NASA recently shot a probe called the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to the Moon. LRO is equipped with a high-res camera of unprecedented quality, able to resolve objects down to a couple feet in size. Of course, the first thing you do when you've got eyes that sharp circling the Moon is look for places you've already been. Also of course, this is a very apt week to do so.
The first picture shows the bottom half of the Apollo 11 lunar lander, which was left on the Moon when Armstrong and Aldrin flew away in the top half. Notice its long shadow stretching out to the right.
Impressive enough, but I like this photo of the Apollo 14 site even more. It not only shows the base of the lunar lander but the actual footpath Alan Shepard and Ed Mitchell scuffed in the dust as they set out their equipment! Wow!
I understand that even higher-quality images will be available in coming weeks. None of this will convince the moonbats who think NASA and the U.S. faked the whole thing, of course. After all, who's the source of these pictures? The reality-based rest of us are free to marvel.
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that is sooooooooooooooo cool.
ReplyDeleteand it saddens me to think some people can't appreciate just how cool it is.
their loss.
Cool stuff indeed.
ReplyDeleteAs for the "It's a hoax" crowd, you could send them to the moon in person and have them stomp around in space suits and they'd still say it wasn't the real thing.
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ReplyDeleteBlogpost here.
Sligo and Namowal, I cut the young some slack because it is hard to really internalize how amazing something is when you've grown up in a universe in which it has always existed. I understand why it's mostly old guys like me who tear up a little remembering not just Apollo, but a time when we didn't have neat little probes like LRO that could just pop up to the Moon and take pictures of things the size of pizza boxes. But I can't cut the Moon Hoax people any slack at all--they're just not trying to use their brains.
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