Nasa launched an Atlas 5 rocket with with the LCROSS mission payload on its way to the moon yesterday. There is going to be a controlled impact into a crater near the moons south pole sometime in this mission. It may be visable through small ground basd telescopes. Paging Parabol and Demon to the thread! One of the key mission objectives is to chart the moon and find hidden ice below the surface. Looks like NASA is looking for their staging point for bigger jumps to Mars in the coming decades.

This link gives shows you both a real time teletry window and a real time (well, 1 frame per second) view from the space crafts visable light camera. I'd love to know how to program something to capture the feed from this over the coming days. The playback would effectivly be a view of flying to the moon for real! Someone do it FFS, it would be cool.

awaiting bigpicture covereage



space is so rad

f*** earth

Paging Faceman

Helium3 bring dat s***!

He3 + Fusion = win!

again.. lol

if they were so awesome at it back in the 60's why cant they swing a cpl dudes up there.. they could be blast off cruise around on some sort of advanced lunar buggy and be back in time for weekend bbq to tell all there mates about it.. they have to do a controled crash?.....

also i wonder if this is in reaction to Japan wanting to send someone up there...

if it turns out USA never did they would look awefully stupid.. if they get someone up there before the japs then at least they can say.. well we bulls***ted a bit in the beginning but we were still first up.. no one will care in 500 years anyway

I agree Superform, it's all strange. I'm not 100% doubtful - but what did they have in the 60's which they don't have now or better?

The word on the street is that NASA legitimately 'lost' the plans of some key componentry, Saturn V design, etc. It seems suss for such a seemingly bureaucratic company to lose such things. When was ISO9001 invented? :-P

if they were so awesome at it back in the 60's why cant they swing a cpl dudes up there

It's much easier to convert a rocket designed to deliver satellites into orbit to deliver a device to collide into the moon than create an entirely new range of vehicles designed to safely deliver and return human beings.

if it turns out USA never did they would look awefully stupid.

You mean, apart from those mirrored surfaces that the Apollo team put up there. You know, the ones that any douchebag with the right tools can verify? Unlike the ones placed their by other powers, the US ones are the only ones to remain fixed in place because they had someone physically on the ground installing them.

if they were so awesome at it back in the 60's why cant they swing a cpl dudes up there.. they could be blast off cruise around on some sort of advanced lunar buggy and be back in time for weekend bbq to tell all there mates about it.. they have to do a controled crash?.....

Because like you said, they have to come back. Sending a remote-controlled satellite means it's smaller and you can just leave it up there.

if it turns out USA never did they would look awefully stupid..

Lunar laser ranging wouldn't work if the moon landing was fake. Also, the Soviet Union landed robotic rovers on the moon (look up the Lunokhod programme) so it's hardly a stretch of the imagination that the US got man on the moon.

Edit: f***, typo beat me to the punch while I was reading other tabs.

last edited by Mantorok at 00:34:16 24/Jun/09

so what if nasa did lose the plans, surely the poindexters at jpl could whip up the equivalent of 40 year old manned spaceflight technology in an afternoon

it's hardly rocket science

but what did they have in the 60's which they don't have now or better?

The right stuff

edit: I think its purely a money thing. Its much much cheaper to send unmanned missions.

last edited by qmass at 00:47:44 24/Jun/09

Edit: f***, typo beat me to the punch while I was reading other tabs.

That's okay, you got the Russian rovers part right and I didn't.

---

Luna landing conspiracy theorists are the worst kind of idiotic, tin foil hat, fag holes. Not only does it assume that the American Government can keep a secret, but it assumes that the thousands of scientists who worked on the project and were not a part of NASA, the tens of thousands of scientists world wide who've worked on or reviewed that material since, and all of the World Powers who had managed to invent long distance f***ing RADAR would play along.

Luna landing conspiracy theorists are the worst kind of idiotic, tin foil hat, fag holes. Not only does it assume that the American Government can keep a secret, but it assumes that the thousands of scientists who worked on the project and were not a part of NASA, the tens of thousands of scientists world wide who've worked on or reviewed that material since, and all of the World Powers who had managed to invent long distance f***ing RADAR would play along.

The same morons that think 9/11 was a conspiracy also.

but what did they have in the 60's which they don't have now or better?

did you miss the memo about the 40 years of technology advances?

...a controlled impact into a crater near the moons south pole sometime in this mission.

In other words, "we know it's going to crash, we just don't know how or when".

It's also that they don't just wanna send guys up there to take photos and head on home. They're designing it all for some pretty extensive work while on the Moon.

Im pretty sure if they realy wanted to they could send someone up in a year or so, but what would be the point, theyve already done that.

At some point they decided that they didnt need to go to the moon again and started with the ISS, which alot of people think is pointless, but more so,the public isnt interested in it, it doesnt realy have the same impact as having a few dudes living in a hut on the moon. And if the public is interested, then they can get more funding.

Like 3dee said, What they are doing now is laying the groundwork for a future moon base, instead of just sending some dudes up there for a day and then coming back.

If you dont think they went to the moon, your a pretty big moron, equivilant to the flat earthers.

They're saving up for a holiday, not a weekend trip.

Maybe we should finally tell them the big secret: that all the chimps we sent into space came back super-intelligent.

http://inquizition.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/deathstar.jpg

this is what they are planning no doubt.

oooh my name is on a microchip on the LRO :P definitely time i dusted off the scope & got it serviced... the refractor mirror is dirty n misaligned making everything a bit blurry through it.

He3 + Fusion = win!

heh. in theory! :P

In other words, "we know it's going to crash, we just don't know how or when".

not really :P they are using an empty upper stage to collide with a permanantly dark crater to try & kick up some evidence of water ice in the crater. so it's not like they are crashing a lander & they do know exactly how & when.

so what's all the guff about nasa losing plans n s***? i've never heard about that :P like... nasa has sent plenty of missions (unmanned) to the moon in the past few decades... not all get major media coverage.

anyways... BIGGUPS NASA ! :D

so what's all the guff about nasa losing plans n s***? i've never heard about that

well they did loose the original moon landing tapes, all that exist now are the copys, which were actualy done by pointing a camera at a screen playing what was coming down live. There was a machine recording the actual direct feed, but they dont know where those tapes are now, they are sure they have them, but they are in archive somewhere and dont know exactly were they are.

Fusion power commonly proposes the use of deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, as fuel and in many current designs also use lithium. Assuming a fusion energy output equal to the 1995 global power output of about 100 EJ/yr (= 1 x 1020 J/yr) and that this does not increase in the future, then the known current lithium reserves would last 3000 years, lithium from sea water would last 60 million years, and a more complicated fusion process using only deuterium from sea water would have fuel for 150 billion years.[9] To put this in context, 150 billion years is over ten times the currently measured age of the universe, and is close to 30 times the remaining lifespan of the sun.[10]

Fusion Power is what we need.

yes, in the US's state of financial ruin a trip to the moon should be just the ticket.

nasa has thier funding, which has been cut heaps due to the financial crisis... it's stupid to expect them to use it for anything other than thier science missions.

How did noone post this:

That's what would make going to the moon worthwhile again eh trog? Decent friggin' cameras.

oooh my name is on a microchip on the LRO :P

Me too!

Although, I share the name of a famous person, so somehow that lessens my enjoyment.

NASA is also helping private organisations get into building shuttles and organising flights into space. In the long run NASA plans to simply use the services of such companies for a lot of it's projects.

If a laser could "push" the moon we wouldn't be landing on it... lol

You know that experiment where NASA (Not Always Science Agency) supposedly placed reflectors on the moon so Lasers could tell if the Moon was getting closer/further ? Well Theyve now cancelled that experiment and will no longer fund it. Why ? Do they think their experiment might push the moon out of its orbit or send it HURTLING in to the Earth and they dont want us to know ? Anyone remember Space 1999 ? MoonBase Alpha ? an explosion ?

Do you just come out with every crackpot theory known to man?

Faceman you're a f***en idiot.

The force that a square metre of sunlight puts on objects is incomprehensibly small that you don't even take it into account even in scientific measurements.

I did actualy mean the Explosion/impact experiment could effect the Moons orbit.

Here is a link about the cancelation of the laser experiment.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/21/mcdonald-observatory-space-laser-funding

An experiment, begun when Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left a mirror on the lunar surface 40 years ago to allow Earth-based astronomers to fire lasers at it, has been ended by American science chiefs.

You know that experiment where NASA (Not Always Science Agency) supposedly placed reflectors on the moon so Lasers could tell if the Moon was getting closer/further ?
Well Theyve now cancelled that experiment and will no longer fund it.
Why ?
Do they think their experiment might push the moon out of its orbit or send it HURTLING in to the Earth and they dont want us to know ?

No, they stopped collecting data at McDonald observatory. The Apache Point and Côte d'Azure observatories will still collect data. It saves USD125,000 a year.

I did actualy mean the Explosion/impact experiment could effect the Moons orbit.

Of course it affects the orbit. You jumping upward actually pulls the Earth toward you (a tiny minuscule fraction of the force that Earth pulls back on you).

The thing is, that the impact is so miniscule compared to the mass of the Moon that its not considered a threat. A massive asteroid would be a threat, but not a tiny rocket/satellite hitting the Moon at a much slower speed. Its like throwing a tennis ball at a 1 ton boulder.

last edited by 3dee at 13:14:04 24/Jun/09

the sheer mass of the moon cancels any affect from the impact faceman as old mate said ^

end of conspiracy theory

Human Beings cant be trusted with other Planets/Moons after seeing what theyve done to their own home.
Dont want to mess too much with the moon.
A lot of Life on Earth depends on it.

Haha you can't be a serious poster FaceMan. Too much sci-fi for you!

Next time you look at the moon, check out all the spots. They're craters from impacts much, much more severe than anything we could do to the moon. Old Luna is still up there too.

Even if we wanted to (for fun lols) I very much doubt humans have any ability to affect the orbit of the moon. If a meteorite a tiny fraction of the moon's mass was approaching earth there's nothing we can do about it.

Our impact on the biospehere is one thing, but we just don't yet have the reach to f*** with celestial bodies on a macro scale. We're gnats in this solar system for a long while yet.

I bet you could make a laser push the moon away like faceman said, but a laser designed to check how far away the moon is wouldn't do that.

Human Beings cant be trusted with other Planets/Moons after seeing what theyve done to their own home.
Dont want to mess too much with the moon.
A lot of Life on Earth depends on it.

Consider this:

The Earth has approximately 5,974,200,000,000,000,000,000,000kg of mass.
The Moon has approximately 73,600,000,000,000,000,000,000kg of mass.
The Space Shuttle has approximately 2,029,203kg of mass.
Thats 3,627,039,778,671,724 time less mass than the Moon.
Even travelling at 7,000m/s its still a miniscule amount of force compared to the amount required to alter the trajectory of the Moon.

3.6 million billion times less mass than the Moon. Go figure.

Hey I consider Faceman to be like reading the National Enquirier or FHM, or watching ACA, it's sheer entertainment, but you would never take any of it for factual value.

Keep on posting Faceman, you make my day!

the moon is drifting away on it's own accord at a rate of ~38mm/year. it's also torquing on the earth's rotation & will eventually slow the earth's rotation until it is phase locked with the moon's obit around the earth which will lengthen the day & make industry very happy ;p

FaceMan - not letting facts get in the way of a good conspiracy

demon you just wanted to say phase locked

I bet you could make a laser push the moon away like faceman said, but a laser designed to check how far away the moon is wouldn't do that.

We could create a laser that could impart kinetic energy on the moon, sure.

But the moon is f***ing massive, and the amount of kinetic energy delivered by light is teeny tiny - large objects in this context are single cell organisms. So far we can really only noticeably move objects measuring microns in size, its great for fine work, but moving the moon?

It would be a very silly plan.

We could always chuck a warp bubble around the Moon and whisk it off to another sector of the galaxy. Of course, that would require more energy than is currently available in the entire known Universe though :(

The Earth has approximately 5,974,200,000,000,000,000,000,000kg of mass.
The Moon has approximately 73,600,000,000,000,000,000,000kg of mass.

Now imagine the earth was made of chocolate. That's a lot of calories.

Keep playing into his BS people

Does anyone ever think about world peace and if there was 1 space project company (like nasa). How much further ahead would we be with the extra funding / everyone working for a common goal?

Yup a single corporation with access to territory nobody else does would definitly bring world peace.

damn you kohagen! give these people air!



last edited by ara at 18:47:28 24/Jun/09

Now imagine the earth was made of chocolate. That's a lot of calories.

http://www66.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Calories+in+Mass+of+the+moon+as+Chocolate

haha go wolfram!

Does anyone ever think about world peace and if there was 1 space project company (like nasa). How much further ahead would we be with the extra funding / everyone working for a common goal?

Probably behind. Competition delivered most of the incentive to get into space.

Getting to the Moon in the 60s was all about beating the Russkies, not some feel good awesome for mankind exercise. Look at how much slower things have been (although still awesome) since the CW ended.

Commercialisation of space (or a space war pew pew) will add the next serious level of R&D.

last edited by Hogfather at 18:56:39 24/Jun/09

I did actualy mean the Explosion/impact experiment could effect the Moons orbit.

Can you articulate what damage the thalidomide did to your brain and why your mother thought it would work as birth control?

Probably behind. Competition delivered most of the incentive to get into space.

I agree with the notion competition drives our advancement, but we evolved from apes.

What would it be like for an advanced species that evolved from a creature like ants? (all working for the queen).

Mindless drones... some people are nearly there.

hi typo.

The Russians and Americans help each other but the thing is Space Technology is at the cutting edge for some secret high-tech stuff that you wouldnt want to pass along even to your Allies.

Im quite sure there are known unknowns about The Moon.

i know i want to see it.

now that looks interesting.

http://www.tgsa-comic.com/comics/040.jpg

oooh my name is on a microchip on the LRO :P

I think my name is too.

I'll see if I can find my certificate.

despite what nutters may think the space agencies mostly do collaborate on projects. especially nasa & esa (european space agency)... cassini & huygens is a good example. nasa helped the japanese space agency (jaxa) out with heaps of mars landing technology for thier mars probe (pity it never got there!).

just about all the world's space agencies help out with the international space station (except china but i rekn it won't be too long before they stop rattling thier sabres n start collaborating).

stop, collaborate and listen.

get down low and collaborate collaborate collaborate!