NASA Begins Work on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

soldeed writes "Space.com is reporting the beginning of construction on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Which is scheduled for launch in late fall of 2008. It will orbit the moon at fifty kilometers and image the entire surface at high resolution. A far Ultraviolet instrument will enable it to see into areas permanently in shadow and see if there is indeed ice there. LRO will count craters and image American and Soviet landing sites."

Comments

Re:How can you be sure?

[Don Negro]

Have you personally met anyone who has been to the moon?

Two of them, actually. All part of the fun of growing up near the JSC.

Now What Will THe Hoaxers Say?

[AlterTick]

For months I've been reading the ApolloHoax.net/clavius.org forum wherein a handful of ignorant goofballs continuously argue with scores of rational people about whether the moon landings were faked. When asked what it will take to prove to them that the landings are real, most essentially essentially evade the question because they're not interested in the truth-- they want to believe the conspiracy. But one nut at least likes to ask "why doesn't NASA go back and take some pictures if it's really true?" The rebuttal is usually along the lines of "even if they did, you'd claim THOSE were faked too". It will be interesting to see how long it takes him to start shouting "PHOTOSHOP!" once the pics come out...

Really, I think the best proof that it's not a hoax is that there's no way that many people could keep a secret for that long.

Soviets would not have let us get away with it

[soldeed]

I am 45, and grew up during Apollo missions. I closely followed every mission. I KNOW it happened. It could not be faked. If you disagree, consider, If it were a hoax the Soviet Union and any other country with a radio telescope could tell it was. On launch mornings, the television coverage would include a shot of the Soviet "trawler" hanging off the coast observing the proceedings. In fact, the soviets were very interested in observing our spaceflights. They tracked them in orbit, they tracked them going , decending, acending, and returning from the moon, and then at the splashdown theres another "trawler" hangin around. It was easy to do! you did'nt need a powerful radar as the spacecraft was constantly beaming back telemetry data and radio transmissions in the clear. Unbeknownst to the rest of the world at the time because of their absolute secrecy, the Soviets manned lunar programwas having a little trouble with their N1 boosters blowing up. In light of their own failure, and the general hostile attitude toward the United States, you cannot convince me that they would just stand by and let us evil capitalist pigs get away such a fakery! WE WENT!