Originally posted by rapunzel222
reply to post by LunarLooney1
yeah, they're totally insulting everyones intelligence in suggesting thos are the best pictures of the moon they can get....
...the problem is; if people dont realize their intelligence is being insulted; does that make them dumb? or just unobservant?...
I wasn't insulted because I knew exactly what this part of LCROSS's mission entailed (i.e., it was never
meant to take "the best
pictures of the Moon they could possibly get"). This part of the mission was designed to get the Moon's gravity to pull LCROSS into the proper
orbit for its October close encounter.
...its criminal how little they teach kids at school...
You may think it's criminal what they teach in school, but as I said in an earlier post, I think it's sad how many ATS members (who are supposedly
the ones paying attention to science news) don't actually take the time to learn about the subject matter we are discussing here on ATS.
It may not quite be criminal, but it IS very depressing to see the general scientific ignorance displayed by some ATS members.
For the record:
LCROSS is NOT supposed to take the best pictures humans can possibly take...NASA's
LRO (The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) is designed to do
that -- and as you know (if you were paying attention -- or don't know, as the case may be) the LRO is a totally separate spacecraft that was
launched at the same time -- and on the same rocket -- as LCROSS.
The LRO spacecraft contains the super-high-resolution camera that wil be able to resolve surface features less than a meter across, which is a much
high resolution than ANY spacecraft ever sent to the Moon. The LRO will start taking photos withing the next several weeks.
The LCROSS, on the other hand, has infrared and visible light cameras (of modest resolution) and spectrometers. A super-high-resolution camera is not
at all required for LCROSS to carry out its mission, which is to crash its upper-stage (cruising stage) engine into the South Pole region of the Moon
and look at the plume of debris caused by the impact, to see what's there (possibly water-ice). It would be a waste of money for LCROSS to have had
a very high-res camera.
So -- no -- NASA did not insult anyone's intelligence with these pictures. I personally thought they were beautiful, because they were "real-time"
live images of the far-side of the Moon.
[edit on 6/28/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]
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