Fisrt Europe Lunar Spacecraft

[ElPelado]

From Sky & Telescope:

Europe's first lunar spacecraft is currently
en route. It will arrive in January 2005

Does any body know why it will arrive in January 2005?? As I know the moon is not so far from us...
Its because of the Ion Engine??

[Guest]

Hello ElPelado,
maybe your questions will be answered here:
http://www.esa.int/export/esaSC/120371_index_0_m.html#a
Volker

[JackHiggins]

Yup - Ion power is like the Duracell bunny- it just keeps going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going...

It's thrust is only something like the weight of an A4 page pressing down on your hand though! That's why it will reach very high speeds, but take a very long time to do it.

[bh]

Jack...so where's our model?

Regards...bh.

[TERRIER]

Jack...so where's our model?

I suppose he's got 'til January 2005 to make it!!!!

[JackHiggins]

My Homework also keeps going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going...



It's something similar to MUSES-C I think (I haven't really looked at any detailed diagrams yet) which I have a partially (HIGHLY partial) completed model of.

However, at the moment i'm forced to make school my first priority, then after that I did say i'd make the big galileo xyz, so SMART-1 will just have to wait...

Sorry!!

[billybob884]

Well, you are done with galileo right? So, how about it?

[JackHiggins]

Um.. Not exactly, no... Even when on holidays i've been busy, and I haven't really done much more since the last time- it's 1:30am now- but tomorrow, after my homework, I WILL do more!!! It'll still be a while yet though, so don't hold your breath...

[ElPelado]

I have read a very interesting discution about whether we wentto the moon on '69 or not. There were many arguments that told we did.
But after reading it i have some questions(not related to that, just questiosn about the Moon):
1) We all know(we do right?) that there is no atmosphere in the moon. so my question is: if someone is there in the middle of the day, with the sun above his head, he can stil look at the stars right?
2) How the moon would look like if it had an earth-like armosphere?(maybe i will try it on celestia)
3) I read that when the first men were on the moon they installed some mirros to use with some laser from earth to know the exact distance between teh earth and the moon. is this right? the one who told that said also the some studies showed not only that the moon is goign away, but also that it is also moving slightly because an asteroid impact. Is this true?

[JackHiggins]

1) Yup, the moon's gravity isn't enough to hold on to any gas on it's surface, so it just escapes away into space> no atmopshere!

No you wouldn't still be able to see the stars though- the moon's surface, and the sun, are so bright in comparison to any stars that you wouldn't be able to see them. Even on the moon you would have to be on or near the night side to be able to see very many stars. There's no way they would show up in photos either (one of the main arguments by the hoax people) beause you would need a camera exposure time of a few seconds before the stars would show up (same as on earth). If you left the camera shutter open for a few seconds on the day side of the moon though, the surface would be terribly overexposed (WAAY too bright) & block out the rest of the picture.

2) I suppose it might be something like mars... except not red?!! There aren't really any other moon-like objects in the solar system that have atmospheres so it's hard to imagine...!

3) Not only the Apollo missions, but one of the soviet Lunokhod rovers had a retro-reflector on it too which was deployed near the end of the mission. They were specially designed mirrors (sort of like a sphere inside) so that they didn't have to be pointed exactly at the earth to get a perfect reflection straight back.

The moon is slowly moing away (a few inches/year I think) but I don't think any asteroid impacts have caused it to move any more... Any impact big enough to change the moon's orbit slightly we would have noticed it straight away!

There was a small impact seen on the moon in the mid-40's or 50's but it was only a rock a couple of meters across.

[selden]

A couple of quibbles:

Retroreflectors are "corner reflectors" (I'll leave it to you to do the research )

They can be used to observe "moonquakes," not just to measure the average distance, so very small collisions can be seen, too.

[ElPelado]

the moon's surface [...] so bright

It is also the reaseon of why in the pictures, things that should be dark are lighted.

[JackHiggins]

the moon's surface [...] so bright

It is also the reaseon of why in the pictures, things that should be dark are lighted.

You mean the way that in some photos, the sun is behind the astronauts, but you can still see them lit up?

They can be used to observe "moonquakes," not just to measure the average distance, so very small collisions can be seen, too.

There were seperate seismographs powered by an RTG too though, weren't there?

[selden]

Jack,

Yup, but the power from RTGs gradually faded.

The retroflectors just depend on laser light from telescopes on the earth. They're been used to measure the flexure of the moon's surface, for example. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2002/release_2002_37.html

Hmmm. Although (in principle) optical techniques could be used to monitor for moonquakes using constant laserbeams reflected from the mirrors, that doesn't actually seem to be one of the things they've been doing. Apparently the reflected signal is extremely weak. Even though they use megawatt pulses, the return blips are hard to detect. Sorry for the misleading comment.

[ElPelado]

You mean the way that in some photos, the sun is behind the astronauts, but you can still see them lit up?

Yes I do. There are some pictures with bodies that should be dark and they are iluminated.

[selden]

ElPelado,

Many of those pictures were taken near the LEM.
The fill lighting was caused by sunlight reflected off the landing module, as well as off the lunar surface.

See http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/NOT_faked/
for a discussion of this.

[JackHiggins]

Although (in principle) optical techniques could be used to monitor for moonquakes using constant laserbeams reflected from the mirrors, that doesn't actually seem to be one of the things they've been doing. Apparently the reflected signal is extremely weak. Even though they use megawatt pulses, the return blips are hard to detect. Sorry for the misleading comment.

It's ok! Apparently they laser beam is a few km wide by the time it gets to the moon, even with precise focusing. This means that only "a few photons per minute" make it back to the detectors here on Earth to be analysed.

ElPelado- you might like to check out this page from Bad Astronomy too, for more info on the alleged apollo hoax. (What's the best way to phrase that- a conspiracy theory about something that didn't really happen?!!)

[ElPelado]

WAIT!! I am not saying I belive that it was a fake!!! I read the page about bad astronomy today before you told me, and from a link on that page I get to know about the surface reflections.

Selden wrote:

Many of those pictures were taken near the LEM.
The fill lighting was caused by sunlight reflected off the landing module, as well as off the lunar surface.

What is the LEM?
And about the lunar surface reflection, thats what i was talking about: look not at my last post, but one before it.

[JackHiggins]

WAIT!! I am not saying I belive that it was a fake!!!

Ah I know that! I think we discussed that through the PM system before too! I'm just saying it was an interesting page to check out, that's all!

The LEM is the Lunar Excursion Module, which is the gold section at the bottom part of the Apollo landers. This section stayed on the moon after the Astronauts left. If you have the Apollo landing sites ssc & models off my website you can see this better...!

[ElPelado]

Now I know what it is and I didn't need your addon. BUT if you want to feel better, I have already downloaded it some time ago and its wonderfullll!!!!