2018 Moon Launch? 104 Billion. Wow!!

resistance - ...it just doesn't sink in, does it.

To see the moon more clearly the hubble would need a higher resolution, but it has taken some of the best space pics of galaxies and nebulas ever. They were taken by Nasa...not faked by Nasa.

At least now you have finally excepted that the hubble does in fact have a resolution.

Originally posted by resistance

EDIT: I found something better. Just read the link. sm3a.gsfc.nasa.gov...

[edit on 8-11-2005 by Frosty]

[edit on 8-11-2005 by Frosty]

Uh, with Hubble, a high powered telescope can't see the moon... You get those big earth telescopes, they can't see it either, why? Because it is too close! Imagine looking at a billboard from 10 feet away with binoculars used to see something the size of a Bald Eagle from 2 miles away. Can't see the billboard can you?

"To see the moon more clearly the hubble would need a higher resolution, but it has taken some of the best space pics of galaxies and nebulas ever. They were taken by Nasa...not faked by Nasa"

Exactly !

When every wisp of the nebula pictured is several light-years across, you don't see the fact that a higher resolution would give even more detail, but it would.

reply to post by Frosty


You're partially right. Improved rocket technology would definitely help get the costs down but so would reusability. I nearly choked when I saw the new architecture that NASA is building, where only the Command module is reusable! It's such a tiny fraction of the total cost of all those throw-away rockets, throw-away landers, etc. How many people would have been able to afford a transatlantic voyage by sailing ship in the old days if each ship was discarded after one trip? The Apollo system was used because NASA was in a hurry to meet Kennedy's deadline and they weren't thinking in terms of hundreds of trips to the moon over decades. But a more intelligent long term approach would have been to design a single vehicle that could a) reach earth orbit, b) accelerate to escape velocity to reach lunar orbit, c) descend from lunar orbit, d) leave the moon and enter a parking orbit around the earth again. It could have then been refuelled by supply rocket, which would also be able to return the astronauts and cargo back to the ground via a reentry vehicle. If you consider the entire weight of equipment, that the Saturn rocket was able to throw into orbit, all of that mass which included the Command module, the LEM AND the third stage, could have been reconfigured as a reusable Earth/Moon shuttle. Fuel, which makes up most of the mass, could have been sent up seperately via another Saturn 5 (I'm talking here about how HASA COULD have done it). AFter the first launch of the Earth/Moon shuttle, then you only need one more Saturn launch to refuel it for each additional trip back to the moon. The benefit is that you only have to pay for the Earth/Moon shuttle equipment once.

Why NASA didn't use that approach now is beyond me.