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