SMART-1 to Image Apollo Landing Sites 36
An anonymous reader writes "Space.com is reporting that the European Space Agency's SMART-1 probe is imaging the Apollo landing sites on the moon. The resolution may be good enough to see mineral evidence of the blasts created by landing craft. Photos expected too. The article says it "might put to rest conspiratorial thoughts that U.S. astronauts didn't go the distance and scuff up the lunar landscape." I wouldn't bet my Buzz Aldrin doll that hoax buffs will cease and desist."
Of course, we really did go (Score:3, Interesting)
As an undergrad at Rice Univ, I took a space physics class for non-space physics majors taught by the chair of the space physics dept. The prof. happpened to have designed a bunch of the experiment packages that went to the moon during Apollo. He was pretty definite that the Apollo astronauts really had gone to the moon and played with his experiments.
More recently, I had the very humbling experience of talking to a NASA engineer who had been in the control room when the Apollo 1 crew perished. Even today, the memory of that day brought tears to his eyes.
Re:We landed on the Moon. (Score:2, Interesting)
It would explain a whole lot if it turns out that radiation screwed up the film, or they just plain old forgot it or something. I think we did land there (due to the laser reflectors), but some of the rational for the faked photos seems to make some sense.
So we were there IMO, but someone botched up the film, or they just looked crappy enough that someone said... ughhh - they are going to kill us for spending all that money and someones glove finger was over the lense.
But thats just my opinion
Re:NASA missed an opportunity. (Score:3, Interesting)
Nobody's ever taken up the offer, but there's a pretty obvious counter to it, which I think has already been used about the laser reflectors: They could just as easily have put it up there with an unmanned mission. Many conspiracy theorists don't dispute that unmanned missions take place, only that the manned Apollo missions did.