Fwd: Smart 1 may have photographed Apollo LEM.

------- Begin Forwarded Message -------

Subject: Smart 1 may have photographed Apollo LEM.
From: Dave E
Newsgroups: sci.astro.amateur
Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2006 15:25:00 GMT

Hi all,
In this weeks "Sky at Night" programme, a monthly British astronomy TV
presentation, one of the featured guests was a member of the ESA Smart 1
team. In the conversation he was having with Sir Patrick Moore he happened
to mention that as the orbit of the space craft decayed they had flown over
an Apollo landing site (I forget which one) and had taken pictures of the
area. He went on to say that beacause of camera resolution and the
relatively small size of the LEM legs a fully detailed picture was probably
not feasible but the elongated shadows of the structure was a distinct
possibility. They would have to see what turns up as the massive amounts of
data collected is sifted through and looked at.
I am looking forward to the pictures for nostalgic reasons (I am 55 and
remember those years vividly), and also it being the first time Apollo
equipment has been photographed in situ.
Keeping my fingers crossed.

Dave.

-------- End Forwarded Message --------


--
Gareth Slee

According to an article last year
(http://www.space.com/missionlaunches...oon_snoop.html) they had
already photographed the landing sites of Apollo 11, 16, 17, along with
a few Soviet probes. As far as I can tell the ESA hasn't released any
of the pictures yet, more than a year later.

There are a few photos of LM's in situ, taken by the CM Pilots. I
remember seeing one recently showing Apollo 15's Falcon. You mostly
see a long shadow streaming off from a white blob, but it's still
facinating to see simply because of what it is.

Pleonic
www.AFewParagraphs.com


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"If everybody's somebody, then no one's anybody!"




Gareth Slee wrote:
------- Begin Forwarded Message -------

Subject: Smart 1 may have photographed Apollo LEM.
From: Dave E
Newsgroups: sci.astro.amateur
Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2006 15:25:00 GMT

Hi all,
In this weeks "Sky at Night" programme, a monthly British astronomy TV
presentation, one of the featured guests was a member of the ESA Smart 1
team. In the conversation he was having with Sir Patrick Moore he happened
to mention that as the orbit of the space craft decayed they had flown over
an Apollo landing site (I forget which one) and had taken pictures of the
area. He went on to say that beacause of camera resolution and the
relatively small size of the LEM legs a fully detailed picture was probably
not feasible but the elongated shadows of the structure was a distinct
possibility. They would have to see what turns up as the massive amounts of
data collected is sifted through and looked at.
I am looking forward to the pictures for nostalgic reasons (I am 55 and
remember those years vividly), and also it being the first time Apollo
equipment has been photographed in situ.
Keeping my fingers crossed.

Dave.

-------- End Forwarded Message --------


--
Gareth Slee

"Pleonic" wrote in message
oups.com...
According to an article last year
(http://www.space.com/missionlaunches...oon_snoop.html) they had
already photographed the landing sites of Apollo 11, 16, 17, along with
a few Soviet probes. As far as I can tell the ESA hasn't released any
of the pictures yet, more than a year later.

Yeah, but did they do the magic photogrammetry? If not, why not? See,
*they're hiding something*!

Bbo Hallre

My theory is the ESA is being pressured by NASA not to reveal the fact
that all the landing sites are empty. Luckily they've engaged Tom
Hanks in a top-secret deal to produce realistic-looking fake Smart 1
pictures of LM decent stages and ALSEP packages that can be released
instead. He's probably working on them in the New Mexico desert right
now!

Pleonic
www.AFewParagraphs.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"If everybody's somebody, then no one's anybody!"


Scott Hedrick wrote:
"Pleonic" wrote in message
oups.com...
According to an article last year
(http://www.space.com/missionlaunches...oon_snoop.html) they had
already photographed the landing sites of Apollo 11, 16, 17, along with
a few Soviet probes. As far as I can tell the ESA hasn't released any
of the pictures yet, more than a year later.

Yeah, but did they do the magic photogrammetry? If not, why not? See,
*they're hiding something*!

Bbo Hallre

On 6 Sep 2006 06:44:10 -0700, "Pleonic" wrote:

My theory is the ESA is being pressured by NASA not to reveal the fact
that all the landing sites are empty.

....My theory has two components:

1) You're either being humorous.

....Or:

2) You're obviously on the wrong newsgroup to be experimenting with
combining the aerosols from Whip-Its and Krylon #1 Black in the same
bag.

OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[

In message .com,
Pleonic writes

Gareth Slee wrote:
------- Begin Forwarded Message -------

Subject: Smart 1 may have photographed Apollo LEM.
From: Dave E
Newsgroups: sci.astro.amateur
Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2006 15:25:00 GMT

Hi all,
In this weeks "Sky at Night" programme, a monthly British astronomy TV
presentation, one of the featured guests was a member of the ESA Smart 1
team. In the conversation he was having with Sir Patrick Moore he happened
to mention that as the orbit of the space craft decayed they had flown over
an Apollo landing site (I forget which one) and had taken pictures of the
area. He went on to say that beacause of camera resolution and the
relatively small size of the LEM legs a fully detailed picture was probably
not feasible but the elongated shadows of the structure was a distinct
possibility.

According to an article last year
(http://www.space.com/missionlaunches...oon_snoop.html) they had
already photographed the landing sites of Apollo 11, 16, 17, along with
a few Soviet probes. As far as I can tell the ESA hasn't released any
of the pictures yet, more than a year later.

There are a few photos of LM's in situ, taken by the CM Pilots. I
remember seeing one recently showing Apollo 15's Falcon. You mostly
see a long shadow streaming off from a white blob, but it's still
facinating to see simply because of what it is.

Even if SMART-1 didn't see them, one of the upcoming missions such as
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter should be able to.
Is there any prospect of imaging the Surveyor 4 landing site? Might be
interesting to see if it got down in one piece,

I'd love to tell you which it is, but some mysterious men in black
suits from an unamed government entity told me not to.

Pleonic
www.AFewParagraphs.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"If everybody's somebody, then no one's anybody!"


OM wrote:
On 6 Sep 2006 06:44:10 -0700, "Pleonic" wrote:

My theory is the ESA is being pressured by NASA not to reveal the fact
that all the landing sites are empty.

...My theory has two components:

1) You're either being humorous.

...Or:

2) You're obviously on the wrong newsgroup to be experimenting with
combining the aerosols from Whip-Its and Krylon #1 Black in the same
bag.

OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[

On 7 Sep 2006 14:51:58 -0700, "Pleonic" wrote:

I'd love to tell you which it is, but some mysterious men in black
suits from an unamed government entity told me not to.

....Riiight. It's not the Krylon #1 Black, but the #11 Silver, then.

OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[

In article ,
Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
Even if SMART-1 didn't see them, one of the upcoming missions such as
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter should be able to.
Is there any prospect of imaging the Surveyor 4 landing site? Might be
interesting to see if it got down in one piece,

I suspect the big problem there will be that its exact position (assuming
that's a single-valued function :-)) is not known very accurately.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

I'd be interested to see the craters and debris fields made by the
S-IVB's and LM Ascent Stages. Probably a vain hope for now though, to
judge by Smart 1's photo of the Apollo 11 and Surveyor 5 landing sites
(http://sci.esa.int/science-e-media/img/2c/apollo11.jpg).

Pleonic
www.AFewParagraphs.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"If everybody's somebody, then no one's anybody!"


Jonathan Silverlight wrote:

Even if SMART-1 didn't see them, one of the upcoming missions such as
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter should be able to.
Is there any prospect of imaging the Surveyor 4 landing site? Might be
interesting to see if it got down in one piece,