Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spots Apollo landing site

[pokerfan]

40 years after first moon landing, NASA probe sends proof in pictures

Image: Apollo 11 landing site
NASA / GSFC / ASU

This labeled image from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the Apollo 11 lunar module at the center, with a shadow extending to the right.



updated 1 hour, 25 minutes ago

For stubborn folks who still believe the Apollo astronauts never landed on the moon, NASA has new images — definitive proof — that clearly show the Apollo 11 lander that carried the first astronauts to the lunar surface 40 years ago.

The images were taken by NASA's first lunar scout in more than a decade, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. They show the Eagle lunar lander at Tranquility Base, where Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on July 20, 1969. They were snapped between July 11 and 15 of this month and released by NASA on Friday.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31966131/ns/technology_and_science-space

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. For the first time!

:tinfoilhat:

[Xenotime]

2. Shopped.

[TheMadMonk]

5. Definitely. There is no feature like this arrow on the moon. nt

[qazplm]

8. well sure

the arrow isn't causing a shadow.

They screw that up every single time!!

[redqueen]

3. Neat.

I doubt this will do anything to sway the few who still think it was a hoax, though.

[sarge43]

4. That won't change their minds{sic} - photoshopped! n/t

[pokerfan]

6. More pics

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html

[joshcryer]

13. The foot paths cinch it!

[Ready4Change]

15. Hah! Not human footprints.

Those were left by alien grays, who, in cooperation with our Earthly overlords, placed props meant to appear as remnants of the hoaxed Apollo missions.

[Peace Patriot]

7. My MFA thesis at the U. of Iowa in 1969 was entitled "Lunar Modules,"

a long poem about all the science fiction movies and TV shows I had seen as a kid in the 1950s, leading up to that astonishing moment in human history, when we stepped onto the Moon. The astonishment of that moment is still with me, such that seeing these distant artifacts of it on the Moon, now, is quite strange. They are not "old history" to me. The moment is right here in my head as fresh as it could be.

We need to go back there, and to Mars. It is our destiny. And it will pull us together--and the whole world together--like that did, and more so. It is very likely that we are going to find life on Mars, and that is going to change us even more profoundly than the Moon walks did.

The rise of the environmental movement can be dated to that photo of Earthrise from the Moon, which revealed both the amazing beauty and the fragility of life on Earth. Think what the discovery of life on another planet would do, to put the history of the human race and our present situation--with the Earth itself imperiled by our activity--into perspective. Life on Mars will mean that there is life everywhere, and the development of conscious life elsewhere, and great civilisations elsewhere, becomes much more probable. The sheer, staggering number of galaxies, each filled with hundreds of millions of suns, within just the limits of our perception, points to the high probability of life developing elsewhere--as many have speculated--but finding it would change everything.

We have been wasting our resources on war and on the enrichment of the few. Such wastrels we have been! Letting forty years of killing and looting follow the greatest human adventure, ever. It is immensely saddening and dismaying, but it does follow a pattern of "fits and starts" in human development. So don't let it get you down, if, like me, you yearn to see that adventure re-ignited. We have a lot to do--restoring our democracy, achieving social justice, healing the Earth and ridding it of weapons and war. Those goals do not preclude trips to other worlds. Trips to the worlds, and especially the discovery of life, will make them easier.

[jakeXT]

9. Pretty crappy compared to MRO images from Mars

You can even see the Pancam Mast Assembly shadow.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/newsroom/pressreleases/20061006a.html


I hope this was a quick and dirty job and we will get better pictures when it descends further.

[pokerfan]

10. :P

The satellite reached lunar orbit June 23 and captured the Apollo sites between July 11 and 15. Though it had been expected that LRO would be able to resolve the remnants of the Apollo mission, these first images came before the spacecraft reached its final mapping orbit. Future LROC images from these sites will have two to three times greater resolution.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html

[joshcryer]

12. The pictures will improve, however, the moon has no atmosphere so the lighting is different.

You will not be able to get as sharp and distinct images of Apollo as you'd like.

[jakeXT]

14. I don't know why an atmosphere should improve the sharpness,

at least there are no dust storms.

It's a bit better than the old ones.

Example Apollo 15

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/apollo/apollo_15/landing_site/



Apollo 15 on google maps

http://www.google.com/moon/#lat=26.079604&lon=3.666687&zoom=11&apollo=

[joshcryer]

11. AHAHAHAHAHA GAME SET MATCH