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Lost 1967 spacecraft FOUND CRASHED ON MOON
The Register ^ | 26 July 2011 | Lewis Page

Posted on 07/27/2011 10:49:41 AM PDT by ShadowAce

NASA scientists believe they may have found the final resting place of a 1960s space probe which took "the picture of the [last] century" before crashlanding on the far side of the Moon.

A snapshot from the past... (click to enlarge)

The information comes in new imagery from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), sent up to circle the Moon under the Bush administration's plan for a manned return to our satellite body as a precursor to Mars missions. The LRO was intended to map the lunar surface in unprecedented detail, perhaps discovering useful ice deposits or crater-rim landing sites where solar power would be available year round.

All that became rather moot when Congress refused to fund the ambitious Moonbase plans and president Obama duly axed them. But the LRO has nonetheless produced many fascinating finds: and now, NASA boffins operating it believe they may have discovered the crash site of a previous Moon-recce craft called Lunar Orbiter 2.

Lunar Orbiter 2 had a similar mission to the LRO, in that it was sent up to help with selection of landing sites for the Apollo moon missions - many of which actually happened, unlike the recently-cancelled Constellation ones. However the instrumentation of the day was far less sophisticated than the LRO's and as all students of space history will know the first landing - by Apollo 11 in 1969 - almost ended in disaster as the lunar module's autopilot tried to set it down in a dangerous field of boulders, forcing a hairy manual intervention by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin when just 400 feet up.

Despite not being a total success in the matter of moon mapping, Lunar Orbiter 2 did achieve lasting fame when it sent back a stunning oblique image of the Copernicus crater in 1967 (above), dubbed "the picture of the century" by news media at the time. Later that year, its mission complete, the Orbiter was disposed of by commanding it to crashland on the lunar farside. Its exact resting place has never been known, but now the operators of the LROC have found what they believe is a tell-tale impact site just at the coordinates where the Orbiter should have come down.

crater

Could this be the impact site?

It's not yet certain that this marks the last resting place of the greatest robot photographer of the last century, but the LRO scientists are working on confirmation.

"We are currently re-targeting the area under a higher incidence angle to help with crater rim measurements. Stay tuned!" they write. ®


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: astronomy; moon; space; spaceexploration; xplanets
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1 posted on 07/27/2011 10:49:47 AM PDT by ShadowAce
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To: ShadowAce

Looks like Mars Face’s cousin.


2 posted on 07/27/2011 10:52:51 AM PDT by bgill
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To: rdb3; Calvinist_Dark_Lord; GodGunsandGuts; CyberCowboy777; Salo; Bobsat; JosephW; ...

3 posted on 07/27/2011 10:53:18 AM PDT by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: ShadowAce

“... refused to fund the ambitious Moonbase plans and president Obama duly axed them.”

Can’t see past his grass hut.


4 posted on 07/27/2011 10:53:52 AM PDT by PetroniusMaximus
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To: ShadowAce

What if it turn’s out it isn’t?
Maybe it’s alien.....................


5 posted on 07/27/2011 10:53:57 AM PDT by Red Badger (PEAS in our time? Obama cries PEAS! PEAS! when there is no PEAS!..........................)
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Comment #6 Removed by Moderator

To: ShadowAce
It shows S.H.A.D.O. Moonbase Alpha - meanwhile inside:


7 posted on 07/27/2011 10:56:35 AM PDT by frithguild
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To: ShadowAce
Looks like a picture of Jesus on a grilled cheese sandwich to me.

I dunno?

8 posted on 07/27/2011 10:57:53 AM PDT by skimbell
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To: ShadowAce

A metaphor for the NASA space program.


9 posted on 07/27/2011 10:57:58 AM PDT by brownsfan (I miss the America I grew up in.)
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To: ShadowAce

Good job not capitalizing the “p” in president.

He’s a Peas of Sh!t and we’re embarrassed by him, or whatever the dixie chicks said about Bush.


10 posted on 07/27/2011 10:58:05 AM PDT by treetopsandroofs (Had FDR been GOP, there would have been no World Wars, just "The Great War" and "Roosevelt's Wars".)
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To: KevinDavis

Ping.


11 posted on 07/27/2011 10:58:05 AM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four fried chickens and a coke)
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To: ShadowAce
However the instrumentation of the day was far less sophisticated than the LRO's and as all students of space history will know the first landing - by Apollo 11 in 1969


12 posted on 07/27/2011 11:00:44 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: ShadowAce

i saw three faces in there. how many did you see?


13 posted on 07/27/2011 11:02:31 AM PDT by camle (keep an open mind and someone will fill it full of something for you)
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To: ShadowAce

Maybe we can ask the Chinese to check for us, when they get to the moon in a few years, god knows we won’t be going back any time soon.


14 posted on 07/27/2011 11:02:31 AM PDT by apillar
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To: Red Badger

Its the landing site for Apollo 20 which was on a secret mission.

(There actually are some conspiracy theories about secret Apollo missions)


15 posted on 07/27/2011 11:02:50 AM PDT by RadiationRomeo (Step into my mind and glimpse the madness that is me)
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To: treetopsandroofs
"president Obama"

They always misspell "resident Obama".


16 posted on 07/27/2011 11:08:23 AM PDT by Iron Munro (The more effeminate & debauched the people, the more they are fitted for a tyrannical government.)
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To: ShadowAce

bump


17 posted on 07/27/2011 11:10:14 AM PDT by tutstar
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To: RadiationRomeo

Kind of hard to liftoff a Saturn 5 in secret.


18 posted on 07/27/2011 11:11:47 AM PDT by Spaghetti Man (NOBAMA)
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To: RadiationRomeo

I saw the show where Neil Armstrong found the crashed autobot ship, so I guess that theory is as true as anything that spews out of the media.


19 posted on 07/27/2011 11:13:13 AM PDT by MikeSteelBe (Austrian Hitler was as the Halfrican Hitler does.)
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To: ShadowAce
Great, one more to go.


20 posted on 07/27/2011 11:17:17 AM PDT by LibWhacker
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