Slashdot Mirror
Protecting the Apollo Landing Sites From Later Landings
R3d M3rcury writes "The Lunar X-Prize is a contest offering $20 million to the first private organization to land and maneuver a robotic rover on the moon. There is also a $1 million bonus to anyone who can get a picture of a man-made object on the moon. But one archeologist believes that 'The sites of early lunar landings are of unparalleled significance in the history of humanity, and extraordinary caution should be taken to protect them.' He's concerned that we may end up with rover tracks destroying historic artifacts, such as Neil Armstrong's first bootprint, or that a mistake could send a rocket slamming into a landing site. He calls on the organizers to ban any contestant from landing within 100KM of a prior moon landing site. Now he seems to think this just means Apollo. What about the Luna and Surveyor landers? What about the Lunokhod rovers? Are they fair game?"
How many places would remain if all those spots are banned? There are only so much good landing sites on the Moon.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Erosion has probably already destroyed the first footsteps on the Moon.
And keeping people away from the original "landing site" will keep them from figuring out that the first moon landing was faked by the government. (Or was it faked by our evil reptilian overlords? I can never keep that straight.)
Yeah.... and you know who was the best example of that? Captain Fucking James T. Kirk.
You think one of the "red shirts" got to do it with a green alien babe? Of course not. It was Captain Kirk nailing all the Intergalactic Strange throughout the Alpha Quadrant.
If we had that future, you would still be bitching. Your best option would be the overweight Bolian chick down in engineering. You would NOT want to go down to the planet. All you would ever hear about it is how Captain Kirk made it up back up with just a few seconds to spare, shirtless with sucker marks all over him, but Steve the poor S.O.B that transferred last week died a horrible death on the planet while some strange alien animal was sodomizing his corpse. Steve's parents would have to get a message about how his cause of death was "mauling by alien genitalia on Rontos 5".
People who spray paint anything on the Grand Canyon should be shot on sight.
Great, then you get partially-finished graffiti _and_ blood stains on the walls.
Fry: Look! It's the moon landing site! We found it!
Leela: Fry, get in here.
Fry: It's that flag from MTV, and Neil Armstrong's footprint!
[Puts his foot over Armstrong's footprint, leaving a Nike footprint in its place]
Fry: Hey, my foot's bigger. Leela, isn't this the greatest thing you've ever seen?
Leela: Fry, look around! It's just a crummy plastic flag and a dead man's tracks in the dust. Now get in here before you freeze.
Are we gonna freeze Lance Armstrong when he dies?
What does some bicyclist have to do with preserving the moon?
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
So what you are saying is we should make our OWN lunar landing site, with blackjack, and hookers. In fact, forget about the lunar landing site.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies