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BS: Back to the Moon
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BS: Back to the Moon |
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Subject: BS: Back to the Moon From: beardedbruce Date: 28 Aug 13 - 09:12 AM NASA Prepares for First Virginia Coast Launch to Moon In an attempt to answer prevailing questions about our moon, NASA is making final preparations to launch a probe at 8:27 p.m. PDT Friday, Sept. 6, from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. The small car-sized Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) is a robotic mission that will orbit the moon to gather detailed information about the structure and composition of the thin lunar atmosphere and determine whether dust is being lofted into the lunar sky. A thorough understanding of these characteristics of our nearest celestial neighbor will help researchers understand other bodies in the solar system, such as large asteroids, Mercury, and the moons of outer planets. "The moon's tenuous atmosphere may be more common in the solar system than we thought," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science in Washington. "Further understanding of the moon's atmosphere may also help us better understand our diverse solar system and its evolution." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Back to the Moon From: beardedbruce Date: 28 Aug 13 - 09:41 AM CHINA TO LAUNCH UNMANNED LUNAR LANDER BY YEAR-END Aug. 28 9:32 AM EDT BEIJING (AP) — China said Wednesday it will launch its first unmanned lunar lander by the end of this year, complete with a radio-controlled rover to transmit images and dig into the moon's surface to test samples. The Chang'e 3 lander has officially moved from the design to the launch stage, the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense said in a statement. The Chang'e 3 and another lander will remain on the moon's surface, although China plans to follow those with landers that will return to Earth with samples. A crewed lunar mission could also be launched if officials decide to combine the human spaceflight and lunar exploration programs. China has recently focused on its manned flight program, sending two missions to temporarily crew the Tiangong 1 experimental space station. Launched in 2011, the station is due to be replaced by a three-module permanent station, Tiangong 2, in seven years. China sent its first astronaut into space in 2003, becoming the third nation after Russia and the United States to achieve manned space travel independently. The military-backed space program is a source of enormous national pride and has powered ahead in a series of well-funded, methodically timed steps. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Back to the Moon From: beardedbruce Date: 28 Aug 13 - 09:42 AM RUSSIA PLANS UNMANNED MOON MISSION IN 2015 Jan. 15 4:27 AM EST MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian Space Agency says it will send an unmanned spacecraft to the moon in 2015 from a new launch pad in the country's Far East. Roscosmos head Vladimir Popovkin told Russian news agencies on Tuesday that the rocket booster would deliver a 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) space exploration vehicle with up to 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of scientific equipment that would search for water and take soil samples. Popovkin said the moon-bound spacecraft would be launched from Russia's new Vostochny cosmodrome. President Vladimir Putin has vowed to invest $1 billion in building this launch pad in the Amur Region not far from the Chinese border. Russia's last and only moon mission was accomplished in 1973. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Back to the Moon From: beardedbruce Date: 28 Aug 13 - 09:47 AM NASA, EUROPEANS UNITING TO SEND SPACESHIP TO MOON By MARCIA DUNN — Jan. 16 2:39 PM EST CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA is teaming up with the European Space Agency to get astronauts beyond Earth's orbit. Europe will provide the propulsion and power compartment for NASA's new Orion crew capsule, officials said Wednesday. This so-called service module will be based on Europe's supply ship used for the International Space Station. Orion's first trip is an unmanned mission in 2017. Any extra European parts will be incorporated in the first manned mission of Orion in 2021. NASA's human exploration chief, Bill Gerstenmaier, said both missions will be aimed at the vicinity of the moon. The exact details are being worked out; lunar fly-bys, rather than landings, are planned. NASA wants to ultimately use the bell-shaped Orion spacecraft to carry astronauts to asteroids and Mars. International cooperation will be crucial for such endeavors, Gerstenmaier told reporters. The United States has yet to establish a clear path forward for astronauts, 1½ years after NASA's space shuttles stopped flying. The basic requirements for Orion spacecraft are well understood regardless of the destination, allowing work to proceed, Gerstenmaier said. "You don't design a car to just go to the grocery store," he told reporters. Getting to 2017 will be challenging, officials for both space programs acknowledged. Gerstenmaier said he's not "100 percent comfortable" putting Europe in such a crucial role. "But I'm never 100 percent comfortable" with spaceflight, he noted. "We'll see how it goes, but we've done it smartly." The space station helped build the foundation for this new effort, he said. Former astronaut Thomas Reiter, Europe's director of human spaceflight, said it makes sense for the initial Orion crew to include Europeans. For now, though, the focus is on the technical aspects, he said. NASA will supply no-longer-used space shuttle engines for use on the service modules. Reiter put the total European contribution at nearly $600 million. Orion originally was part of NASA's Constellation program that envisioned moon bases in the post-shuttle era. President Barack Obama canceled Constellation, but Orion was repurposed and survived. A test flight of the capsule is planned for next year; it will fly 3,600 miles away and then return. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Back to the Moon From: beardedbruce Date: 28 Aug 13 - 10:17 AM Moon Water Discovery Hints at Mystery Source Deep Underground by Mike Wall, Senior Writer 2 hours ago Evidence of water spotted on the moon's surface by a sharp-eyed spacecraft likely originated from an unknown source deep in the lunar interior, scientists say. The find — made by NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 probe — marks the first detection of such "magmatic water" from lunar orbit and confirms analyses performed recently on moon rocks brought to Earth by Apollo astronauts four decades ago, researchers said. "Now that we have detected water that is likely from the interior of the moon, we can start to compare this water with other characteristics of the lunar surface," study lead author Rachel Klima, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., said in a statement. [Water on the Moon: The Search in Photos] "This internal magmatic water also provides clues about the moon's volcanic processes and internal composition, which helps us address questions about how the moon formed, and how magmatic processes changed as it cooled," Klima added. View gallery." Scientists have detected evidence of water from the moon's interior in Bullialdus Crater. Pictured i … The Moon Mineralogy Mapper, or M3, imaged a 37-mile-wide (60 kilometers) impact crater near the lunar equator called Bullialdus, whose central peak is composed of a type of rock that forms when magma is trapped deep underground. This rock was excavated and exposed by the impact that formed Bullialdus, Klima said. "Compared to its surroundings, we found that the central portion of this crater contains a significant amount of hydroxyl — a molecule consisting of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom — which is evidence that the rocks in this crater contain water that originated beneath the lunar surface," she said. The solar wind — the stream of charged particles flowing from the sun — can create thin layers of water molecules when it strikes the lunar surface. Indeed, M3 found such water near the poles when it mapped the moon's surface in 2009. But scientists think the solar wind can only form significant quantities of surface water at high latitudes, ruling out this process as the source of the stuff in the more equatorial Bullialdus Crater. The new findings, which are detailed in the Aug. 25 edition of the journal Nature Geoscience, further fuel scientists' growing realization that the moon is not the bone-dry place it was long assumed to be. There are those 2009 observations by the M3 instrument, for example. Also in 2009, NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite mission smashed an impactor into the moon's permanently shadowed Cabeus Crater, throwing up a huge plume of water vapor and ice particles. Scientists now think many polar craters on the moon harbor large amounts of water ice — so much, in fact, that firms such as the Shackleton Energy Company and Moon Express aim to mine this ice and turn it into rocket propellant to help fuel humanity's expansion out into the solar system. Chandrayaan-1 was India's first robotic moon probe. The spacecraft launched in October 2008 and sent an impactor into the lunar surface a month later, making India the fourth nation to plant its flag on the moon. Chandrayaan-1 continued making science observations from lunar orbit until August 2009, when it abruptly stopped communicating with Earth. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Back to the Moon From: Ebbie Date: 28 Aug 13 - 10:55 AM Question: Does all water contain equal parts? Is water found in one place identical in composition to that found in any other place? I don't mean additives such as alkali and acid but at the molecular level? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Back to the Moon From: beardedbruce Date: 28 Aug 13 - 11:34 AM All water is H2O There MIGHT be some isotope difference. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Back to the Moon From: Rapparee Date: 28 Aug 13 - 09:55 PM Oh, boy! I want some deuterium dioxide! Gallons of it! I've got this, ah, project I've been working on. Can you direct me to a source for lithium VI deuteride as well? D don't need a lot of it. A couple of kilograms will suffice. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Back to the Moon From: GUEST,Shimrod Date: 29 Aug 13 - 03:32 AM Thank God there's no life on the Moon! If there was, it wouldn't be long before we would be merrily exterminating it! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Back to the Moon From: Dave the Gnome Date: 29 Aug 13 - 03:58 AM Thank God there's no life on the Moon! How do you know? It could be life, Shim, but not as we know it... :D tG |
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Subject: RE: BS: Back to the Moon From: G-Force Date: 29 Aug 13 - 08:44 AM All together now: Streets full of people, all alone ... Everyone's gone to the moon. Looks like it's finally coming true. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Back to the Moon From: GUEST,Shimrod Date: 29 Aug 13 - 12:46 PM That's true, Dave I don't know - although I'm prepared to bet (a small sum) that there's no life up there. Nevertheless, if life does exist on the Moon - in whatever form - it will be f**ked when lots of humans start going there! After all, the main function of human beings seems to be to exterminate all (other)life on Earth - why stop there? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Back to the Moon From: Rapparee Date: 29 Aug 13 - 03:17 PM Could be, we've found life thriving in some very, very strange place right here on Earth. And it's anybody's guess about Europa. I hope humanity DOES go back...and stays. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Back to the Moon From: GUEST,Ron Date: 30 Aug 13 - 09:36 AM Would it take 40 years or more to go to the moon again if there were no secrets to be hidden? Come on. Can you think outside the box? http://www.evawaseerst.be/spaceshipmoon.htm |
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Subject: RE: BS: Back to the Moon From: skarpi Date: 31 Aug 13 - 05:07 AM Why ? , they are on the MOON and have been there since from the 1960 ... all this cover up crap ...why is NASA spending all this money when its already ..there .. I guess it looked better to the US if they spend this money on Healthcare for its people , and food and homes . Sorry folks ..but this is how it is ...just tell me this :when you look at pictures from the Moon taken by NASA they are blurred why ?? what is it that they don´t want us to see or know about ? how stupid do they think people are ? ...there are a lot of new pictures taken by Russia and Japan of the Moon and they show it all , the Us is up there and so are the Russian ...once a good man said to me , all lie , will turn against you in the end and it will pop up on the surface. just wait and see one day they have to tell , just like Area 51 ...witch is more than they tell us .. |
