We need to speed things up.
This article:
A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Moon , says it might be as early as 2015.
We need to get to the 'fuel of the 21st century' first.
Researchers and space enthusiasts see helium-3 as the perfect fuel source.
Posted on 10/19/2005 9:25:18 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The Hubble Space Telescope has taken a rare look at the moon to gauge the amount of oxygen-bearing minerals in the lunar soil that could be mined by astronauts and used in a new moon mission.
NASA said Wednesday that the telescope's ultraviolet observations of two Apollo landing sites and an unexplored but geologically intriguing area will help scientists pick the best spots for robot and human exploration.
The space agency hopes to return astronauts to the moon by 2018 using Apollo-like capsules and rockets made of shuttle parts.
The data also will benefit a lunar reconnaissance spacecraft to be launched in 2008.
NASA scientist Jim Garvin described the August observations as "CSI does the moon through Hubble."
"We're going to try to do forensic science using places on the moon we know, two of the Apollo sites particularly noteworthy for their soils," he said.
The space telescope photographed the landing sites of Apollo 15 and 17. Scientists know from rocks collected by the moonwalkers how much of the mineral ilmenite, an iron titanium oxide, is present at those locations.
Oxygen could be extracted from ilmenite with relative ease to provide air, water and rocket fuel for astronauts, allowing them to live off the land and helping to drive down exploration costs.
Hubble made 60 lunar observations over three days in August, around the time of the full moon. It has observed the moon just once before, in the late 1990s. The moon is a difficult target for the space telescope, which was not designed to track the fast-moving orb.
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On the Net:
NASA: http://www.nasa.gov
I know people today that believe the reason we announced we are "going back" in 2018 is to get there the first time. They are afraid the Chinese or the Europeans will get there for real this time and discover nothing is there.
Or so the conspiracy theory goes.
For the moon hoax crowd - the Hubble can only resolve objects on the surface of the moon around the size of a football field. So the Hubble can't come close to resolving an Apollo LEM on the surface.
Hubble is same technology, made by the same lab on the same machines that are making the spy satellite camera (mirrors, mounts, foundations, controls, sensors, radios, drives, anti-motion (random satellite movement) controls/motion-following satellite (image tracking) controls and motors.
Problem with Hubble was the calibration of the grinding machinery (fundamentally) that incorrectly spaced and sized the mirror surface. Fortunately, it was a known error that they figured out how to re-correct with new hardware/software that could be loaded into the Hubble while in space.
Is that the moon rover in that right side photo?
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Yes, and in post 20 as well.
See post #12.
Do you have any idea how many Martian bases there are on the dark side of the moon lobbing global warming missles at us?
More than one.
One exploded over my house Sept. 27 and it sure got warm. So I painted the east side of the window trim.
I just got done with that and another exloded Sept. 30. So the wife says, why don't you paint the eaves. So I did that.
Then we got a barrage between Oct. 1 through 4. The wife says, why don't you finish the siding. I looked at her funny and went fishing instead.
There's more plots going on at the moon than in Washington.
It was never there!
WooOOooOOoooOOoo...
(insert X-Files music here)
Okay, Waters.....Roger Waters....
We need to speed things up.
This article:
A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Moon , says it might be as early as 2015.
We need to get to the 'fuel of the 21st century' first.
Researchers and space enthusiasts see helium-3 as the perfect fuel source.
No, but they faked one up - just in case it's needed.
Uh.. well simply no. The resolution of a telescope is angular, not spatial. Spatial can be calculated by the distance to the object, which the moon is LOTS farther than the earth from that orbit.
Second, the Hubble primary mirror error, a mistake in the conic constant of the surface due to a cap on the metering rod used for setting up the null test, was corrected by first using phase retrieval systems to validate the error then fixed using a lens system.
The resolution of the telescope, since it is now diffraction limited, is found by alpha = 2.44 * lamda / D, D being the diameter of the entrance pupil (2.4 meters), lamda being ~.5 micron. Alpha, therefore, is .5 micro Radian. The angular subtense of a 1 meter object sitting on the moon (385000 km) as viewed from a 569km orbit is 2.6 nano Radians. To resolve a 1 meter object, the primary mirror would have to be 2.44*.5E-6/2.6e-9, or 469 meters. That don't fit in a 4 meter payload ferring.
bttt
Easy for you to say.
I give credit to Excel for keeping track of the zero's.
Later read.
OK - Good point: And even an spatial resolution (385,000 km vice 569 km) would reduce resolution by a larger factor.
I appreciate the correction.
I think I'll ping him just for the heck of it... maybe his ghost will give us a sign...
BUMP!
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