The Search For Apollo 10's "Snoopy"

astroengine writes "A UK-led team of astronomers are going to use their comet and asteroid-hunting skills to track down a piece of Apollo history. In 1969, Apollo 10 did everything the first moon landing (Apollo 11) did, except land on the lunar surface. During the Apollo 10 mission, the lunar module, nicknamed 'Snoopy,' was jettisoned and sent into a solar orbit — it is still believed to be out there, 42 years later. 'We're expecting a search arc up to 135 million kilometers in size which is a huge amount of space to look at,' British amateur astronomer Nick Howes told Discovery News. 'We're aware of the scale and magnitude of this challenge but to have the twin Faulkes scopes assist the hunt, along with schools, plus the fact that we'll doubtless turn up many new finds such as comets and asteroids makes this a great science project too.'"

Re:Money NOT well spent.

[Stenchwarrior]

Imagine if all the money spent on sending handfuls of people into space was spent on health care education here on Earth?

Seems to me that spending money on something that will eventually contribute to the over-population of the planet while NOT spending money on ways to get off this rock, would be the definition of counter-productive.

Re:Money NOT well spent.

[0100010001010011]

What is the ratio of what is spent on NASA to what is spent on "Defense"?
There is a lot of waste in the budget, but NASA and the sciences are not one of them.

Re:Money NOT well spent.

[arth1]

I guess the larger question is "Why?" Why are they even looking for this in the first place?

Because it's there.

Seriously, if we never did anything except the true and tested, we would never have left Africa. I'm sure the first one who said "I want to see what's over that mountain" was ridiculed by the tribal reactionaries.

Re:Money NOT well spent.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't make much progress in only one field of research at a time, and you certainly can't predict which branch of scientific (or other) endeavor will bring the next improvement in the human condition. Chemistry, biology, physics, etc all advance much more quickly when we employ them together, and space research does just that.

Chasing only short-term benefits is exactly the kind of thing that has gotten us into the mess we're in.

Re:Money NOT well spent.

[rednip]

Do you know what the best forms of population control that isn't some Faustian bargain? A larger middle class, health care as a human right, and education.