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Lunar surveyor satellite ready for launch

Anonymous Coward

Wow... 

Posted Tuesday 23rd December 2008 11:36 GMT

Paris Hilton

Journalists that actually have an accurate idea of what happened on Apollo 11, and can use it for a pertinent aside... I'm impressed!

Paris, because she knows all about docking probes...

Flugal

Fuel left on Eagle LM / Apollo 11 

Posted Tuesday 23rd December 2008 11:36 GMT

Nearer 25 seconds according to NASA: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.landing.html

Anonymous Coward

Moon Landing 

Posted Tuesday 23rd December 2008 12:00 GMT

Joke

Any fool knows that they were shoot in a sound stage in the Desert.

Anonymous Coward

Original Moon Landing Site 

Posted Tuesday 23rd December 2008 12:41 GMT

Black Helicopters

Why not just use the "original" landing site?

Prove that we did go to the moon.

Mike Plunkett

Re: Original Moon Landing Site 

Posted Tuesday 23rd December 2008 13:09 GMT

If LRO is going to cover the whole surface of the moon in a polar orbit then there's no need to go back to the original site - there will soon be a whole load of pictures showing it from 30 miles up, and since LRO carries essentially the same kit as the wildly successful Mars Reconaissance Orbiter those pictures will be of extremely high quality.

Of course, as soon as the first shot of a lunar rover or the remains of a lunar lander are published there are those who will immediately yell "Photoshopped!!!", but even if NASA sent a mission back to the original landing site these same people would insist that it was all done with CGI.

Rob

Running scared 

Posted Tuesday 23rd December 2008 20:45 GMT

Black Helicopters

Ah I see they need to get to the moon before the Chinese and quickly plant a flag just to prove that the 1st wasn't shot on a sound stage ;)

Crackpot conspiracies aside, it's nice to hear about more involved space exploration of this sort, let's just hope the funding holds out till 2020 and isn't diverted to another crackpot war.

Adrian Challinor

Lets hope they get the true/false flag right... 

Posted Tuesday 23rd December 2008 20:49 GMT

Coat

"The LRO will share its ride with another Moon mission, an impact probe called the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite."

Houston: Ok, lets shoot the Impact probe at that there crater

Technician: Initiate firing in 3, 2, 1

AMES Technician: Hey, we just the main mapping camera from the LRO, now we have lost everything. What did you texan coboys do?

Houston: err Technician, when you programmed the test

IF isLRO() = FALSE then

EXEC FIRE_ME_AT_THE_MOON

END

You did define FALSE as -1? Our Atlas launch system uses zero and positive as TRUE.

Thomas Baker

You should get an award for journalistic brilliance. 

Posted Tuesday 23rd December 2008 20:49 GMT

Thumb Up

"NASA plans hairy moon rimshot"

Absolute classic.

Don Mitchell

Moon Maps 

Posted Tuesday 23rd December 2008 20:49 GMT

Surprisingly, the Moon is not as accurately mapped (particularly with altimetry data) as Mars.

LRO instrumentation is not related to Mars Express. MEX was actually loaded with left-over European-built instruments from the failed Soviet Mars-96 mission. Most of the high quality Mars mapping data is from the Mars Global Surveyer, which orbited for ten years and had a laser altimeter. LRO is closely related to the Mars Recon. Orbiter that is currently circling that planet.

Anonymous Coward

"hairy landings on a crater rim" 

Posted Tuesday 23rd December 2008 20:49 GMT

sounds quite incredibly rude

Andus McCoatover

Prove we went to the moon? 

Posted Monday 29th December 2008 01:16 GMT

Joke

"Why not just use the "original" landing site? Prove that we did go to the moon."

No, they'll just use the original desert stage set on Earth. Flag's probably still there. Area 51's my guess....