I ask here because of the occasional “The landing never really happened” threads.
So, is it possible, with the insane resolution needed, and the atmospheric interference, to see evidence of the Apollo moon mission from Earth?
Use the search feature. This question has been answered more than once. And its still a general question.
You might find a reference on SDMB or elsewhere. I recall reading a post somewhere in the last couple weeks from someone who crunched the math. Turns out even the Hubble Space Telescope has about a 15 meter resolution for the surface of the Moon. Any images of Apollo activity would be circumstantial (like the fuzzy Clementine pics).
Ah. Here it is. Courtesy of the Crank.net index.
I’ll point out that my figures in the above post are wrong, assuming those in the posted link are correct. So just ignore my numbers.
The Hubble telescope can only resolve images greater than 280 feet wide. This rules out the possibility of seeing anything man-made… unless we go back and plant a football-field-sized sign that reads, “We were here, dammit! Now shut up!”
We must** go there again **to find out for sure.
(Maybe Fox will run a lottery or something to finance a quick repeat-run from ISS. Or at least a low, skimming photo-taking probe.)
The real question that must be answered is: “Why did we stop Moon exploration?”.
We did so little “exploration” that it really isn’t fit to call it “exploration”. So: Why did we stop? (The usual answers are “cost too much”, “lack of political will”, and similar vacuous explanations.)
Costs too much.
Lack of political will.
AND…
What little we did send really didn’t find all that much. Nor is there any evidence that we WOULD find anything of note.
(I have this odd feeling of deja vu… haven’t you been told all this before, Mr. Sorbust?)
This is the edited answer I provided in another thread re: same question:
“Assuming no atmospheric degradation–a key assumption, of course–a 3-foot flag, at the Moon’s distance subtends an angle of 0”.0005. Therefore, to resolve it you would need a perfect 10,000-inch telescope above Earth’s atmosphere to see it. And even then it would show as only a single pixel in size, meaning quite tiny.
"The lens of the world’s largest telescope is slightly smaller than 834-feet (almost three football fields, end to end) in diameter. And, no, not even Hubble could see the flag today, nor even the descent stage of Apollo 11.
"By the way, finding Tranquility Base is quite simple: merely locate the twin craters of Sabine and Ritter near the (lunar) west side of Mare Tranquilitatis. (Each is 19 miles in diameter.) Next, locate the tiny, fresh crater Moltke to the east–it’s only 4 miles across but surrounded by a much larger patch of white ejecta. Just a few miles north of Moltke is Tranquility Base, the remaining descent stage, the flag, and assorted trash.
“Check the article on this in the July 1994 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine, page 80, which answers your question in full.”
I thought that there was some discussion in some articles a while back as to whether or not the equipment left behind was still functional and what condition it might be in.
I also have wondered why we stopped and why it is taking so long to get to Mars until I came cross another article where it explains that some guy in NASA decided that we should not go to Mars until we get a viable space station built first and diagrammed several steps to follow to take on the way there. Apparently, we are now following those steps.
Money was a great decider in the Lunar program, because after Kennedy died, suddenly every moronic politician in the senate was after the enormous budget NASA had and eventually they chipped away at most of it, forcing NASA to seek funds for experimentation and function from outside sources like businesses, which switched the program imperatives from basic space exploration to showing a profit by hauling up private ownership satellites. Since colonization of the moon would produce few if any profits for a potential of decades, though billions in information would be learned in the process, such an action was deemed too costly and congress declined to fund it, claiming greater need for the billions here on Earth in other projects, like raises for themselves and funding projects for their best lobbyists.
Political corruption almost closed NASA down. Fortunately, or unfortunately, there is now a race on for private people to build and operate cheaper, better space craft to get into space and to reuse the craft. So far, there are a couple of potentially good ones being tested, including a self contained powered lander and some speculation for ‘space hotels’.
The greedy politicians might regret having crippled NASA once the businessmen get into space with their armies of lawyers and desires of greater and greater profit.
(The usual answers are “cost too much”, “lack of political will”, and similar vacuous explanations.)
In what sense are they vacuous explanations?
I fervently agree that we should have kept going. I agree that the money could hardly have been better spent on anything else. I agree that our leaders should have had the political will to do it.
Nevertheless, it is a fact that our leaders did not have that political will. It is a fact that funding more missions would have necessitated a reduction in funding for some other programs that were supported by better lobbyists. It is a fact that the American public, as a whole, just didn’t give a damn for more moon missions.
I forget who first made the remark, but I couldn’t agree more that NASA’s most amazing accomplishment was to make going to moon look boring.