highest resolving ever video of moon rotating done by NASA

[kds315*]

High Resolution:
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/DOWNLOADS/lroc_wac643nm_Moon_rotation.mov

on Youtube smaller here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNUNB6CMnE8&feature=player_embedded#t=2

done using NASA’s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Reconnaissance_Orbiter

[iangreenhalgh1]

Fascinating, thanks for sharing.

[Rick1779]

Wonderful!

[cooltouch]

Apparently the LRO has the resolving capability of 100 meters, which isn't great, but it isn't bad, either. Sent up in 2009 to thoroughly map the moon in anticipation of future space flights to the moon. One can only hope. Okay, that was four years ago. In the 1960s, four years after Kennedy's announcement that the US would go to the moon, we were well on our way, halfway there, in fact, in the middle of the Gemini program. We're still in the discussion stage now. And has anyone noticed the "vehicle" that they're proposing that gets used for the return to the moon? It's funny watching the news about this. Nobody is stating the obvious in the discussions and interviews. It's like the 800 pound gorilla in the room that nobody wants to admit is there. The damn thing is a clone of the Apollo spacecraft of the late 1960s. If they're gonna reuse Apollo, what's the hold-up? That thing had been proved and declared spaceworthy -- and trip to the Moon worthy -- over 40 years ago! And what about a delivery vehicle? I haven't heard much of anything about that. The Saturn V rocket that launched Apollo to the Moon was one of the largest such rockets ever built. There's one sitting on static display about thirty miles from where I sit right now at NASA's Johnson Space Center, south of Houston. And once NASA starts having the new versions built, I can just hear the screams now from the professional protesters accusing NASA of allowing babies to starve because they're spending money on such frivolous things as a space exploration venture. Idiots. I'm reminded of the famous quote by Robert Heinlein: "The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in." That, my friends, is the reason for space exploration. It is to preserve the species, not to add a few pretty photos to somebody's wall or to add to our dwindling collection of moon rocks.

I've been a strong supporter of a manned space program my entire life, but legislators in Washington DC seem to prefer diverting NASA dollars over to high profile subjects that give them face time in front of the cameras instead. It's sickening and embarrassing. The NASA budget gets lost in the significant figures of the USA's entitlements budget. Does the US and Europe really want the future of space exploration to belong to the Chinese only? Because that's what's gonna happen unless we wise up and do what's necessary.

Sorry for the rant, but this subject really winds me up.

[kds315*]

Sometimes I wonder if I should really post stuff like this or just enjoy it for myself...

[LucisPictor]

[cooltouch]

[Farside]

[fermy]

Fascinating video, thanks for posting, Klaus.

As to the issue of space travel and mountain goats... IMHO, putting manned space exploration on the back burner was a wise decision. It's clear that our current space flight technology is too inefficient and too expensive to be practical. If we are to colonize other planets, different technology is needed. Right now the money is better spent on improving the technology rather than on the flights themselves.

[cooltouch]

I agree and disagree. If there was any news out there about NASA developing innovative propulsion systems, I wouldn't be as vocal and strident as I am. But there's precious little coming from NASA about innovative propulsion systems.

I disagree because I think that the act of exploration itself reveals situations and their solutions that are not always evident in the laboratory. We discover more than new territory when we embark upon missions of discovery. Also, doing so tends to push technology faster than it would otherwise develop. Next to warfare, the space program has pushed technological development faster than any other method.

[Farside]

I agree; look at the airy-fairy nonsense talked about hydroponic gardens on spaceships and how the Biosphere II project fared. That took a lot of people by surprise and it's just as well the theory was tested in that way, at least.
Mind you, even if it had worked the crew members would have murdered each other before much longer, as they weren't at all suited for that. One would expect NASA or whoever to select much more rigorously.

[fermy]

Sure, I am not going to argue that politicians got their priority right. For example, it would be obviously to public benefit to spend a significant share of the money that goes to military and abhorrent eavesdropping programs to science in general and space exploration in particular. However, we've hit upon an obvious bottleneck and I doubt we are going to see much of a technological benefit out of space program until that bottleneck is traversed. You simply wouldn't be able to put enough ships in space for any large scale scientific development.

[cooltouch]

Well, you're probably right. But necessity is the mother of invention, as they say. If something significant were to happen to severely damage the Earth's biosphere, I would expect to see all sorts of designs for orbital life-support systems to pop up all over the place. Or, let's say that we were lucky enough to spot a small asteroid the size of the Chicxulub object, which supposedly wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, in time to do something about it. The Chicxulub impact was an extinction event. So faced with something as calamitous as a Chicxulub sized event, the human race would be faced with two options: prepare life support structures that could house people deep underground for a prolonged period of time, or retreat to space and build self-sustaining colonies in Earth orbit, or possibly even on the Moon. Farfetched? Was getting to the Moon far-fetched when Kennedy announced his goals in 1961? But the big difference between Kennedy's goal and something like an asteroid impact is the impact has a high necessity factor. Are humans smart enough to develop self-sustaining facilities in near Earth orbit or on the Moon? I believe we are, without a doubt. And that we have enough reserve brain power and capacity that if we run into problems, we will discover and invent ways to overcome them.

[Farside]

I do believe we will have to crack living on the Moon, unsupported eventually. From there, Mars in a century.
That's always assuming the human race hasn't gassed, nuked or poisoned itself by then.
Stand on Zanzibar is worth a read.

[fermy]

[Farside]

[fermy]

Current asteroid impact risks:
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/

[cooltouch]

Yes, the probability of an impact is almost zero, but what Farside is pointing out is the "unknown factor" if you will. Which is a very real possibility that an object might get very close before we even realize it's there. This sort of thing exists outside of any probability equation simply because it is unknown. I note that there is no table in the JPL data for "Objects Not Discovered" and how could there be?

[fermy]

Actually the probability of "unknown factor" is fairly easy to estimate. You just count the density of asteroids of a given size in this sector of the universe (that's observable value), then assume that an asteroid can have any position and velocity with equal probability, then count how many of those positions and velocities will result in an impact with Earth. The resulting probability will be very close to 0, of course.