back to article NASA releases stunning new moon-landing snaps

NASA has released a series of photos of Apollo moon-landing sites that are dramatically improved over previous photos taken as recently as 2009. The photos were taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which was launched on June 18, 2009 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, along with the Lunar Crater …

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  1. Richard 81
    Happy

    It won't shut up the conspiracy nuts

    ...but I'm certainly impressed.

    1. Aaron Em

      I'm not.

      Were all the grips drunk that day? Look at that shitty fill lighting!

    2. Oninoshiko
      Joke

      There is no helping

      those who get their "science" from Andy Kaufman.

    3. Charles Parker
      Mushroom

      cappuccino

      Looks like a close up photograph of a cappuccino with a shot of Photoshop

      1. Cucumber C Face
        Pint

        re: cappuccino

        I was thinking more like a spicy poppadom.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Nah!

        No need to photoshop, I recognise it straight away - fungal spores on a bald scrotum. Needs to be seen to fast IMO.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    New orbit? Two years?

    Photoshop 'Smart Sharpen' filter if you ask me. :)

  3. Brian Miller

    Where are the moon stations??

    We put people on the moon, and then we've sat on our butts. No moon stations, no space factories, nothing but a scientifically irrelevant station and shuttles. Now all we have are some tourist snaps.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      Radiation

      Is the one reason we have not gone beyond leo for prolonged periods. All of the Apollo astronauts reported light flashes (caused by radiation striking the retina) the ISS is low enough to be shielded by the Earth's magnetic field, go any higher and the radiation becomes a major problem.

    2. Paul_Murphy

      Sorry - shuttles?

      They have gone on the 'done' pile as well.

      When I was a young'un I was bought up to expect moon hotels and settlements, flying cars and all sorts of other stuff worth growing up for - now it seems that the only thing (other) people have to look forward to is a good episode of Coronation Street.

      Makes me want to scream.

      ttfn

  4. Lanky

    Obviously fake

    You can't see any stars

    1. James 63
      Coat

      That's because...

      if you'd watched Apollo 13 you'd know that Tom Hanks never got to land...

      1. Nextweek
        Joke

        Sequel

        I wonder when they'll make a sequel to that. Everybody in Hollywood knows you've got to make a trilogy.

  5. David 164

    Will not make a damn bit of difference to the conspiracy nuts.

    I wonder if this will shut up those conspiracy theories. Probably not but I can always hope.

    1. Bobsch

      Simple answer?

      Fire their asses up there to see for themselves?

      1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

        Not so simple

        They will then say that the evidence was planted there just before they arrived...

  6. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    Nah, everyone knows this is just more conspiracy evidence

    They never got the moon, except to deposit the fake evidence. The whole thing was filmed by NASA, but to get the kinetics to look right, they had to use their secret facility on the lower slopes of Olympus Mons.

    1. Paul_Murphy
      Joke

      But everyone knows...

      That Olympus Mons is the overt side of Majestic - who are really working from the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, having stolen the space ship tech that the Germans were developing during WW2.

      oh - and I forgot that the Illuminati, together with the Milk Marketing board, are making corn-circle making alien ships (hiding inside the hollow Earth) to distract people from their efforts to control the planet.

      Have I forgotten anything - if I have it's because of the mind-rays!!

      :-)

      1. lawndart

        says:

        Anyone read "The Olympus Gambit" by William Rollo?

        A good read although it hasn't aged well.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Pfft, who needs a soundstage....

    when you have Photoshop!!

    Personally, I think the money for the alledged Apollo program went to buy the silence of the Kennedy/MLK assassins and pay to break up the Beatles (Yoko was a honeytrap!!) and instigate right-wing coups across Latin America.

    Now excuse me, I need to have my tinfoil hat re-blocked.....

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Holy shi*!

      It all makes sense now!

  8. jai
    Black Helicopters

    suspicious... very suspicious...

    i see the wheel tracks of the LRV, going towards it's final resting place... but there's no footprints returning to the landing site?? is the astronaut still sitting in the driving seat? or maybe, they forgot to photoshop in the footprint tracks

    1. Lord Elpuss Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Holy moondust, Robin

      The man has a point. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but can anyone explain this? Why are there no footsteps back from the LRV final parking spot? Or did they just put it in 'Drive' and send it off on it's own at the end of the mission?

      <-- takeoff blast

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        With a bit of logical thinking...

        The main astronaut footprints you see are going to and from the various ALSEP packages dotted over the place. It would be a good assumption that the astonauts went to and from these several times, getting them there, plugging them in etc. The followed the same route enough times to wear a visible path in the dust.

        It's therefore a good assumption the they only walked from where they parked the moon buggy to the lander only once, therefore not enough times to wear a visible path in the dust.

      2. Peter Reid

        Cernan's walk back to the LM from the LRV

        If you look at the lunar surface video (http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a17/video17.html#closeout3), particularly from 170:24:16 onwards, you can see that Cernan walks (in terms of the NASA photo on the Reg page) away from the LM and rover to the right, and then up and around, towards the LM. His tracks are as likely as not part of the whole set of tracks (rover and human) that can be seen running horizontally across to the LM.

        Extraordinary photographs, these.

    2. Matt Piechota
      Holmes

      tracks

      "i see the wheel tracks of the LRV, going towards it's final resting place... but there's no footprints returning to the landing site?? is the astronaut still sitting in the driving seat? or maybe, they forgot to photoshop in the footprint tracks"

      Perhaps the driver walked back in the wheel tracks, like you'd do if you were walking in deep snow.

  9. nyelvmark
    Alien

    Wait, I recognise this...

    That's not the moon, It's the Peak District - just north of Buxton, I think. Of course, they've had to photoshop it a bit...

    1. hplasm
      Coat

      Yes-

      It's far too sunny to be Buxton...

  10. Nights_are_Long

    WHY THE NEED FOR A TITLE EVERY TIME!!!!!

    Anyone who denies we landed on the Moon should be taken outside and be beaten to death with their own intestines.

    Nice images,

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The 17 shot threw me for a while

    as I was wondering what the hell the rover was doing so far away from the landing stage. And then I had another look at the video of that liftoff...

    1. ArtFart

      Carefully parked

      Right...the hope was that someone would return to the moon and make further use of the lunar rovers--so they were parked far enough away to prevent their being hammered by the ascent-stage exhaust. For many years afterward, the rover prototypes on display back here on Earth had signs attached explaining that anyone who got to the moon should feel free to use them, and had instructions for contacting NASA to obtain replacement battery specs--it was anticipated that the original cells wouldn't last all that long. Some years ago the signs disappeared. Possibly it was felt that by then they would have sustained enough damage from direct sunlight, radiation and micrometeorite hits as to no longer be serviceable.

  12. Herby

    Surveror pictures

    Apollo 12 did more than take pictures of the Surveyor spacecraft. They actually took a piece of it back with them (the camera, I believe). There was a rumor that cockroaches survived the round trip, but that isn't true.

    Then again it is all a conspiracy, so it doesn't matter, even though I was involved in bouncing signals from the surface in a couple of missions.

    When do we go back? It has been a few years! Has the place changed? Is it under new management? Did they add any new buildings? Any new drinks at the bar?

    1. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
      Joke

      Any new drinks at the bar?

      Probably, but there's still not much of an atmosphere...

    2. Steve X
      Joke

      Any new drinks at the bar?

      Wouldn't matter, that bar has *no* atmosphere.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    The Human Race has left footprints on another stellar object!

    Think about this. We've WALKED on the surface of the moon and left footprints visible from space! Sometimes we forget what an amazing achievment this was with 60's & 70's technology!

    Now what relevance does NASA have? Resigned to firing spy satellites up into orbit for the 'war-on-terror'!

    Phhht!

    How far the human race has slipped in its aspirations.

    1. Rattus Rattus

      Not another *stellar* object...

      ...that'd be a bit warm. But we have left footprints on an extraterrestrial object. And I agree, we should be ashamed as a race for the failure to follow up.

      I wish the US would stop spending it's remaining money on stupid pointless shit, like "bringing freedom" to people who just want to stop getting shot at and for Americans to fuck off back to their own country. (Really, who outside America itself DOESN'T want Americans to fuck off back to America?)

      And it'd be nice for the rest of the Western world to step up and and make a credible attempt at a manned space program of their own rather than standing back and letting the US bugger it up like this. Russia did it to a degree, China's doing it, India's doing it - what the hell's wrong with the rest of us?

    2. Lance 3

      And tracking moon pieces

      And tracking moon pieces on earth and making sure they are not sold.

    3. PassiveSmoking
      Megaphone

      The good old days

      I wish I'd been around for the Good Old Days in the 60s and 70s when NASA actually Got Shit Done and only got a few of their astronauts killed.

      1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

        I for one

        Have some hope for our current economic problems.

        The "developed" world has to find something and somewhere to expand into, otherwise it will slip into the "third world" category.

        We don't produce things anymore - the "developing" world does that.

        We are not needed to design anything - things required for day to day life have already been designed and can always be improved by the same "developing" world without our help.

        The financial services only matter when you have finances.

        So, in the past, in situations like this there was always the conquest, colonisation and empire building option. Or, at the very least, one could go to war against a rival empire with the hope for a good plunder. Neither of these are viable options anymore.

        Really, more and more we are being pushed to do something bold like building a mine on an asteroid or Al smelter on the Moon (or fade away).

        BTW: That will also take care of the aimless yoof who will suddenly see better things to do than stealing a few ipads from a local electronics shop...

  14. proto-robbie
    Pirate

    y.a.f.t

    It's sad that you have to be at least forty years old for this to have any personal resonance. Sad too that a slump in US television ratings stopped the Moon landings.

    Not that we could go back anyway; Health and Safety wouldn't allow it.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    oh what a missed opportunity

    Leaving tire tracks that will last a very long time, and they didn't take the time to leave their initials on the moon.....

    Damn, and people complain about me driving across their lawns.

    1. Paul_Murphy

      They did leave a photo.

      http://boingboing.net/2006/08/11/more-man-made-object.html

      Of course it's not as though it's like they could leave their initials in yellow lunar rock (don't eat the yellow dust!).

      ttfn

  16. Winkypop Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    You can never convince a true believer

    But who cares what nut-jobs believe?

    I just love the science!!

    Go, go A--pollo!

  17. Fuzzy Duck
    Stop

    obviously fake....

    where are the clangers?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You would hope.

    You would hope that this would shut up the conspiricy nuts, but it wont.

    Anything that disagrees with their world view is part of the conspiricy.

    sad really.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Forget the moon

    Gentlemen , who will be first to claim the Sun

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    Those Pictuers look Shooped

    I can tell by the Pixels, and having seen a few in my time!

  21. Sceptic Tank Silver badge
    Alien

    Astronaut footpath?

    I'm not convinced. Anybody could have left those footprints.

  22. The Grinning Duck
    Pint

    Why I Love NASA

    Timing. It’s all about the timing. They release these images just as that new documentary about Apollo 18 comes out and just prior to the 9/11 anniversary. I think they’re about to launch a Mars mission powered entirely by the impending conspiracy nut hot air outburst.

    That’s some lateral thinking there, NASA, well done chaps.

  23. Sam Crawley
    Pint

    Tracks from delivery bikes?

    Domino's Pizzeria must be just off-camera?

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/02/pizza_chain_plans_restaurant_on_the_moon/

  24. Bill B

    Apollo 18

    Where are the shots of the Apollo 18 landing? Or the Russian one given it was within Lunar Rover driving distance?

    I suspect a cover up.

  25. Ray 8
    Alien

    mmmm

    Interesting to note that both old and new pictures were taken from from the same position and angle.

    1. lpopman
      Headmaster

      titular blurtings

      You do realise how precisely they can position the bird?

    2. Peter Reid

      Re: hmmmm

      Not really: superimpose the old and new images and there's a slight variation: enough to suggest (along with the different sun-angle) that they're different photographs...

  26. MaXimaN
    Joke

    MItchell & Webb summed the conspiracy up pretty well...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6MOnehCOUw

  27. Beachrider

    Why are historical 'deniers' given so much credibility?

    Moon mission deniers have a similar effect as other historical deniers. We should use the effect to channel next steps, not simply hold an argument clinic with them every time they dust off this approach.

    I think that the Shuttle was exactly the WRONG thing to do after Apollo. Hopefully the dual development of commercial LEO with much-too-long-deferred NASA deepspace tech is a hopeful trend for the future.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    AC 8.29

    You would hope. #

    Posted Wednesday 7th September 2011 08:29 GMT

    'You would hope that this would shut up the conspiricy nuts, but it wont.

    Anything that disagrees with their world view is part of the conspiricy.

    sad really.'

    A pathetic trolling attempt.

    Is anyone allowed to disagree with your world view I wonder?

  29. matt e
    FAIL

    sunlit side?

    "Without changing the average altitude, we made the orbit more elliptical, so the lowest part of the orbit is on the sunlit side of the Moon," said deputy LRO project scientist John Keller.

    Surely a "scientist" working at NASA should know that all of the moon is lit by the sun?

  30. Stuart Halliday
    WTF?

    "Clearly shows...."

    Eh?

    Just looks like smudges and blobs. How can they identify anything?

  31. Beachrider

    @matt One always wants the perigee with good lighting...

    I am not sure about Keller's reference, but Galileo had a similar objective. Its elliptical orbit was rated to have its closest point when sunlight was greatest. That would give you close-up shots all over the moon, not shots of only one area on the moon. This probe isn't just-doing Apollo landing shots, it is surveying the whole lunar surface...

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