why are we not allowed to look at lunar landing sites with the hubble telescope?
lobo from 71 asked:
you can buy time to use the hubble telescope but federal law bands the use to study the moon unless you are santioned by the military..why? maybe it is part of a cover up..like there are no landing sites to study, because it never happened?
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you can buy time to use the hubble telescope but federal law bands the use to study the moon unless you are santioned by the military..why? maybe it is part of a cover up..like there are no landing sites to study, because it never happened?
August 17th, 2009 at 8:13 am
do you have a citation for this preposterous claim?
they can and they do take pictures of the moon with hubble, but it is better imaged by other instruments, and they have far better things to look at.
if you knew anything at all about optics you would also know that hubble is far too small to image apollo hardware.
August 18th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
The Hubble telescope is not big enough to see the detail required for looking at a lunar landing site.
However, there is a very good camera in orbit above the moon which took some very interesting pictures.
August 21st, 2009 at 8:21 am
The Hubble really isn’t designed for looking at the moon, for one thing the moon moves across the sky at a different rate than the background stars so getting the HST to track the moon creates a whole set of problems although it has been done. Time on the HST is a valuable commodity and besides the Apollo landing sites have all been recently imaged by a lunar orbiter. In any event the HST mirror is 2.4 meters which is not particularly large and doesn’t give it the resolution to see tiny detail However that was the biggest size that would fit in the Space Shuttle so they went with it. There is no conspiracy if that is what you are getting at.
August 21st, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Sigh, conspiracy theorists believe what they want to believe and attempting to reason with them is totally futile.
The holocaust didn’t happen either.
And the U.S. military was behind the 9-11 attacks.
And, our own government shot down that TWA 747 over long island sound.
And you’re an idiot.
August 24th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Where did you hear this nonsense? The military has absolutely no say in the use of the Hubble Space Telescope. It can’t image the Moon because the Moon is too bright and would damage the Hubble’s sensors. I gather there is also trouble tracking the Moon because it is so close and moves so fast. The landing sites were recently imaged by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter:
I thoroughly sick of conspiracy nuts who haven’t done their homework!
August 25th, 2009 at 6:34 am
The military has no say in how the Hubble is used.
Waste of time and money to use the Hubble to view something that is capable of being imaged by instruments already orbiting the moon.
Hubble tracking probably could not track the moon well enough to get pictures anyway.
Sensitivity of the Hubble instruments not made for imaging something as close as the moon.
Already have images of the landing sites on the moon…………….not a conspiracy…………..GET OVER IT.
August 26th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I agree with the fact you should source your information, however I don’t buy all of the answers given below for the reasons of not using the Hubble to better view the moon. It is after all very similar in design to keyhole observation satellites used to view the earth.
I am not a conspiracy theorist, but after watching a recent documentary where some very well known Scientist and even a few Astronauts doubted that we ever visited the moon and then listening to their reasons why they believe what they believe, even I am now skeptical. Amazingly a few days after the airing of this program NASA posted their pictures of the moon that were supposed to prove the moon landings took place. Look at those piss poor pictures and tell me they convince you of anything other than the fact that NASA must be totally inept when it comes to photographs.
August 27th, 2009 at 7:35 am
If the lunar lander is to small to see then why wouldent they let you look at those spots? You cant see them right? I think its shady.
August 28th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Some people say “The Holocaust” never happened.
I say those people are full of themselves because they are limited. That’s two strikes against them right off the bat.
There are witnesses still alive. That makes you…. paranoid? delusional? … really limited?
August 31st, 2009 at 9:30 pm
“maybe it is part of a cover up..like there are no landing sites to study, because it never happened?”
Or maybe the light reflected off the moon is so bright that it would fry the optics? Or maybe the sites are better photographed from lunar orbit, as was done (and the photos released to the public) by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter? Or maybe the Hubble has a limited amount of life left and NASA doesn’t want to waste any of that time needlessly looking at the moon when we have probes such as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in lunar orbit, taking hi resolution pictures?
September 1st, 2009 at 3:36 am
Hubble has photographed the Apollo 17 landing site and the photographs are online, but it does not have enough resolution to show something as small as the Apollo hardware still on the Moon.
It is not true that you can buy time to use the hubble telescope but federal law prohibits the use to study the Moon.
The new Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has photographed the sites and the photographs do show the Apollo hardware and are online for all to see.
September 2nd, 2009 at 11:36 pm
it’s not a question of if it’s not allowed. It’s a question of it’s not possible. the Hubble Space Telescope has a resolution to observe large objects at great distances, not small objects at small distances. in other words.. it cant photograph something as small as the lunar landers on the surface of the moon.
edit… i stand corrected.. i guess federal law does prohibit that… im from canada, so i didnt know. also, if it was a coverup and we didnt go, why would nasa celebrate the 40th anniversary… why wouldnt they just keep it quiet?