Why Are We Orbiting Earth Instead of Landing on the Moon Again?

[TALewis]

I seem to recall seeing a lot of Aldrin and Cernan on TV these days.

 

[Phobos]

Was wondering why I've never seen any interviews with any astronaut that walked on the moon, apart from Armstrong's speech one small step i aint heard a word from any other, am I ignorant or are these guys of very few words, I heard a story though about Armstrong being at a dinner and was asked about the moon landing he apparently was in tears and walked out the room.

Certainly Buzz Aldrin does a lot with the popular media (including a recent fight with a conspiracy theorist). But I often have the same question as you. With only 12 people ever having set foot on the moon, you would think that each of them would have an amazing story to share with the world. I guess the first folks there (Armstrong & Aldrin) get the glory. Hopefully Michael Collins (who sat in the capsule orbiting the moon while Neil & Buzz walked around) doesn't mind. I hear that he's ok with it.

 

[TALewis]

I've read that Armstrong very rarely makes public appearances. The only time I recall seeing him on TV was briefly during the 1999 30th Anniversary of Apollo 11.

 

[enigma]

They all gave plenty of interviews in the days following the moon landings.

You don't see too many interviews today because 35 year old news isn't news.

They're there if you look for them, however.

 

[Nenad]

we NEVER went to the moon

 

[enigma]

Don't be absurd.

There are mirrors placed on the moon which have been used to bounce lasers off the surface.
There were hundreds of thousands of people who worked on the project.
Using simple triangulation, the Soviets (who we were racing there and would have make a huge stink if we tried to fake it) could find that the radio signals were coming from the moon.

If you want to believe the crackpot luddites, more power to you.

This is a science forum, and you won't get much credence from disregarding evidence in favor of ignorance...

 

[bozo the clown]

is the Hubble telescope powerful enough to see the us flag on the moon ?

 

[enigma]

Not the flag. It can resolve the blast crater caused by the Eagle's liftoff, though.

There's a possibility that the Clementine mission photographed the site. Still, satisfying the nutters (who wouldn't believe it anyway) isn't a priority of NASA. The landing site was photographed extensively by the 5 Lunar Orbservers prior to the Apollo landing, so there is little to no reason why they'd divert a multi-million dollar spacecraft just to prove what should be blatantly obvious.

 

[bozo the clown]

was wondering if it is possible to fly a modified space shuttle to the moon and land ?

 

[Integral]

No, it has insufficient fuel capacity. Its way to massive to even consider such a flight.

 

[FZ+]

He did say modified. And if you redefine 'land', to 'crash', and remove the need to return, you can divide the fuel requirement by 4, since you are cutting out the decceleration, the second acceleration, and the second decceleration phases. It might just be possible, though the fuel will probably have to be loaded on in space - I don't think the shuttle can carry the fuel required up, on its own.

For the moon 'haox' stuff, the best resource would be http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html.

 

[enigma]

I dunno.

If all it had to do was smack into the moon it might be able to get there. It's got a 23,500 kg cargo bay. If you use the main engines to do the trans-lunar injection it's possible. I'll have to run some numbers...

 

[Nenad]

how do you explain the van allan radiation belt?

 

[FZ+]

Well documented.

http://spider.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/waw/mad/mad19.html
http://lsda.jsc.nasa.gov/books/apollo/S2ch3.htm

 

[Entropy]

how do you explain the van allan radiation belt?

Read some of my previous posts.

 

[Dmcm01]

woah, howcome the Hubble can't photograph deep into the universe, but it can't photograph some flag on the MOON!? please help...

 

[TALewis]

Here is a short answer to your question, Dmcm01:

http://hubblesite.org/reference_desk/faq/answer.php.id=77&cat=topten

 

[Dmcm01]

*edit to last post: the first 'cant' should be a 'can'*

Thanks TALewis, so its too close as the lenses are built for long range and don't need to be able to show such deatail...

 

[neutroncount]

As well as mine Nenad.

Why not go here?

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html

 

[Nenad]

Ive read the whole thing and I have to say that it has the answers to the questions posed. BUT, y does the writer skip the fact about temperature in space. And another thing, if soo many skeptics are out there, y doesn't NASA send out another probe to the moon. If it was done like 6 times in the 60's, it should be easily attainable right now. It seems kind of suspicious to me. Half of me wants to believe it, but the other half does not.

 

[Entropy]

Another probe to the moon? We just sent two to search for water at the lunar poles and map the surface! Plus there really isn't that much of a reason to go back to the moon.

 

[bozo the clown]

One way to look at the moon landing is look at the great cathderals they built hundreds of years ago you think how the hell did they build these without construction technology we have today, but yet today we don't go exactly out of our way to build these again given their imense beauty.

Man can achieve great things with manpower ,dedication and purpose and of course not forgetting finances. Thats the way I look at it anyways.

 

[neutroncount]

Man can achieve great things with manpower ,dedication and purpose and of course not forgetting finances. Thats the way I look at it anyways.

Exactly. The space wars drove each side to pursue the moon, and use the above to try to achieve that goal.

Nenad what don't you get? When in sunlight you get radiative heat transfer via intrared radiation. When not, the surface cools down. But remember there is a lot of infrared being reflected around, from the moon as well as the Earth so you don't get down to too extreme temps granted its still pretty cold.

 

[russ_watters]

...y does the writer skip the fact about temperature in space.

What does the temperature in space have to do with anything?

And another thing, if soo many skeptics are out there, y doesn't NASA send out another probe to the moon. If it was done like 6 times in the 60's, it should be easily attainable right now.

There really aren't that many "skeptics," but regardless, why should NASA spend $10 billion dollars to try to convince a few crackpots of something that all of the existing evidence doesn't convince them of? It'd just be another page of notes on an already mile-high mound of evidence.

It is reasonably clear from Hoagland's actions that he's not a skeptic, nor is he mentally ill: he is, quite simply, a liar and a fraud.

 

[Phobos]

Ive read the whole thing and I have to say that it has the answers to the questions posed.

I certainly encourage you to thoroughly read the links provided and compare that to the stuff Fox TV put out. You'll find that there is a lot of well supported technical evidence, whereas the hoax-believers tend to make unsupported claims. (e.g., no stars in photographs? well, did they compare the actual photo exposure lengths to what would actually be needed to see stars? nope, they just assumed their imagined moonscape was accurate. Try taking a snapshot at night with your camera...you won't see any stars either unless you take an extended exposure over several minutes.)

And another thing, if soo many skeptics are out there,

Only 6% of Americans.
http://www.gallup.com/content/login.aspx?ci=1993
(ok 6% of the US population is still a large number...but 6% is small as far as typical polls go and it seems to me to be representative of fringe views)

y doesn't NASA send out another probe to the moon. If it was done like 6 times in the 60's, it should be easily attainable right now.

As Russ said, it costs billions of dollars. We need a good reason. But, in January, President Bush announced his plans to send astronauts back to the Moon and then to Mars. If they do it (it would take many years and the next president may not approve of it), it's going to require major restructuring of NASA. Check out the news articles about it. Even though we went to the Moon a few times from the late 60's to early 70's, all the equipment is now unusable and all the Apollo experts are no longer working at NASA. The current folks at NASA would need to dust off the old plans and start from the beginning.

It seems kind of suspicious to me. Half of me wants to believe it, but the other half does not.

Ok, be skeptical. But be skeptical of evidences/claims from both sides. See which makes more sense.

 

[bozo the clown]

Are you sure Bush announced plans to send man to moon then mars, I heard specualation that he would announce this in one of his speeches this summer but I didnt hear anything yet.

 

[TALewis]

Here is the text of President Bush's January 14, 2004 speech:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040114-3.html

 

[Nenad]

honestly, like I said befoure, I do not know who to believe. you guyes sound soo convinced, but there's a lot of fishy business going on out there.

 

[Nenad]

and by the way, almost everybody in europe thinks the whole thing was a fake.

 

[neutroncount]

Well who cares what europe thinks? They must all be idiots then. They're just mad because they're not the ones that did it. Let me ask you this. Do you think the Russians, who were also listening to the mission telemetry every mission, would keep quiet if they had found out? We couldn't even keep the atomic bomb from them...and that was a secret project.

How bout the fact that they would have had to create a low gravity, vacuum chamber the size of a large warehouse...hell we can't even do that today.

They would have had to fake all the rocks that they brought back. They would have had to launch 7 Saturn Vs, the most powerful rocket in the world, just for the hell of keeping the hoax look real (not to mention that the russians were tracking us the whole time).

I can keep on going but you had a whole website to read through.