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Team to land rover near Apollo 17 rover


Merc14

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PTScientists (Part Time Scientists) a private group competing for the Google Lunar X prize has secured space on a future launch vehicle to carry their ALINA lander with its two Quattro rovers. They plan to land near the Apollo 17 landing site and get HD images of the Lunar Rover driven by Gene Cernan.  Full story at Space,com here  http://www.space.com/34850-private-moon-race-apollo-17-site.html

Edited by Merc14
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I would love to see the live stream. Good luck guys, I hope this works out. I'm curious to see how much dust has piled up on the rover!

Edited by Use your brain
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Commendable yet demonstrably disappointing that the best we can do after over half a century is to send a robot to visit a time and place of transistors and black and white television. Yet, a time when people were motivated not by fear but by faith, science and risk takers who made the significant step of moving humans to the stars. Mars looms. Are we still a people committed to that next step.

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with all the technology around with being able to do satellite scanning for photos like used in google earth wouldnt you think they can actally do the same for the moon. the last time i looked at the moon and these landing sites they just showed photos of what was meant to have happened. Places on google earth u can get really good detail, i wonder why they havent done it for the moon propery. something to hide is there. correct me if i am wrong please

Edited by Eye of Giza
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This is really exciting. It will either shut the Lunar Landing hoax claimers up!,... Or, justify their claims of Government conspiracies and cover ups.
I can't wait for the launch date. I also hope they make it off the launch pad with out any mishaps. Say.. Sabotage! Maybe they should keep it secret until after the fact. Anyway!, It should be an Historic event if all goes well. I wish them Good Luck and may God be with them.

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7 hours ago, highdesert50 said:

Commendable yet demonstrably disappointing that the best we can do after over half a century is to send a robot to visit a time and place of transistors and black and white television. Yet, a time when people were motivated not by fear but by faith, science and risk takers who made the significant step of moving humans to the stars. Mars looms. Are we still a people committed to that next step.

We have not had much incentive for landing people on the Moon again, a very expensive business, as there has been more interesting science for NASA to spend their limited budget on.   We have now explored all the planets in our solar system including the dwarf Pluto and also explored two KB objects.  

As far as landing men on Mars NASA is currently developing the Orion capsule and Space Launch System, a massive rocket capable of sending humans into space to explore asteroids around 2025 and a manned mission to Mars in possibly the 2030's.  SLS will send an unmanned capsule to orbit the Moon and return in 2018

4 hours ago, Eye of Giza said:

with all the technology around with being able to do satellite scanning for photos like used in google earth wouldnt you think they can actally do the same for the moon. the last time i looked at the moon and these landing sites they just showed photos of what was meant to have happened. Places on google earth u can get really good detail, i wonder why they havent done it for the moon propery. something to hide is there. correct me if i am wrong please

There are several craft orbiting the Mon and one recently took photos of the Apollo 12 landing site complete with footprints and tire tracks from Apollo 17 as imaged by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).  see below

58 minutes ago, eddword said:

This is really exciting. It will either shut the Lunar Landing hoax claimers up!,... Or, justify their claims of Government conspiracies and cover ups.
I can't wait for the launch date. I also hope they make it off the launch pad with out any mishaps. Say.. Sabotage! Maybe they should keep it secret until after the fact. Anyway!, It should be an Historic event if all goes well. I wish them Good Luck and may God be with them.

Anyone who still believes the Apollo missions were a hoax will never be convinced and are, by definition, beyond reason. 

apollo-12-landing-site.jpg

Apollo 17 tracks.jpg

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HI Merc - even with your pictures and pictures from the Berlin group, I'm sure some group will say it's been faked, twice.

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now this will prove if we really went to the moon before and maybe shed some light on whats really up there, can i make a prediction.....some audio interruption will occur right when they are about to find something and then say was a technical difficulty

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3 hours ago, geraldnewfie said:

now this will prove if we really went to the moon before and maybe shed some light on whats really up there, can i make a prediction.....some audio interruption will occur right when they are about to find something and then say was a technical difficulty

Oh please, what in the world could possibly convince you that half a dozen Apollo missions were all faked?   This is NOT about proving Apollo was real, that is beyond rational discussion, it is about a small team of independents being able to launch a rover to the moon and get HD images back!  What an amazing accomplishment if they succeed.  The hoax silliness was put to rest decades ago and shouldn't be brought up in adult conversation.

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lets wait and see, hoax or no hoax. theres pretty convincing arguements on both sides.Im sure the goverment MIB will intercept any signals and beam a new one.

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lets wait and see, hoax or no hoax. theres pretty convincing arguements on both sides.Im sure the goverment MIB will intercept any signals and beam a new one.

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7 hours ago, geraldnewfie said:

now this will prove if we really went to the moon before and maybe shed some light on whats really up there, can i make a prediction.....some audio interruption will occur right when they are about to find something and then say was a technical difficulty

Prediction? LOL, you could not find your own behind with two hands and a roadmap!! 

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30 minutes ago, Eye of Giza said:

lets wait and see, hoax or no hoax. theres pretty convincing arguements on both sides.Im sure the goverment MIB will intercept any signals and beam a new one.

No, there are not convincing arguments on both sides. There is mountains of proof, or mindless drivel. 

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Psyche 101 on a roll here ! And it must be a blue moon, because I agree with him ! :o

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48 minutes ago, Eye of Giza said:

lets wait and see, hoax or no hoax. theres pretty convincing arguements on both sides.Im sure the goverment MIB will intercept any signals and beam a new one.

The hoax 'arguments' are utter hogwash.  They are only convincing to folks who know very little about space and photography.

 

And yes, you were very wrong about Google earth - the vast majority of GE images come from LOW FLYING aircraft, NOT satellites.  That's easy to do because, well, duh, we live here....  It costs an absolute fortune to put even a satellite in orbit around the Moon, so the images are not taken by aircraft, they are taken from much higher up... 

If you knew anything much about the history of space travel to the Moon, you would know that it is not only NASA that has had spacecraft up there that have photographed evidence of the Apollo missions, but also Japan and India and even ESA (the European Space Agency).  Are they all lying?

Not a single thing the Apollo deniers have EVER posted on this topic is correct, and if you are serious about the subject, please go and visit the appropriate threads at UM and actually learn about this stuff, rather than make what are quite insulting allegations against the many skilled, hard working and heroic folks that got us to the Moon.  In other words, don't encourage the spread of misinformation - get informed..

If you still think there is anything to it, please bring your best argument here.

 

 

Edited by ChrLzs
fixed link to one that isn't closed.. sigh..
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3 hours ago, ChrLzs said:

The hoax 'arguments' are utter hogwash.  They are only convincing to folks who know very little about space and photography.

 

Hi ChrLzs, can you provide me with a bit of science to refute a claim made by someone in the pub the other night. It was pointed out to me that the resolution of the images sent back by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter are 0.5 meters. However, the wheels on the lunar rovers are only 0.25 meters wide, so how can their tracks be seen? I said that the wheels are about two meters apart, and so what is seen on the images is both tracks merged together. He wasn't convinced, and is joining in with the growing chorus who say the recent images - taken by NASA - are faked to "prove" the Apollo landings weren't faked. I hate not being able to refute the nonsense of Apollo deniers, but photography is not one of my strong points.

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Hi, DW.  It's late and I'm goin' to bed, but briefly (heheh)..

The resolution figure you gave (0.5 metres) is meaningless without a distance.. ie how far away are these things of .5 metres that are just resolved?  The LRO's initial orbit was elliptical and it has descended to a lower more circular orbit I believe, and I'm not sure where that 0.5m figure belongs  - I'll check back in tomorrow.

But perhaps more importantly, the theoretical resolution refers to a single object 'tripping' a single pixel (or pair actually, it's complicated..), whereas tire tracks are a continuous line that will overlap many pixels at an angle in a long line, and thus become quite obvious at way, way below the theoretical single point resolution.  Plus, the tracks in lunar regolith will be wider than the actual wheel anyway, especially when they were cornering/hooning...

I'm happy to go into much more detail and really nail this for you later, but may I make a suggestion?  Before getting carried away with addressing a little factoid that the Apollo denier will quickly abandon and throw another (and another and another) at you to keep up the momentum, just pull him/her up and say:

"Is that your very best evidence, the most convincing thing you have?  If it isn't, why the hell are you asking me about it?  You bring out your BEST first, and then we'll look at it closely.  If that best fails, will you concede you are wrong?"

Apollo deniers LOVE to play the 'Gish Gallop' game of just throwing new $^&% at the fan as soon as one item is debunked.  So you need to stop them, and by making them pick their best, they will get very nervous about showing their ignorance, or of simply having their best destroyed (which it will be...).  And you can always ask why on earth/moon wouldn't they bring out their best 'weapon' first????

So get them to nominate what they really want debunked the most, and I'll be happy to help in excruciating verifiable detail.... I would hope for their sake they would pick something better than LRO resolution - that will be easy to show as ignorant hogwash.  Seriously, if the best they have is a misunderstanding of camera resolution, then you can see they haven't a clue.  And by all means show them this post and invite them to UM so they can actually learn something.  BTW, I'd be interested to hear their source for the claim...

 

...  yaaaawwwwn.... later........ zzzzz

Edited by ChrLzs
to fix a bad copy paste...
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56 minutes ago, ChrLzs said:

Hi, DW.  It's late and I'm goin' to bed, but briefly (heheh)..

The resolution figure you gave (0.5 metres) is meaningless without a distance.. ie how far away are these things of .5 metres that are just resolved?  The LRO's initial orbit was elliptical and it has descended to a lower more circular orbit I believe, and I'm not sure where that 0.5m figure belongs  - I'll check back in tomorrow.

...  yaaaawwwwn.... later........ zzzzz

Hi ChrLzs. The conversation was in a pub, and so the usual rigor of intellectual debate became somewhat hazed by beer. Basically, the figure of 0.5 meters came from the wiki entry on the LRO, which refers to the "0.5 meter resolution images of the Apollo landing sites". 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Reconnaissance_Orbiter  

As did the details of the rover's wheels, which are 0.23 meters wide.

You are right regarding the methodology of Apollo deniers, and the guy in the pub is a perfect example. His big piece of "evidence" used to be the lack of a crater caused by the LM's descent engine. However, he had no understanding that the purpose of a rocket engine nozzle is to expand the exhaust such that its exit pressure is as near to the ambient pressure as possible. Consequently, the force per unit area is surprisingly gentle. And or course, the regolith is only a couple of inches thick.

He seems to think he is onto a winner with the rover tracks - and knows my knowledge of photography is slim - so if you have time when the sun swings down under, an authoritative explanation would be appreciated - and which could be referred to when any other Apollo deniers (here on UM or elsewhere) make the same claim.

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I'll be back when I get time to provide a picture, but first I'd like to re-iterate that the 0.5m per pixel 'resolution' simply means that a single pixel covers that area on the lunar ground - which means pretty much b***** all.  It does not tell you whether something half that size (or twice that size) will definitely be or not be resolved in the final image file.

The actual practical resolution, which involves complex topics like the 'Nyquist limit', and also is highly dependent on things like the contrast and especially shape of the thing to be resolved, could range from about 1/10 of that, up to 10x..

Allow me to explain...  That single pixel which effectively covers a circular-ish area that corresponds to about 0.5 metre diameter area of the scene being projected onto it, is of course surrounded by other pixels above/below/left/right.. Every one of those pixels records the average brightness of the patch of ground and they are quite sensitive to the brightness level, obviously.  So what happens when something much darker/brighter than the average is within that area?  Well, it reduces/increases the brightness which the pixel records, and is thus darker/brighter than its surrounding mates.  In other words, that single pixel will be 'resolving' (or at least helping to resolve) that something is there, even though that something is much less than 0.5m....

Now of course if that less than 0.5m object has dragged a trail across an area recorded by a whole pile of pixels, then EVERY pixel in which it affects the area brightness, will be different from its mates all along that line of pixels and the actual line will become visible (be resolved).  So even though one pixel couldn't really be said to 'resolve' it, it records that something darker or lighter was there, and when that is seen in conjunction with the other pixels a clear line appears.

 

So really, you have be careful how you think about the words 'resolve' and 'resolution'.... The fact that a single pixel corresponds to .5m on the ground does NOT mean that everything larger than that will be resolved, and everything smaller will not.   Resolution is VERY complex, and if you don't know what the terms mean, then you will be able to find 'anomalies' like this - anomalies in your friend's understanding:D

I'd have to ask, why would NASA fake the resolution numbers, anyway?  There are MANY other spacecraft up there that have already (and will in the future) verified the Apollo sites.  Sure, the LRO gives the best images, but other countries who dislike the USA have been there and seen them, private organisations will be doing so...  NASA is not that stupid, and frankly any believers of this have to be a bit short of sausages for their barbeque if they think they would have tried to get away with a hoax of this enormity.  It's just beyond dumb, pretty much pointless, and would be guaranteed to be found out..  Are you sure your mate isn't just trolling you..?

 

And the problem with this sort of stuff is that it requires a fair bit of explaining... and of course your average Apollo denier is probably not the type to be into listening/learning, they just want something cool that only the select few 'know'.  Doesn't matter if it is completely wrong, and those select few are gullible idiots...  There's plenty more stuff out there that they don't/won't understand, so more fodder to feed the ignorant cries of 'fake'....

 

I'll be back later with a picture showing some of these concepts and showing (to scale) that wheel leaving tracks that are easily resolved by the *many* pixels involved.... busy right now...

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38 minutes ago, ChrLzs said:

I'll be back when I get time to provide a picture, but first I'd like to re-iterate that the 0.5m per pixel 'resolution' simply means that a single pixel covers that area on the lunar ground - which means pretty much b***** all.  It does not tell you whether something half that size (or twice that size) will definitely be or not be resolved in the final image file.

The actual practical resolution, which involves complex topics like the 'Nyquist limit', and also is highly dependent on things like the contrast and especially shape of the thing to be resolved, could range from about 1/10 of that, up to 10x..

Allow me to explain...  That single pixel which effectively covers a circular-ish area that corresponds to about 0.5 metre diameter area of the scene being projected onto it, is of course surrounded by other pixels above/below/left/right.. Every one of those pixels records the average brightness of the patch of ground and they are quite sensitive to the brightness level, obviously.  So what happens when something much darker/brighter than the average is within that area?  Well, it reduces/increases the brightness which the pixel records, and is thus darker/brighter than its surrounding mates.  In other words, that single pixel will be 'resolving' (or at least helping to resolve) that something is there, even though that something is much less than 0.5m....

Now of course if that less than 0.5m object has dragged a trail across an area recorded by a whole pile of pixels, then EVERY pixel in which it affects the area brightness, will be different from its mates all along that line of pixels and the actual line will become visible (be resolved).  So even though one pixel couldn't really be said to 'resolve' it, it records that something darker or lighter was there, and when that is seen in conjunction with the other pixels a clear line appears.

 

So really, you have be careful how you think about the words 'resolve' and 'resolution'.... The fact that a single pixel corresponds to .5m on the ground does NOT mean that everything larger than that will be resolved, and everything smaller will not.   Resolution is VERY complex, and if you don't know what the terms mean, then you will be able to find 'anomalies' like this - anomalies in your friend's understanding:D

I'd have to ask, why would NASA fake the resolution numbers, anyway?  There are MANY other spacecraft up there that have already (and will in the future) verified the Apollo sites.  Sure, the LRO gives the best images, but other countries who dislike the USA have been there and seen them, private organisations will be doing so...  NASA is not that stupid, and frankly any believers of this have to be a bit short of sausages for their barbeque if they think they would have tried to get away with a hoax of this enormity.  It's just beyond dumb, pretty much pointless, and would be guaranteed to be found out..  Are you sure your mate isn't just trolling you..?

 

And the problem with this sort of stuff is that it requires a fair bit of explaining... and of course your average Apollo denier is probably not the type to be into listening/learning, they just want something cool that only the select few 'know'.  Doesn't matter if it is completely wrong, and those select few are gullible idiots...  There's plenty more stuff out there that they don't/won't understand, so more fodder to feed the ignorant cries of 'fake'....

 

I'll be back later with a picture showing some of these concepts and showing (to scale) that wheel leaving tracks that are easily resolved by the *many* pixels involved.... busy right now...

Thanks for doing such a great job of answering a very complex question.  It really is a difficult thing to do and you nailed it. :tsu:

Edited by Merc14
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Just as an aside, DW.. and while I'm lazily avoiding drawing the picture... in regard to the LM not leaving a crater...

To work it out *properly*, one could compare it to something we know, here on earth..

First, let's look at the differences between an earth landing and a lunar one:

1. The gravity on the Moon is 1/6 that of Earth, so you really need to divide the mass of the landing vehicle by that (actually, it's not quite that simple, but it's a starting point for a very rough comparison.

2. The Earth has an atmosphere, and the air that is caught up in the blast of jet/rocket fuel helps to disturb a lot more 'stuff' on the ground.  On the Moon, no air, so for the rocket exhaust to move anything, even the tiniest piece of dust, that particle must be hit by a particle of rocket exhaust - there is no moving air to help that process along.  This rather weird effect where the dust just gets blasted sideways with NO billowing clouds, can be seen by viewing the video footage as they land, and in later missions as they took off and the remote camera filmed it.

So what can we compare the LM to, here on Earth?  Well, the very obvious choice is the Harrier Jumpjet.  The LM's mass was approx 16,000 kg.  Let's divided that by say 4, not 6, so the Apollo deniers can't complain about bias.  So we are effectively landing about 4,000 kg or less.

The harrier Jumpjet weighs about 6,000 kg as a minimum.  Significantly more than the LM on the moon.  Plus, as we already pointed out, due to the lack of air, we should expect LESS ground disturbance from an LM landing anyway.   Now, can anyone show me a Harrier landing on a loose surface where it left a crater?  Of course not, as they DON'T.  They leave a bit of disturbed dust and that's it.  The LM left a disturbed area too, as you would expect if you knew anything about.. oh, 1/6 gravity and no air... :D

So again, your pub-acquaintance really doesn't think things through, does he....  I guess his eyes glaze over when you introduce the issues that he would rather ignore... 

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5 hours ago, ChrLzs said:

So again, your pub-acquaintance really doesn't think things through, does he....  I guess his eyes glaze over when you introduce the issues that he would rather ignore... 

He doesn't think things through at all - except he thinks he does! I have had all the usual debates with him - the flag "fluttering", the lack of a plume when the Apollo 17 ascent stage lifted off, and so on. The problem is, he does a bit of research - so can come out with a few erudite sounding words and phrases - and seems to convince himself of his and others new additions to the Apollo hoax theories.  

Your explanation of an individual pixel registering the difference in brightness - as opposed to actually "resolving" the track - makes perfect sense. This reminds me of an experiment I did forty years ago with a small telescope and a light sensitive resistor. I had watched a TV program about the Viking Mars landers, and was particularly interested in the scanning cameras. I attempted to create an "image" of the view from my bedroom by sticking the LSR onto the eyepiece and measuring the change in resistance (with an Avometer - remember them?) as I scanned the telescope horizontally. The plan was to make a series of horizontal scans and create the "image" by shading in a square at a time on piece of graph paper. I became bored after a couple of lines, but I do remember being surprised how the "camera" could detect the difference in brightness caused by the telegraph pole just beyond the garden. There is no way the "camera" could be said to have resolved the telegraph pole, but its existence was certainly detectable.

I have pointed out to him on numerous occasions how the Soviets would have been the first to prove the Moon landings were faked, if the had of been. His answer to this takes Apollo hoax theories to new levels, and goes a bit like this: The Soviets knew full well that the Apollo landings were faked because they too were planning to fake a series of Moon landings, and spent billions of rubles developing the disaster-prone N-1 rocket as part of this. Basically, after the success of America's fake Moon landings, the Soviets didn't dare give the game away because the Americans would let the Soviet people know how their own government had also wasted vast sums of money on this Cold War "game" at a time when there was a shortage of just about everything in shops throughout the Soviet Union. I am lost for words when attempting to counter this!

Thanks for your efforts with this. We are coming up to the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo 11, and I am detecting a bit of a resurgence in the claims of Apollo deniers. All of their original claims have been proven to be nonsense, but I think it is important to refute new claims that NASA (seemingly with the cooperation of all the other space agencies in the world!) is faking evidence to "prove" the Moon landings weren't faked. The mind boggles!

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BTW (and no, I still haven't done that pic, but your comments show that you absolutely get it....) one more thing about the LRO images and their theoretical resolution...  There is currently a HUGE public effort involved in processing all these lunar images coming in from the LRO.  Google Moon Mappers, or Cosmoquest....  This means that literally thousands of professionals and amateurs across the globe are poring over these images and mapping all the details of craters and geology and looking for any/all anomalies.  These hard working volunteers have already found such things as the locations where various Apollo bits and pieces have crashed back onto the Moon after being jettisoned...  That means that all the imagery is being scaled and checked and cross-referenced against other images from all sources, so that the craters and other features can be better mapped.  Not one of those folks is reporting any resolution issues, including in all the craters and features included in those Apollo site images.

So, no-one who is doing this work for real is reporting an issue, but some dufus at a pub with a proven record of wrongness and lack of proper research has stumbled onto 'da troof'?

 

Nope.

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On 12/1/2016 at 11:03 PM, Merc14 said:

Oh please, what in the world could possibly convince you that half a dozen Apollo missions were all faked?   This is NOT about proving Apollo was real, that is beyond rational discussion, it is about a small team of independents being able to launch a rover to the moon and get HD images back!  What an amazing accomplishment if they succeed.  The hoax silliness was put to rest decades ago and shouldn't be brought up in adult conversation.

typical american picking up for their gov who secretly hides everything! if you believe what they tell ya then your sir needs a ct scan on your head.... and you think this team will release info to the pubic without the gov having their hands in it first then your in denial...they will release it 24 hrs later like all rover images after they photoshop them, and a hoax hey? well there is still questions about the landing that aint answered and if they did, what did they find, why a few mins on a different channel that the pubic couldnt listen to, why did 3 of them look so despressed and scared when they arrived back? hiding something? if we went up there and came back we be excited but not them. so question is did they go up? or was it they are good actors saying they did? why so long to go back up? why after roswell we decided to go up then wait till now? anyways  

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4 hours ago, geraldnewfie said:

typical american picking up for their gov who secretly hides everything! if you believe what they tell ya then your sir needs a ct scan on your head.... and you think this team will release info to the pubic without the gov having their hands in it first then your in denial...they will release it 24 hrs later like all rover images after they photoshop them, and a hoax hey? well there is still questions about the landing that aint answered and if they did, what did they find, why a few mins on a different channel that the pubic couldnt listen to, why did 3 of them look so despressed and scared when they arrived back? hiding something? if we went up there and came back we be excited but not them. so question is did they go up? or was it they are good actors saying they did? why so long to go back up? why after roswell we decided to go up then wait till now? anyways  

LOL, Dat Ebil Gibbermint cannot be trusted, but conspiracy theorists can.

What a laugh!! Who needs a CT on their head you reckon??

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