Flags on the Moon

[pgrmdave]

with a large enough telescope aperture, one could directly observe Moon artifacts such as those left by the Apollo missions.

 

Not from earth, though. The atmosphere causes too much distortion to resolve images to that kind of detail. Hence why Hubble's relatively small lens is able to provide better pictures than larger earth based telescopes.

[Pyrotex]

Not from earth, though. The atmosphere causes too much distortion to resolve images to that kind of detail. Hence why Hubble's relatively small lens is able to provide better pictures than larger earth based telescopes.

Absolutely true.

However, the Hubble cannot be used to image the Moon's surface. This would burn out its cryogenically cooled detectors.

[CraigD]

with a large enough telescope aperture, one could directly observe Moon artifacts such as those left by the Apollo missions.

Not from earth, though. The atmosphere causes too much distortion to resolve images to that kind of detail.

I’m honestly unsure if this is true, or not.

 

Based on what I’ve long assumed, read, and been told, the atmosphere should make the angular resolutions instruments like NPOI, the Keck or any of the other large astronomical interferometers useless, yet these instruments, though limited in their ability to build a pixilated image, appear to be capable of making very precise angular measurements despite the atmosphere. Resolving the disks of nearby stars, individual components of distant multiple star systems, clusters, and galaxies, the usual occupation of these instruments, isn’t in principle different from resolving differences in light and dark reflections from points on the Moon’s surface separated by a few centimeters.

 

The details of how one would go about doing this, however, are beyond my limited experience with telescopes and photography. A lot, I understand, has to do with improvements in corrective techniques developed since 1990.

Hence why Hubble's relatively small lens is able to provide better pictures than larger earth based telescopes.

As I understand it, the Hubble’s excellence as a telescope is largely due to how complete and artifact-free a view of the visible and ultra-violet spectrum it has, less than its angular resolution. At 2.5 meters, the Hubble is certainly a big telescope, but for pure angle measurement, is dwarfed by ground-based interferometers, some of which have baselines exceeding 100 m (see wikipedia’s list of astronomical interferometers at visible and infrared wavelengths)

 

It’s interesting to note that the Hubble’s 3 FGS, which is considered part of its guidance system, not its astronomy system, are capable of the highest resolution of any of its instruments (0.0003’’ vs. its WFPC’s 0.043’’)

Absolutely true.

However, the Hubble cannot be used to image the Moon's surface. This would burn out its cryogenically cooled detectors.

This would appear to be a growing scientific myth. This recent NASA “feature” page shows an image of the moon taken by the Hubble (clickable for a higher resolution version).

 

The origin of the “the moon would burn out the Hubble’s detectors” myth may have some factual basis. Like most big telescopes, the Hubble has many instruments (see Hubble Space Telescope - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), which take turns using its primary mirror. Some of them might be damaged if exposed to the Moon’s reflected sunlight, I’m guessing.

[pgrmdave]

Well, I did a bit of research and so far I've come up with this:

In order to be able to resolve the disk of even one of the largest known stars you would need a telescope which is about 10 feet across. This may not seem terribly difficult these days, but that's also not the whole story. You see, looking through the earth's atmosphere causes everything to be smeared out such that no matter how big your telescope is, you still can't see any detail beneath a certain size limit, which is roughly 20 times greater than that needed to resolve even the largest stars

ISI System Overview

 

However, it goes on to describe how, using interference patterns and geometry, they can measure the diameter of the star.

 

And this site:

Details as small as 0.5 arc seconds can be seen when the seeing is good (still much larger than the theoretical resolving power of large research telescopes). Poor seeing happens when the air is turbulent so the images dance about and details smaller than 2 to 3 arc seconds cannot be seen.

 

Telescopes

 

This site also talks about how astronomers try to overcome the problems.

[God's servant]

When space travel becomes a lot less expensive than it is today, what do you think the salvage on all those LM bases and probes would be worth ? I'm sure museums around the world would love to have one.

 

If any persons can get to the moon and back and once getting to the moon be able to load the "litter" (anything left there from earlier mission) back onto the craft then they are ,by law, allowed to keep it ,and no one, not even NASA, had the right to reposess it. And yes meseums would love to have those.

[jungjedi]

heres a list of russian moon missions

Russia's unmanned missions toward the Moon

[CraigD]

If any persons can get to the moon and back and once getting to the moon be able to load the "litter" (anything left there from earlier mission) back onto the craft then they are ,by law, allowed to keep it ,and no one, not even NASA, had the right to reposess it. And yes meseums would love to have those.

Can you cite the specific law that would entitle anyone to keep equipment recovered from the moon?

 

I suspect you are suffering from a common misconception about salvage law. When one recovers abandoned vehicles or cargo, be it on land, at sea, or in space, one does not gain legal ownership of it. Rather, the legal owner is required, by long established traditions of common law, to compensation the salvager fairly, which must take into account the cost, required skill, and personal risk entailed by the salvage operation, and also the value of the salvaged property to its owner. Or, if this fair compensation is more than the owner can or is willing to pay, ownership of the property transfers to the salvager, so that he may, if possible, recoup the cost of and profit from his operation. (This article by lawyer and maritime law expert Andrew Anderson has a good explanation of salvage law)

 

So, if you were to return material from the Apollo or other spacecraft on the Moon’s surface to Earth, it’s owner – the US or Russian government – would not cease to own it, but would be legally obligated to fairly compensate you for your efforts, and the value of the material, as decided by a court with jurisdiction over to where on Earth the materials were returned. Only if the owners chose not to, or could not afford to legally reclaim their property would it become yours.

[Janus]

If any persons can get to the moon and back and once getting to the moon be able to load the "litter" (anything left there from earlier mission) back onto the craft then they are ,by law, allowed to keep it ,and no one, not even NASA, had the right to reposess it. And yes meseums would love to have those.

 

Sounds like the plot for the pilot of Salvage 1.

[Boerseun]

To the best of my knowledge, the Apollo landing sites have been deemed 'heritage sites' or something or another, with plaques denoting 'Here men from Planet Earth set foot for the first time' and the date. Not the exact wording, but it seems as if the USA's intention with the landing sites is to leave them as is, as 'museums' for future moon-dwellers.

 

This doesn't stop anybody with the ways and means to get there to remove the landers or otherwise desecrate the sites, seeing as nobody has any jurisdiction over lunar soil.

[Tormod]

The "Outer Space Treaty" specifically addresses this.

 

Article VIII

 

A State Party to the Treaty on whose registry an object launched into outer space is carried shall retain jurisdiction and control over such object, and over any personnel thereof, while in outer space or on a celestial body. Ownership of objects launched into outer space, including objects landed or constructed on a celestial body, and of their component parts, is not affected by their presence in outer space or on a celestial body or by their return to the Earth. Such objects or component parts found beyond the limits of the State Party to the Treaty on whose registry they are carried shall be returned to that State Party, which shall, upon request, furnish identifying data prior to their return.

 

(Note the bold text).

 

Source:

Outer Space Treaty

[Pyrotex]

I’m honestly unsure if this is true, or not... the atmosphere should make the angular resolutions instruments like...the Keck...useless, yet these instruments...appear to be capable of making very precise angular measurements despite the atmosphere. Resolving the disks of nearby stars...isn’t in principle different from resolving differences in light and dark reflections from points on the Moon’s surface separated by a few centimeters....

[Dualing calculators] Lessee... 0.01 arc seconds is about 7.7 * 10^-9 of a circle. This is thin enough that we can approx it with a triangle of length 1 and height 7.7 * 10^-9.

 

The ability to resolve 0.01 arc seconds should then equate to resolving

385,000 km * 7.7 * 10^-9 = .003 km. That's 3 meters resolution at the Moon's surface from the Earth's surface. Okay, you are within 2 orders of magnitude so I give you an A for effort. But at 3 meters resolution, you still would not "see" any evidence of an Apollo landing, IMHO.

 

And that assumes that Hubble can "see" at the precision of 0.01 arc-second.

[/dualing calculators]

 

The origin of the “the moon would burn out the Hubble’s detectors” myth may have some factual basis....

Tha's what I was told many years ago, when a reporter asked a NASA guy how come we weren't getting any Moon photos.

 

More recently, I talked with a brilliant mathematician who told me the problem was not excessive intensity, but that the target would be "moving" at rates that the Hubble could not sync with. We're talking the apparant motion of the Moon in our sky, and indeed, the apparant motion of the Earth's surface from Hubble's vantage. Yes, technically, you COULD develop the math to DO THAT, but (so he told me) the effort to develop the math and the computer programming to get Hubble to just take a picture of an ordinary star was so daunting (as it turned out) that the Ground Facility was finished years behind schedule and at astronomic cost overruns. There was no money, time, energy or motivation at that point to get Hubble to photograph "moving targets".

 

Apparently, that effort has now been done, given the evidence of the Hubble Moon shot you linked. But even then, there is something strange about that shot: the observed angle relative to the Moon's surface is different in the three images. And no reference is made to explain the "photo" of the rover on the Moon's surface. I doubt seriously it was made by Hubble. But that is the "impression" left in the captions.

[Boerseun]

The "Outer Space Treaty" specifically addresses this.

Interesting...

 

...but this Treaty won't be binding to countries and/or entities not party to it, surely? For instance, if North Korea didn't sign it, and somehow Lil' Kim got to the moon, there's not much anybody can do about it if they decided to mess around with the Apollo relics, is there?

[Tormod]

Hypothetically, no. If I were NASA I'd not be horrified at the odds though. :hihi:

[Pyrotex]

...and somehow Lil' Kim got to the moon, there's not much anybody can do about it if they decided to mess around with the Apollo relics...

If it got around that Kim had rubbed his body parts on the Apollo relics, their value as collectibles could drop in the toilet. I'm just saying...

[CraigD]

[Dualing calculators] Lessee... 0.01 arc seconds is about 7.7 * 10^-9 of a circle. This is thin enough that we can approx it with a triangle of length 1 and height 7.7 * 10^-9.

 

The ability to resolve 0.01 arc seconds should then equate to resolving

385,000 km * 7.7 * 10^-9 = .003 km. That's 3 meters resolution at the Moon's surface from the Earth's surface. Okay, you are within 2 orders of magnitude so I give you an A for effort. But at 3 meters resolution, you still would not "see" any evidence of an Apollo landing, IMHO.

 

And that assumes that Hubble can "see" at the precision of 0.01 arc-second.

[/dualing calculators]

I’ll pick up the calculating gauntlet. :)

 

First, to clarify: I didn’t mean to imply that the Hubble’s 2.4 m main mirror or other instruments could resolve anywhere near a small enough arc to resolve artifacts on the moon. Rather, I’m speculating about the performance of a very-long-base optical astronomical interferometer, like the 300 m-baseline NPOI.

 

Raleigh's criteria: [math]D=\frac{Lr}s[/math]

Earth-Moon distance (r):        370000 km
Visible light wavelength (L):      580 nm
Feature size (s):                    1 m        5 cm
Aperture size (D):                 214.6 m   4292 m

So, ignore the effects of atmospheric distortion a 215 meter baseline interferometer (smaller than the NPOI’s 300 m maximum baseline) would be able to resolved down to 1 meter, a 4.3 kilometer one down to 5 cm. 1 m resolution is, I think, sufficient to discern the octagonal shape of a 4.25 m LEM descent stage, while 5 cm could resolve small equipment, and, if the lighting’s right, footprints.

 

Atmospheric distortion is a major factor to just ignore, and a possible showstopper. I don’t know enough about corrective techniques to have an informed opinion as to their usefulness. But, if the earth had no atmosphere, or an observatory placed sufficiently high to avoid the worst of the distortion, the simple optics suggest that high resolution images of the Moons surface are feasible.

 

Not to mention fun to think about.

[silverslith]

I haven't read through all this thread but... Didn't the Japanese send a high res scope on a close lunar orbit mapping mission a few years ago? Of course they'd have been paid off to either not photo the claimed apollo sites or photoshop the flags in. Still, no pics of them from this is telling.:hyper:

[Tormod]

Didn't the Japanese send a high res scope on a close lunar orbit mapping mission a few years ago?

 

Sources, please? The Lunar-A mission, originally scheduled for 2004, was cancelled.

 

Of course they'd have been paid off to either not photo the claimed apollo sites or photoshop the flags in. Still, no pics of them from this is telling.:hyper:

 

Absense of evidence is not evidence of absense. Hoax theories are just that, useless, unfounded theories without any hard evidence.

 

The robotic missions to the Moon in the next decade will most likely show Apollo remains, but you need to get really "up close and personal" with the Moon in order to see anything at that level of detail.