I’ve often wondered why there are no detailed photos, from NASA or any other source, of the Apollo landing sites on the Moon. At the very least the left over Lunar Module landing gear, with reflective gold coverings, should be seen. If we can view from Earth the rings around Saturn, why not the American flags left at each site? I realize that flags and planetary rings are of greatly different sizes but also realize the differences in distance are just as great as well.
I’ve read the story about why the Hubble Telescope can’t be used because of the Moon being too bright but I don’t believe it. Hubble has taken pictures of solar flares!
When the public has to rely on faith in what NASA has shown them with no other evidence available, I can see why the conspiracy theories grow.
My guess is that astronomers run the Hubble, astronomers don’t care much about Apollo debris (they’re pretty sure it’s there), and astronomers are always fighting each other for time on the Hubble, so nobody has bothered. The Hubble can indeed see the Moon; {url=“http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/1999/14/index.html”]Hubble Shoots the Moon (check out the “Individual Images” link in the upper left corner).
Well I have read on several occassions that there is a mirror on the Moon’s surface with is used to measure the distance the Moon is retreating from the Earth. I think it is pretty easy to verify the existence this mirror, and if the mirror can be verified then it follows without a lot of faith that we had to get to the Moon to leave the mirror, so further proof by actually catching sight of a Lunar Rover in a telescope is really unnecessary.
Ah, yes, but how would you verify the existence of the mirror? Who can you trust to tell you the truth about–THE MIRROR? Maybe THEY’RE lying to you, too.
Nope. The Hubble has never been pointed closer than 43[sup]o[/sup] to the Sun (the safe limit is supposed to be 45[sup]o[/sup], but they fudged it a little to get some shots of Venus). Solar flares would require looking directly at the Sun, and coronal mass ejections aren’t easily visible in the frequency range used by Hubble (visible and near infrared). There are a number of satellites which do take pictures of the Sun, such as SOHO, Yohkoh, and the soon-to-be-launched HESSI, but they’re all pretty specialized, and wouldn’t be well suited for shooting the Moon. I suppose you could build a telescope suitible for viewing the Apollo equipment, but the folks with the resources to do so aren’t interested, because they know it’s there anyway.
The mirrors on the moon exist (I believe it is the ALSEP package), and amateurs can in fact beam lasers off of it. THe mirrors are or were used routinely to measure exact orbital distances from the Earth, and perhaps tidal stresses in the moon.
My mistake!
Hubble has taken photos of the interstellar gas cloud surrounding The Sun but not solar flares.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe we visited the moon but it’s interesting to realize that there is no ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ evidence that humans were actually there. Everything I’ve seen can be explained by the use of unmanned technology.
Of course placing a mirror on the moon WITHOUT it breaking into a million pieces would be a trick!
Another tie-in theory of a mysterious radiation belt/area (which is deadly to even protected humans) that surrounds the Earth would put a real damper on our future Star Trek endeavors!
Anyway, I believe most of us would like to see some of our 30 year old technology still sitting up there. It’s a National Monument remember?
There was a discussion on this very topic just the other day on an astronomy board I visit. The answer is that we do not have the ability to resolve details small enough to pick out the spacecraft with any telescopes. So it would be nice, but no we can’t do it.
Also, while ALSEP is neat and there are laser-range-finding experiments, they could have been placed robotically.
Well, I dunno. Deep down inside, could we prove that the MOON exists? I mean, just because we see this big round-looking thing in the sky, it could be an optical illusion… remember THE TRUMAN STORY?
Since it mapped most of the lunar surface and obtained a huge library of photos (most of which are of a resolution of 1 pixel = 1 Kilometer) it should have revealed some of the hardware I would think.
(If you’re going to Paris, you’re going to take at least ONE photo of the Eiffel Tower.)
BTW CKDextHavn- the Moon does exist because it hit my eye (like a big pizza pie) the night I met my wife.
Since nothing we left on the moon is 1 km in size, Clementine images wouldn’t be much help.
That is, if you got its resolution correct. But 1 km/pixel seemed way too coarse, so I looked at some of the links to the page you quoted and found the actual resolution. The UV/Visible Camera mapped almost the entire surface at a resolution between 100-325 m/pixel. Better but still not enough to see the Apollo lander (which is about 5 meters across).
Clementine also had a high resolution camera that imaged selected portions of the moon at resolutions between 7 and 20 m/pixel. Still not enough. Assuming that one of the landing sites was imaged at the best resolution (which probably didn’t happen), at best a handful of pixels would be a different color than the background. Even counting the shadow, it still would not be very many pixels. Certainly wouldn’t look like the Apollo lander and be convincing to people who disbelieve the Apollo video. After all, it’s much easier to modify a few pixels than it is to fake an entire video.
No “beyond a resonable doubt” proof? Are you nuts? You mean the combined proof of the thousand of NASA employees that worked on Apollo, the testimony of 14 men that actually walked on the moon, the physical evidence of the moon rocks themselves, and the miles of film shot on the surface of the moon aren’t proof enough? If it isn’t, then a few photographs from the Hubble aren’t going to convince these non-believers, either.
Yes, it would be nice if we could take photos of the lunar landing sites, but as several posters have pointed out, there are currently no orbiting or land-based telescopes that have the resolution to take pictures of objects that small.
I know we’ve been to the moon, that’s no big surprise. But I’ve always liked the theory that the FIRST time was a necessary hoax, given the fact that Kennedy had to make up for the Ruskies beating us to space. The cold war was in full swing, and nobody liked that the commies were ahead in the technology. As explained to me, the big “evidence” factors were primarily based on that talcum-like moon dust, but not regarding footprints. The lunar lander supposedly had reverse thrusters to slow its descent and make for a soft landing. Those woulda kicked up dust and made one or more craters in the dust under the lander. No craters in the pics. Also, Armstrong stepped out like 5 mins after landing. Talcum powder barely settles in our gravity in that time, much less the moon’s. No dust in pics. Also, strangly no stars in pics, esp. considering w/out atmosphere they should be clear from the moon. Last of all, look at the astronauts. One became a senator, the others rich recluses (except for that photo op last year). Bought off by the government? I’ve always liked my one conspiracy theory. Tell me where its wrong.
I’ll start out with a couple of specifics in your post:
There’s no atmosphere on the moon, so dust - no matter how fine - does not need to “settle.” Dust particles follow an arc up and down, and are back on the ground in seconds.
This isn’t so strange. The stars are certainly visible from the moon, but they aren’t visible in pictures that also show the sunlit lunar surface. The difference in luminance of a sunlit object and a star is WAY too big to be captured in the same picture. Either the star will be too dim to see, or the sunlit object will be completely overexposed.
