Question about the moon landing.

[SupraOfDoom]

I for one believe we landed on the moon so don't think this is a conspiracy theory. My question is: Can't we just look into a very nice telescope ( maybe not any ones you get at home ), and see our flag right on the moon where we left it? How come I never hear about this? We should go by old school rules and have the moon be our 51st state since we landed first . jk

 

[GrimJack]

http://www.rocketroberts.com/astro/flag_on_moon.htm

 

[SupraOfDoom]

Well then....

 

[suprarx7nut]

I always wondered about that too.

But you have to realize how massive the moon is. It's not like the moon is a quick mornings jog in diameter.

Grim's link explains it in full. It's just waaaaayy to far to see something that small.

 

[SupraOfDoom]

I wasn't really aware of how accurate or how well our current scopes could pick up small objects I guess.

 

[JASONA70]

physics called and he told me to pass on a message.. its not possible to see the flag ! you would need a telescope the size of a mountain.


jk!

 

[starscream5000]

What about one of our sattelites in orbit being positioned to view the mood though?

 

[Neodeuccio]

You would probably have better luck with the Hubbell.

 

[MDCmotorsports]

If not the flag, what about the bottom modules to the lander(s)? Why can't you view those?

 

[isnms]

You would probably have better luck with the Hubbell.

That's what I was thinking. With the new upgrades they did recently (and it was fascinating to watch) couldn't they get a shot of the lander now?

 

[GrimJack]

Same problem, Jon. Biggest earthbound telescopes can't resolve anything less than ~27m in size on the moon, without taking into account the problems of staring through a blurry atmosphere.

Orbital telescopes face their own problems, of course, the largest of which is that the 'common guy on the street' can't point and shoot it, and they'll just claim anything that comes out of NASA is photoshopped. That and the fact that the focal length is designed for looking a shitload further away.

 

[oldsking]

Reason you cna't see any of it is because it's not there and never was there to begin with. I believe in Conspiracy Theories because we all know you can't just give government.

 

[MDCmotorsports]

Same problem, Jon. Biggest earthbound telescopes can't resolve anything less than ~27m in size on the moon, without taking into account the problems of staring through a blurry atmosphere.

Orbital telescopes face their own problems, of course, the largest of which is that the 'common guy on the street' can't point and shoot it, and they'll just claim anything that comes out of NASA is photoshopped. That and the fact that the focal length is designed for looking a shitload further away.

Interesting. Did not know this. Did Japan or another country not launch a satellite to orbit the moon?

 

[suprarx7nut]

What about one of our sattelites in orbit being positioned to view the mood though?

You would probably have better luck with the Hubbell.

If not the flag, what about the bottom modules to the lander(s)? Why can't you view those?

That's what I was thinking. With the new upgrades they did recently (and it was fascinating to watch) couldn't they get a shot of the lander now?

The moon is ~240,000 miles from Earth. The hubble telescope orbits at about 370 miles from the earth. So the hubble is about 239,600 miles from the moon. Not much closer at all. In fact, that's only 0.15% closer than a telescope on the surface of the earth.

I think people get the misconception that our satelites and the hubble telescope are waaaaaay out there in space when in reality, they're hugging the Earth's surface.

Reason you cna't see any of it is because it's not there and never was there to begin with. I believe in Conspiracy Theories because we all know you can't just give government.

There is currently an ongoing mission which will photograph the landing sites while it orbits the moon. This is the first camera sent to orbit the moon since the man set foot on the moon. Of course, it's main mission is not to disprove "theories", but rather to study the moons surface better than ever before.

Once that returns with multiple photos of the landing gear, I hope disbelievers will finally give it a rest...

 

[Fuzz420]

I remember way back when G-Dub was president.They said they wanted to go to the moon again, but whatever happened with that? Somebody whispered in his ear and said that wasn't going to happen. To hell with photographs and mathematics. If you did it before,do it again.

 

[Flywest]

There you go, the lunar orbiter recently took pictures of the Apollo landing sites

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

 

[Neodeuccio]

The moon is ~240,000 miles from Earth. The hubble telescope orbits at about 370 miles from the earth. So the hubble is about 239,600 miles from the moon. Not much closer at all. In fact, that's only 0.15% closer than a telescope on the surface of the earth.

That's true, but while the hubbell is only a little closer, it was designed to see things much further away than pretty much everything on earth. I would think that would make a serious difference.

Reason you cna't see any of it is because it's not there and never was there to begin with.

There's no evidence to support this. Sorry.

 

[suprarx7nut]

There you go, the lunar orbiter recently took pictures of the Apollo landing sites

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

There ya go. I didn't see that they had already photographed it.

Conspiracy theories are now done.

 

[Fuzz420]

Thanks for the blurry govt. sponsored pictures that only an "expert scientist" can resolve. Now i can sleep better at night

 

[GrimJack]

Everyone likes to point at the Hubble and complain that it should be able to do it. Keep in mind that Hubble's only real advantage is the lack of atmosphere... other than that, it's really not that large, certainly not as big as what is available on earth. Telescopes with 10m apertures are not uncommon anymore, and Hubble is 2.4m - that puts it about #50 on the list of optical telescopes by size.