Originally posted by Exuberant1
reply to post by ngchunter
If you had bothered to read my post on the subject, you would note that I have been clear that the soviet probe was cited as a proof of concept - and to show that it could be done (weedwacker denied such a thing was done at all).
A probe scooping up a few grams of lunar dust proves that a probe in the late 60s could have transported over 800 pounds of lunar rock collected over a several-kilometer wide area and brought it back to earth? No, it doesn't prove such a thing was possible at all. In fact, it demonstrates that the robotics technology of the time was woefully inadequate for the size of the task.
*The infamous and oft-cited laser reflector could also have been placed by an unmanned probe. I gave an example of a soviet probe that did just this.
Not that I addressed this in my initial response to you, but one of them failed. None of the apollo retroreflectors failed in spite of a greater number of total reflectors (larger as well) because humans are intrinsically far more reliable at performing such technical tasks with good judgement. Take for instance the landing of apollo 11 - had a robot been in control of the landing, as would have been the case for an unmanned landing, it would have set down in an area filled with large boulders and crashed. Fortunately, a human pilot was in command and took over in the final critical moments.
This does not mean the Apollo missions were faked, it just shows that certain objectives on that mission could have been accomplished via unmanned probe.
If it were done by an unmanned probe we would have expected to see a high percentage of failures.
Why do you dedicate so much of your time to suppressing speculation of the sort I engage in?
Please show where I surpressed your opinion. Mitigating with facts is not surpression.
[edit on 4-5-2009 by ngchunter]


