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Announce that you are launching a dummy payload at escape velocity+ to test your new heavy lift vehicle. Something silly, like a Tesla roadster. Once it's beyon

by T-A 7y ago

Announce that you are launching a dummy payload at escape velocity+ to test your new heavy lift vehicle. Something silly, like a Tesla roadster. Once it's beyond radar range (a few tens of millions of km should do), discard the silly shell and fire up the ion engine. Let it run for six months, then wait a couple of years for the final rendezvous maneuver with the moon. With nobody looking for it, the small, stealthy, silent probe which you hid inside the Tesla shell is very unlikely to be detected.

throw0101a 7y ago
NASA can track stuff that's quite small, so it's going to be hard to be "stealthy": > Currently, about 23,000 objects larger than a baseball are tracked by the US Air Force from the ground. Knowing their position, satellites can be moved if they’re in danger of a collision, and even the entire ISS can be moved to avoid hitting something. * https://www.iflscience.com/space/space-junk-as-small-as-a-grain-of-sand-will-be-tracked-by-a-new-sensor-launching-this-week/ https://www.iflscience.com/space/space-junk-as-small-as-a-gr... New space-based sensors are detecting very small pieces: > Now, NASA hopes to learn more about the dust-size microdebris orbiting Earth with the Space Debris Sensor (SDS), set to be attached to the International Space Station (ISS) following a 4 December cargo launch by SpaceX. * https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/nasa-sensor-study-space-junk-too-small-be-seen-earth https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/nasa-sensor-study-sp...
- T-A 7y ago
  Those are a few hundred km above Earth. The moon is 384 thousand km further away, and there is no particular reason to watch it closely.
  - throw0101a 7y ago
    To get to the moon you have to pass through LEO et al. So while the moon specifically may not be watched closely, the paths that you have to cross to get there may be.
    - T-A 7y ago
      Yes, and that's why the solution (which you can read three levels above your reply) is to launch something on an escape trajectory, and then loop back toward Earth once it's out of sight.

by T-A 7y ago

throw0101a 7y ago

NASA can track stuff that's quite small, so it's going to be hard to be "stealthy": > Currently, about 23,000 objects larger than a baseball are tracked by the US Air Force from the ground. Knowing their position, satellites can be moved if they’re in danger of a collision, and even the entire ISS can be moved to avoid hitting something. * https://www.iflscience.com/space/space-junk-as-small-as-a-grain-of-sand-will-be-tracked-by-a-new-sensor-launching-this-week/ https://www.iflscience.com/space/space-junk-as-small-as-a-gr... New space-based sensors are detecting very small pieces: > Now, NASA hopes to learn more about the dust-size microdebris orbiting Earth with the Space Debris Sensor (SDS), set to be attached to the International Space Station (ISS) following a 4 December cargo launch by SpaceX. * https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/nasa-sensor-study-space-junk-too-small-be-seen-earth https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/nasa-sensor-study-sp...

T-A 7y ago
Those are a few hundred km above Earth. The moon is 384 thousand km further away, and there is no particular reason to watch it closely.
- throw0101a 7y ago
  To get to the moon you have to pass through LEO et al. So while the moon specifically may not be watched closely, the paths that you have to cross to get there may be.
  - T-A 7y ago
    Yes, and that's why the solution (which you can read three levels above your reply) is to launch something on an escape trajectory, and then loop back toward Earth once it's out of sight.