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First Commercial Moon Mission Approved
dorantrist writes "A Discovery Channel article that The U.S. Government has just licensed the first commercial mission to the moon to TransOrbital, Inc.. Part of the mission is "to VERIFY Apollo and other landing sites" because there are still a few people out there who believe the Apollo program was a hoax. --Maybe they can also pickup the golf balls left by Alan Shepard?"
Who thinks that people silly enough to believe the first trip to the moon was a hoax will now believe that this trip is for real?
I wanna know what right the US has to grant commercial missions to the moon. Like we are the only country that has rights to the moon as a resource.
The next big wars will be over space shipping lanes.
riley
lander: we are now returning with alan sheperds balls.
base: what was that? (chuckle)
lander: i said were returning with alan shepards balls.
base: hehe, sweet. did you use the retractable cup tool to scoop them up?
lander: yes, we used the cup.
base: would you say that your... hehehehehe, cupping alan shepards balls?
lander: umm, yes, weve successfully cupped his balls.... do you guys hear laughing over the frequency cutting in?
base: oh no, no laughing here. would you say your excited to be cupping....
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Okay, so let's see. We have the technology to digitally edit people out of video scenes in REALTIME. We have the technology to digitally add in elements to a video scene (I would assume in realtime). We have the technology to do damn near anything we want digitally, given enough time and servers, short of making fully-believable humans. And some pictures supposedly sent back from a satellite is going to convince someone who thinks they managed to fake the moon landings 30+ years ago that they were wrong? Riiiiight.
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
"Trailblazer is expected to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan within the next nine to 12 months. "
So, WTF does it have to do withthe US government?
From the Space Law pages:
"The Outer Space Treaty states that States Parties shall bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, whether such activities are carried out by governmental agencies or non-governmental entities, and for assuring that national activities are carried out in conformity with the provisions set forth in the treaty. The Treaty further states that the activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party."
Presumably TransOrbital is registered in the US, so the US government will be responsible for supervising any activities.
Actually it is rocket science...
There wouldn't be any strip mines. The moon doesn't appear to have layers of strata that require removal of the surface to access.
The surface *is* the material we want: metallic oxides, rich in yummy aluminum, titanium, iron and O2.
To mine it, you merely scoop it up into a truck.
As for marring the beauty of the surface, the moon has none to speak of. It looks like Verdun after WW I.
I'm all for preserving natural beauty on earth, and mining the moon for material would be great help in reducing mining on earth. As far as I'm concerned, the moon is a lovely resource.
You could not see the activities on the moon from Earth anyway, not without a major scope. You'd never notice a thing.
There's nothing ALIVE on the moon, so we should use it.
I think life appearing on a dead world would spruce it up a bit.
that was brought up in the fox documentary about the moon landing?
For the most part, any first year physics student could counter the arguments in the documentary, which is why there were no real physicists on the show. The one that they had merely said something to the effect of "Yeah, there are a lot of crackpots out there".
For example:
1. The astronaut is climing down the lander, and is in shadow, yet his space suit is brightly lit, suggesting a studio lighting scenario.
Answer: You may have noticed that the moon reflects light. This is why it allows us to see at night.
2. The pictures are exceptionally clear, yet the astronauts were not trained photographers.
Answer: any photograph taken in a vacuum will look more clear, due to less distortion from the atmosphere.
3. There is a picture of the lander, and some rocks around it, then a picture of the "same scene" with no lander.
Answer: Due to the lack of atmosphere on the moon, large boulders and even mountains may appear to look like close-up rocks when photographed.
4. The lander just appears to "take off", with no acceleration.
Answer: That's because it was a "catapult", you idiot, not a rocket. Escape velocity on the moon is tiny compared to earth, so a large enough explosion will do the trick.
5. The flag appears to be "waving in the wind".
Answer: only when the astronaut is touching it, you retard. When he lets go, it just sits there. I can make a flag wave too. Even with no wind. Imagine that.
There were other, equally stupid pieces of "evidence", but there was ONE thing I could not explain.
In some of the photos, the camera's crosshair is *partially behind* the scene. How is that possible unless the photos were airbrushed?
WWJD? JWRTFA!
...many Europeans still don't believe people have actually landed on the North American continent!
;)
Many believe that life on other continents is just to absurd an idea to take seriously. Or, if life is there, the ocean is just too big a distance to cross, so we will never know.
In fact there is an European internet project called SATI@home, or Search for American Territories Intelligence, that is listening for intelligent life in North America. This project may fail though. If there is life in North America, it is likely that Europeans would never be able to decode the meaning of any of the messages or culture.
Many Europeans think its all just political mumbo jumbo anyway.
"The concept most foreign in all religions is that of a universe existing forever. Beginnings and endings are a fools dream."
-Anonymous
Who thinks that people silly enough to believe the first trip to the moon was a hoax will now believe that this trip is for real?
That was my first thought too.
But then I realized that the solution is obvious: We just need to round up all the people who think that the moon landing was a hoax, take them to the moon, and -- this is the important bit -- leave them there.
"The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life"
1) The remote-sensing permit from NOAA assures that we act in accordance with international treaties in regard to the imaging. NOAA also inspects for compliance with other things, like the Outer Space Treaty (especially with regards to space debris control).
see http://www.licensing.noaa.gov/
2) The export permit lets us ship the spacecraft to Baikonur for launch. State does a rather meticulous inspection of the company's methods for handling technology security to avoid illegal technology transfer.
see http://www.pmdtc.org
Calm down. It's because it's a US corporation, and according to international law, the US is responsible for policing anything from it's borders that goes up there. If they were a French company, they'd need to satisfy the French government's requirements. Scroll back on up this forum - someone cited the exact law, agreed to by the united nations.
Sheesh.
--
Evan (no reference)
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
If you are actually trying to claim it's a hoax - I'm not sure - then think about the *difficulty* of pulling this off... what follows is quoted from another /. thread long ago. It covers most of the difficulties rather nicely I think.
#
For the interest of Slashdot readers, national governments, and any other interested organization, I am posting instructions on how to fake a moon landing and not get caught for 30 years.
Before the Landing
Put out a request for tenders for a contract to build the lunar hardware to major aerospace companies. It would be pretty obvious after the fact that no one had built your launchers and landers.
In the contracts, give a specification that would lead the 10,000 engineers who work on the project to reasonably believe that the equipment could be used to land on the moon. Engineers are smart people; they could easily spot holes in your assumptions if you make the requirements less stringent than they have to be. If it were obvious that the hardware couldn't land on the moon, you would be caught.
Have the hardward manufactured and delivered. Again easy to spot if this wasn't done, especially for a Saturn V-class rocket and related assemblies.
In summary: You would actually have to build stuff that would probably be able to land a man on the moon, with all the associated expenses.
During the missions:
You will actually have to launch the thing you contracted to build. You could launch something else -- but why bother? We've already established that you have to build a moon rocket, and you'd have to pay off everyone who was involved in its destruction and substitution. Besides, it would be big news, so news organizations would want to film the launch of the big rocket.
So, the capsule could be suborbital, or stay in orbit, and the rest of the mission could be faked, right? Wrong. Antennas around the world will be tracking the radio signals from the capsule, including the continuous telemetry feeds. Something would have to go to the moon, on a realistic lunar trajectory, or this would be immediately spotted by legions of radio astronomers and HAM radio amateurs around the world, many of whom have advanced signal processing available to them (like Doppler analysis, etc.). They would also be able to tell the difference between a lunar trajectory and a different orbit, like a geosynchronous orbit, because of the moon's particular position in the sky.
So, the capsule has to go to the moon. Does it have to orbit? Yes. The capsule must stay in the vicinity of the moon for several days (again checked by those with large radio antennas). The only foolproof way to do that is to orbit.
So, the capsule has to orbit. Does it have to land? Yes. While in orbit, the capsule can't communicate with Earth from the far side of the moon. Yet a lander must be able to send continuous telemetry to the Earth. It would be pretty obvious fakery to have the "lander"'s telemetry fade out at the same time as the capsule's.
Does it have to come back? Yes; for the same trajectory reason. The return trajectory could be tracked.
Does the capsule/lander have to be manned? Not necessarily, but there would be many complications if it weren't. You would have to be able to carry on ground/capsule communications in a realistic manner even though the communications from the capsule would have to be recorded and beamed back (because your radio is being monitored). The "astronauts" would be unable to perform any diagnostic tasks aboard the spacecraft (because they're not aboard it), so the entire flight control team would have to be in on the hoax (dozens, even hundreds, of people to pay off).
In summary: You would have to actually send something to the moon, which may as well be manned.
After the Landing
Bring back tons of "moon rocks" and other materials for analysis by independent scientists around the world. These rocks could not be obviously of terrestrial origin, implying some exotic materials science (or creative geology). Either that or pay off anyone who comes in contact with the "lunar samples".
And if you're NASA - do this seven times, with one of the seven attempts turning into a remarkably realistic failure.
The upshot: It's equally easy and expensive to actually land a man on the moon than fake it convincingly. Furthermore, the evidence for fakery would not be found in trivial forms of evidence, like photographs, but in more obvious places, like contracts, accounting, radio monitoring, and the lunar samples themselves.
There's no $$$ in 'team'...
www..--..net - for incisive, w