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The typical moon-conspiracy-theorist doesn't claim that nothing man-made has reached the moon, only that humans haven't been there. Unmanned probes or laser ref

by brey 13y ago

The typical moon-conspiracy-theorist doesn't claim that nothing man-made has reached the moon, only that humans haven't been there. Unmanned probes or laser reflectors don't present a problem to their world view.

VLM 13y ago
For that matter, from Earth examples, its not terribly hard to find places with volcanic obsidian laying around vs nearly pitch black non-reflective areas. Doesn't help that people were not randomly bouncing laser beams off the moon before the landings. "so there exists a peculiar shiny field of obsidian rocks on the surface in that particular area, so what?" If it were a religious claim that (fill in the blank) put a gold tablet up there, skepticism would be seen as healthy. Personally I think the ham radio AMSAT guys should drop an active transponder on the moon, so EME antennas don't have to be so elaborate. Of course it would only work half the time and temperature cycles would be brutal on the poor thing, but still...
- bostonpete 13y ago
  Why would it only work half the time?
  - VLM 13y ago
    Assuming solar not RTG for power. And the battery bank to make it thru the weeks long lunar night would be enormous. If AMSAT (or partners) did a RTG power source it would certainly be a first, probably not going to happen along with a lunar AMSAT also being a first. Unless they hitch-hiked on a bigger mission. There is some weirdness with certain mountain peaks near the poles being in continuous sunlight. Great spot for a manned colony. Of course that is a lot different in scale from just dropping an unmanned AMSAT transponder. It would be much easier to lunar orbit the device, although less cool than being on the surface. A reasonably low orbit could keep transmitting even in the shade.
- Tuna-Fish 13y ago
  > "so there exists a peculiar shiny field of obsidian rocks on the surface in that particular area, so what?" It's not sufficient for the surface to be shiny. The retroreflector array needs a really specific configuration of mirrors to reflect incoming light from any direction back to it's source. That is rather unlikely to form naturally. Without that, it would only reflect the laser back to earth for a very small portion of moon's orbit, as it doesn't always point exactly to the same direction.
  - lutorm 13y ago
    Interestingly, the full Moon is brighter than one would expect because of a similar phenomenon: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/coherentbcksctr.html http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/coherentbcksctr.html

by brey 13y ago

VLM 13y ago

For that matter, from Earth examples, its not terribly hard to find places with volcanic obsidian laying around vs nearly pitch black non-reflective areas. Doesn't help that people were not randomly bouncing laser beams off the moon before the landings. "so there exists a peculiar shiny field of obsidian rocks on the surface in that particular area, so what?" If it were a religious claim that (fill in the blank) put a gold tablet up there, skepticism would be seen as healthy. Personally I think the ham radio AMSAT guys should drop an active transponder on the moon, so EME antennas don't have to be so elaborate. Of course it would only work half the time and temperature cycles would be brutal on the poor thing, but still...

bostonpete 13y ago
Why would it only work half the time?
- VLM 13y ago
  Assuming solar not RTG for power. And the battery bank to make it thru the weeks long lunar night would be enormous. If AMSAT (or partners) did a RTG power source it would certainly be a first, probably not going to happen along with a lunar AMSAT also being a first. Unless they hitch-hiked on a bigger mission. There is some weirdness with certain mountain peaks near the poles being in continuous sunlight. Great spot for a manned colony. Of course that is a lot different in scale from just dropping an unmanned AMSAT transponder. It would be much easier to lunar orbit the device, although less cool than being on the surface. A reasonably low orbit could keep transmitting even in the shade.
Tuna-Fish 13y ago
> "so there exists a peculiar shiny field of obsidian rocks on the surface in that particular area, so what?" It's not sufficient for the surface to be shiny. The retroreflector array needs a really specific configuration of mirrors to reflect incoming light from any direction back to it's source. That is rather unlikely to form naturally. Without that, it would only reflect the laser back to earth for a very small portion of moon's orbit, as it doesn't always point exactly to the same direction.
- lutorm 13y ago
  Interestingly, the full Moon is brighter than one would expect because of a similar phenomenon: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/coherentbcksctr.html http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/coherentbcksctr.html