(Viewed 8,530 times)

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Spacecraft Snoops Apollo Moon Sites

We all have heard about the conspiracy theories that the Lunar Landings were faked to satisify and win the space race before the 1960's ended. Almost all of the points brought up in this belief are absurd and quite ignorant, but some interesting questions have some merit and have not been successfully answered. We now have the opportunity to actually image the landing sites in good detail from the ESA SMART 1 spaceprobe.

----------------

This from Space.com: A European spacecraft now orbiting the Moon could turn out to be a time machine of sorts as it photographs old landing sites of Soviet robotic probes and the areas where American Apollo crews set down and explored.

New imagery of old Apollo touchdown spots, from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) SMART-1 probe, might put to rest conspiratorial thoughts that U.S. astronauts didn’t go the distance and scuff up the lunar landscape. NASA carried out six piloted landings on the Moon in the time period 1969 through 1972.

Foing told SPACE.com that the SMART-1 orbiter circling the Moon has already covered the Apollo 11, 16, 17 landing sites, as well as spots where the former Soviet Union’s Luna 16 and Luna 20 automated vehicles plopped down. The images have not yet been released.

More here: www.space.com/missionlaunches/050304_moon_snoop.html

---------------

Now, it states that the craft has already imaged some manned sites, including Apollo 11. What's the delay in releasing them? I would love to see the sites and I would think that NASA would be just as anxious to release the images, crude or not, to a waiting American public and the world, and end the question if we landed there or not. This is a ESA probe, and sort of independant of NASA's meddling, so I wonder whats going on.

I'm bothered by this and await positive vindicative results.

[Rocketman]

I agree with you Joe. I wish they would hurry up, and release the images to the public. Surely they wouldn't doctor the data to make NASA look bad... would they?

I feel strongly that we did go to the moon.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

This is similar to the thread going on regarding Life on Mars. We can't positively say that there is life until we actually get a specimen in our grasp or a substancial image, but personally...I think there is.

Similiarly...The majority believe that we landed on the moon, but the same level of scrutiny applies here as well. The burden of proof exists in both arenas.

Show the damned images already...

It would be a terrible thing to discover it didn't happen. It would violate many aspects of trust, pride and beliefs. To doctor the images would be a crime. And in this day and age of technology, anyone with a decent graphics program can tear an image apart pixel by pixel and determine if it was tampered with. We are not the simple people we were in the '60's.

It hope we did, really hope we did land, but the longer the delay, the more suspicious I get that somethings going on. This should have been released on the spot...and if you were in charge, wouldn't you have?

Here's hoping...

[Rocketman]

If I myself were in charge. YOU BET! I'd be on TV saying here are the landing sites! Here is the proof. Now shut up already! ;D

[Rocketman]

I wish the shuttle was ready tomorrow! I'm so frustrated with the delay. Sure it's bad. We are saddened by Columbia, but lets get the show on the road! Let's go back to the moon. Let's colonize the moon. Let's build a lunar highway for ease of tranporting supplies, and equipment to the lunar surface. Time is ticking, and we don't have forever. I want to see it in my lifetime.


*hussle* ;D

[starbux]

Maybe if we didn't dump any more money into dead-end projects such as the shuttle, we might get back to the moon. The shuttle only goes to low-earth-orbit, and that's all it was designed for.

It is too specialized for anything else. Now the Saturn V rocket was a whole 'nother animal, whose true potential and versatility was hardly given a chance.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

The shuttle was conceived in the 1960's, designed in the 1970's, built and first flew in the 1980's, starting to fall apart in the 1990's, and ready for retirement in the 2000's.

Now, don't get me wrong...I like the shuttle, and it has it's place, but it's a space truck...as it was designed for.

I feel we have regressed to a point before the Mercury missions, in that if we wanted to strap a brave astronaut atop a controlled explosion and zip him/her to the moon or beyond, we just are not able to. And I understand that the blueprints of the Saturn V were destroyed and couldn't build one without re-inventing the whole endeavour from scratch.

The United States should be way beyond our present status by now. Mars should have been reached and a real space station in orbit.

NASA and the American mindset of the "sheeple" needs an Enema.

[starbux]

It's time to retire NASA, really. Now don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled by the results of Cassini-Huygens and other space probes, and was even proud when we landed on the moon (I have more to say on this below). But just because these were accomplished thru government agencies doesn't mean that they HAD to be done via government.

Space exploration/exploitation is HEAVILY regulated in a way to squeeze out private companies/entrepreneurs in favor of the NASA monopoly, and it was only after the destructions of both Challenger and Columbia that that private citizens were given a break. The longer the Shuttle stays grounded the better, afaic.

And understand this: IF we are to become a true spacefaring race, with not just a few, but thousands or millions of people colonizing the solar system and beyond, NASA (or similar govt program) will have to be long gone. Because NASA will not do it for us, and will NEVER do it for us. Because space must be profitable in order to pay for itself and even expand, and a tax-funded agency such as NASA is not interested in profit.

Now I DO believe we went to the Moon. However, I would almost welcome us finding out for certain that we didn't, if that meant more Americans waking up. We as a people are still in deep denial about a great many things.

[Rocketman]

Well in regard to the shuttle I partly meant that I wanted to see it go up personally. The brute power of that thing is enormous! I've never seen it in real life. Yes it's time for a change. I don't want to dog NASA. They have done some great things in my honest opinion, but they waste too much money on projects that albeit are neat in most respects. I think they'd be better off concentrating on one or two items at a time, and not 74. Also I happen to like ISS, but couldn't that load of money been used to start a moon station? We went to the moon from 69 to 72 so what is the damn hold up!?

I believe we went to the moon! It too depressing for me to think we've all been lied to, but it's possible.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

I am quite pleased that members of this forum are open to the discussion of 1, NASA incompetence...and 2, Possible moon landing falsehood. If I were to bring either up on some other boards, it would be heresy and I would be stoned.

The road to progress and truth is clear...why can't the simple minded just be pushed aside. and let the real thinkers assume position.

Don't work that way I guess...

[Rocketman]

Joe. Have you ever tried to look at the landing sites via telescope? I have a DS-90 Meade Telescope. It's great for examing the Moon. I can see the stripes of Jupiter, and rings of Saturn, but I mainly use it for the Moon. Looking at stars is useless, because they still look like what I can see with my own eyes. :\

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Oh yes...quite often and on a number of different scopes.

There are certain stars that I really enjoy observing. I most recently viewed Sirius thru a 6" refractor and found it sparkling like a diamond, like I never saw before. It was incredible! I like looking at the red giants of Betelguise, Arcturus and Antares. One can compare the temperature of the two suns side by side when looking at the double star system of Alberio, (which glows orange), and it's smaller companion, (which glows blue), in the summer time skies. You can also split the stars at the bend of the Big Dippers Handle as well.

Don't give up on observing the stars through your DS-90. Remember that star clusters and globulars are tight gatherings of just stars...sometimes with some nebulousity thrown in.

On the matter of the Moon...

But I would be kidding myself if I ever thought I might observe the sites, as not even the largest scope on Earth has the resolution power to image the landers. But now, Hubble is a different story...

They again tell us that the Hubble cannot image the sites because the moon is too bright and too close to focus on. Nonsense I say! I don't expect the Hubble to pick out the plaque riveted on the landers leg, but it most certainly is able to image the area and provide us with some indication of man's arrival...or is there nothing to image? Is that why we have absolutely no pictures of the landing sites from either the American's or the Russians?

Come on SMART 1 ...give us what we want to see. ;D

[starbux]

They again tell us that the Hubble cannot image the sites because the moon is too bright and too close to focus on.

Whoever "they" are, they're wrong or lying. Hubble has indeed imaged the moon, though not extensively. Copernicus is the best example.



Others can be found
Here as well as elsewhere.

[Rocketman]

Another thing I wanted to ask Joe is; Can SMART 1 be seen orbiting the Moon via telescope? Is there tracking data of SMART 1 online? Like a java applet showing where SMART 1 is right now? Any kind of live data on it's current position?


I wish I had some of the apps that they use.

[TheCriticalEye]

Ok maybe i can help here just a bit.

1 the hubble telescope CAN NOT see lunar landings on the moon. when hubble looks at the moon the best resolution is only 30 kilometers across. wich isnt good enough to see the landings. hubble was never designed to look at the moon it was designed for deep space observations not close ones " big differece"

2 there are already pictures of apollo landings from the craft called CLEMINTINE. there are thousands of pictures of the moon from this craft.

3 SMART1 ... the only thing significant of this craft is that it is the smallest ion drive engine ever used for propulsion. ( the size of a coffee can) what pictures it takes im sure will be ok i guess we will see when they come out.

[starbux]

Why would Hubble not be able to resolve smaller than 30 km? This (and alot smaller than that) would be easy even for modest amateur telescopes.

Perhaps you meant 3 (or more likely 0.3) km?

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

The Hubble Resolution Specifications

HST's current complement of science instruments include two cameras, two spectrographs, and fine guidance sensors (primarily used for astrometric observations). Because of HST's location above the Earth's atmosphere, these science instruments can produce high resolution images of astronomical objects. Ground-based telescopes can seldom provide resolution better than 1.0 arc-seconds, except momentarily under the very best observing conditions. HST's resolution is about 10 times better, or 0.1 arc-seconds.

1 arcsecond is 1/3,600 of a degree

The human eye can resolve objects in detail as fine as 1 "arc-minute," or 60 arc-seconds and by the mid-twentieth century, advanced telescopes were resolving images to 1 arc-second - about the size of a coin seen from three kilometres away. Hubble increased that resolution by 10-fold, to about 0.1 arc-second.

The development of radio telescopes in the 1960's allowed astronomers to resolve images as fine as .001 arc-seconds - as if the observer were 100,000 times closer to the object.

www.abc.net.au/science/news/space/SpaceRepublish_175883.htm

--------

Yep, Hubble could image the sites.

And I never thought about this next one....where are the radar images of the Apollo sites from the Radio Telescopes on Earth? The Jodrell Radio Observatory has the typical resolution of 1/20 of a second of arc, equivalent to resolving a one-pound coin from a distance of 100 km.
www.jb.man.ac.uk/booklet/Merlin.html

In regards to the next X-ray telescope being built: "A visible-light telescope with the resolution of this newly designed X-ray telescope could be used to count the hairs on an astronaut's head while she was standing on the moon!"
www.abc.net.au/science/news/space/SpaceRepublish_175883.htm - (ABC News and Nature magazine).

---------

Here is a site with a video clip of the Apollo 16 landing site, but it's inconclusive...and quite nauseating to watch....aarrgh.
starryskies.com/The_sky/events/lunar-2003/multimedia.html

(Side note: Look at the short video of Venus and the Moon. It is obviously faked, as the lighting is all wrong, and the moon should be in total eclipse.)

-------

This next telescope will be a great one, but...

So, um.....where are the pics?

[Rocketman]

Hey Joe.

If we were millionaires we could all team up, and build a rover that could take close up pictures of the landing sites. I believe if I were one of the big wheels at Nasa I would have already been pulling for this type of project years ago. Why haven't they? Are they hiding the truth? I truely don't believe they faked anything...

The orbiting satellites are great, the Mars rovers are great, but why did they skip putting a rover on the Moon? Why wouldn't a rover specifically (but not entirely) built for imaging the landing sites be a valid, and worthy project? It would for once shut up all of the conspiracy theorist... or would it? They'd probably claim that was faked too! How much proof is actually needed? Surely it's not a waste of money. That very thought makes me suspicious. Furthermore where are the Smart-1 images? The waiting game is depressing! Why all the secrecy?


Joe was right when he said, "Nasa needs an enema!"

[Rocketman]

What about the Lunar Laser Ranging Retroreflector Array?

science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/21jul_llr.htm

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Why the Hubble could resolve the Apollo sites...

Inconstant Moon is a great lunar site, but the info about 280 feet contradicts the following and is suspect:

That image of Copernicus can be seen in any wide aperture telescope. There is nothing remarkable about that pic and should not be a guidepost to the imaging capabilities of the Hubble. I have been searching for additional images of the moon by the Hubble and ONLY have been able to bring up the same damned image of Copernicus. You mean to tell me that that was the only image taken of the moon by the Hubble? Hardly.

Now follow along with me here a bit. This next supportive piece shows the great resolution of the Hubble:

Astronomers have discovered two of the smallest moons yet found around Uranus

.

The new moons, uncovered by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, are about 8 to 10 miles across (12 to 16 km) -- about the size of San Francisco.

The two moons are so faint they eluded detection by the Voyager 2 spacecraft, which discovered 10 small satellites when it flew by the gas giant planet in 1986. The newly detected moons are orbiting even closer to the planet than the five major Uranian satellites, which are several hundred miles wide. The two new satellites are the first inner moons of Uranus discovered from an Earth-based telescope in more than 50 years. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) will announce the finding today. The Hubble telescope observations also helped astronomers confirm the discovery of another tiny moon that had originally been spotted in Voyager pictures.

"It's a testament to how much our Earth-based instruments have improved in 20 plus years that we can now see such faint objects 1.7 billion miles (2.8 billion km) away," says Mark Showalter, a senior research associate at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., who works at the NASA Ames Research Center, in Moffett Field, Calif. Showalter and Jack Lissauer, a research scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center, used Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) to make the discovery. The images were taken Aug. 25, 2003.

Hubble easily resolves Pluto and Charon as two separate bodies.

www.solarviews.com/eng/urhubblemoons.htm

Objects 1.7 Billion Miles away!

Even the Voyagers missed them. So, considering this and in regards to radio telescope resolution, somebody's in error and blows the 280 feet resolution out of the water.

From MSNBC:

If SMART-1 can get an eyeful, why not use the Hubble Space Telescope to take photos of the Apollo landing sites? Hubble did photograph the moon in 1999.

"Anything left on the moon cannot be resolved in any Hubble image," according to the Space Telescope Science Institute, which operates Hubble for NASA. "It would just appear as a dot."

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7091082/

You know, I'll take the dot!...


In my searching around, I came across Hoagland's slant on this:

April 16th, 1999, NASA released the first Hubble Space Telescope images ever taken of the Moon. What was shocking to so many of these scientists and researchers was not what was on the images, but rather that the images themselves even existed. You see, for more than 5 years, the STSI and NASA have been consistently claiming that the Hubble flatly could not image the Moon!

www.enterprisemission.com/hubble.htm

Yea...many snicker at Hoagland's line of thought, but ignore the conspiracy content and just focus on the Hubble specifics. The paragraph on calibrating the instruments is quite interesting.

--------

No, I feel The Hubble is well capable of imaging the Apollo sites, and I still am waiting to see them...from Hubble, Clementine, SMART1 or the flotilla of crafts scheduled to arrive from the ESA and orient collaboration. If I were the head of NASA, I would be plastering the images all over the place, in an "In your face" manner. But NASA is silent.

Now here's the bottom line after going thru all that...

By NASA's own admission and presentation, it has resolved objects billions of times farther than the Moon. We are not talking about the massive objects light years in diameter, but tangable small targets within our solar system. An object 1.7 billions of miles away and 10 miles in diameter equates to resolution better than 280 feet. Now, again, I don't expect to see footprints, instruments or the plaque on the landers legs, but the Hubble should show some evidence of the missions.

I know this is like challenging religious beliefs and political positions, (people don't like their beliefs questioned), The Apollos are sacred ground and sacrosanct. But like all scientific theories and suppositions, it should stand up to scutiny and examination, and not taken for granted just because.

Just an Amateur Astronomer waiting for the pics...

[Rocketman]

How big was the descent stage of the Lunar Module? Is 14 feet in diameter correct? If so that would be like looking at a pencil eraser from 372 miles away with the naked eye. Correct?

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

I remember as a kid, building all of the space craft scale models. From the experimental X-1's to the Lunar Rover. Wish I had still had them.


Here are good sites for LEM specs: www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/A/Ap/Apollo_Lunar_Module.htm

www.answers.com/topic/apollo-lunar-module

I don't know about the eraser and naked eye analogy, but it would certainly be a tiny object to image, but I think it's possible.

[Maddad]

TheCriticalEye said:

the hubble telescope CAN NOT see lunar landings on the moon. when hubble looks at the moon the best resolution is only 30 kilometers across. wich isnt good enough to see the landings.

hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/solar/hst.html

"It has a resolution of 0.014 arc seconds, compared to an angular size of 1800 arc seconds for the moon. An arc second on the moon corresponds to about 1.92 kilometers on its surface, so Hubble has a resolution of about 27 meters on the moon's surface."

27 meters would be very close to 30 meters. Did you possibly mean that instead of 30 kilometers? Since the landing craft is less than 27 meters wide, we still wouldn't see it.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

I have always been quite terrible at math and math related problems. I need to quietly sit down and cipher this one out. But in the meantime....

When we start looking for the Apollo site, we aren't just looking for the landers, but other evidence of surface activities, such as the decent stage plume exhaust surface disturbance, the long sharp shadows from a lunar rising sun of the lander, the crash debris and impact depression of the ascent stage etc...

We are "Nicely - ;D" discussing this under the supposition that the Hubble could resolve the sites, but we also have spacecrafts orbiting the Moon right now that could do the job, but so far zilch.

Hmmm...

[Rocketman]

Maybe I have this all wrong. I was thinking along the lines of how close a given scope with a given power would have to be to get a decent picture of key sites of interest on the Moon.

Now if any 'positive' CAF members could provide any additional accurate calculations, and/or facts about Hubble, and/or Smart-1's resolution power that would be great.

This is why I was interested in Smart-1's live orbit information, but unfortunately I don't think there is any.

It's all in the Math. I hope this is not too sketchy. ;D

[OEH]

Okay, I'll give it a shot - other people will have to check my assumptions and math.
according to hubblesite.org/sci.d.tech/nuts_.and._bolts/res101.shtml
the moon occupies 1800 arc seconds of the sky
I know the diameter of the moon is 3,479 KM
therefore when we look at the moon each arc second is
3,479 / 1800 = 1.9327 KM or 1,937 meters
According to that Nasa webpage the Hubble is capable of resolutions down to .005 arc seconds
therefore the Hubble should be able to resolve objects on the moon.
1,937 meters * .005 = 9.6635 meters or 31.70 feet

This is considerable better than the 280 feet that was stated on a different web page.

I'm not a math major, nor an optics genuis so someone will have to tell me wheter the assumptions / formulas I used are correct.
At 31.70 feet the Hubble would be able to resolve / identify a Greyhound bus - but a crop circle would have been nice.

[OscarH]

More on resolving power. With the discussion that has been going on here I think we have to elaborate on the word 'resolve' and it's astronomical meaning. (this is only my opinion / view - if others who are more knowledgable disagree - please speak up). In my mind 'resolve' meant the ability to distinguish that there are two (or more objects) and not just one. This does not imply that you can clearly see both objects - only that you can tell that there is more than one. Taking that another step, using 31 foot resolving power, does that mean you can clearly see two large boulders (both 31 feet in diameter) that are immediately adjacent? No. If, however, they were seperated by at least 31 feet, you would be able to see that there were two objects and not just one.
Another aspect that I feel is worth mentioning is that I think there is quite a bit of difference resolving two objects that are sitting on the lunar surface with a seperation of .005 arc sec and resolving two points of light (planet and satellite, or binary stars) at the same seperation.
One final thought. Earlier in the thread someone mentioned SMART-1. I was not able to locate any specifics of AMIE the visual telescope component; however looking at the picture it took of Pythagoras, which has 120 km diameter, it doesn't look like it would be able to provide a very clear picture with sufficient detail.

[Maddad]

OEH
I was puzzling through your math and that link. I was pretty Ok with an arcsecond representing 1,900 meters at the Moon's surface. (I didn't use 1,937 meters because the problem is limited to only two significant digits by the use of the number 1,800 for the angular width of the Moon.) The Hubble resoultion though is 0.05 arc seconds, not 0.005. This gives a width of 95 meters on the lunar surface. I hate mixing units; like to think in metric as much as possible for scientific stuff, so 280 feet is about 250 meters. 95 meters is indeed better than 250 meters, so there does appear to be a discrepancy.

It might be easy though to resolve;) the problem. 250 is 3.8 times as much as 95. Suppose NASA was using a different resolution figure (0.013) for the Hubble, one that was 3.8 times better than the figure used by your other source. That's easy to do, and would explain the difference.

Resolving Power Note
In microbiology, the resolving power of a microscope is the ability to distinguish two parallel lines as being two and not one. Telescopes might have a similar specification, although I've not come across it yet.

[Rocketman]

Great figures guys. So that proves (at least to me) that Hubble could take somewhat decent pictures of key lunar sites.



(Now all we need to do is hack hubble, and turn it towards the Moon, and presto.)

^^Just kidding^^

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Regardless on anyone's position of the Apollo sites on the moon, I am really enjoying this discussion. It provides us the opportunity to shake out the bugs and I see that we are getting down to number crunching and understanding the capabilities of the Hubble and related tools.

I still feel that some indication can be imaged from the the Hubble's perspective. And why is it that all I can call up on the net, is the same shot of Corpernicus over and over again, and not any other image of the Moon from the Hubble? And no where on the net I searched, can I find specs on the AIME camera on the SMART-1 craft.

Let's continue the discussion, and perhaps it will help us better understand the question placed before us ourselves, and not accept what is spoon fed us in total blind faith.