Nasa challenges Moon hoax claims

BBC News Online ^ | 11/07/02 | Dr. David Whitehouse

[steve-b]

Spy satilites can read a license plate from a geosyncrous orbit 23K miles above the earth

Spysats are in lower orbits, precisely because they need to maximize ground imaging resolution. 23K miles in the geosynchronous orbit used for comsats that "hover" above a specific point on the equator.

[Shooter 2.5]

Aiming the Hubble telescope toward the moon still wouldn't silence the conspiracy nuts. It's because of an affliction I call "The Oswald Defense".

As long as the evidence originates from the government, the wackos will never believe it.

[TomB]

So you think it would be trivial to do such caclucations with the equipment avaviable at the time?

The calculations necessary are straightforward, if not a little esoteric. If someone knows what they are doing, it is a relatively simple task to plug the numbers into the equations and get the results. The flight computers just allowed many more calcualtions to be done more expediently.

[TomB]

The link below is a great site for info on the workings of the Apollo Flight Computer (click on the picture). You can see there it really isn't all that magical.

[supercat]

If NASA really wants to settle this once and for all, all they need to do is aim the Hubble telescope to the Sea of Tranquility and focus in on the decarded lower lunar module and the flag.

Those are too small and not bright enough to be detected by something like the Hubble.

On the other hand, astronauts did leave behind corner-reflectors at the landing sites, and those can be detected from earth with a relatively modest (under $10K I think) amount of equipment. Essentially, you point a moderately-powerful laser at one of the landing sites while monitoring it with a telescope. If the laser is well-collimated, the efficiency of the reflector will be good enough that the reflected beam will be detectable [I'm not sure if it's visible, or has to be detected electronically, since I've not done the experiment]. Pointing the laser and telescope at part of the moon without the reflector will not work--only the landing sites with reflectors will send enough of the laser energy back to earth for it to be detectable.