SMART-1 to Image Apollo Landing Sites

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Living in Houston, I occasionally run into folks who have some connection with JSC and the Apollo program. Two good examples.

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.

[vuud]

Bah on all of you. I have a feeling everyone is right... I really think that we did land on the moon - but I also think the photos were faked due to some snafu with the cameras or film.

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.

[Ayaress]

Something naked-eye visible would have to be pretty big. I've heard of at least one lunar observatory that has an open invitation to conspiracy theorists, though. They're welcome to come up and see a full demonstration of the lasers hitting the targets, a tour of the facilities to see how they work, and a live demonstration, apparantly all for free. That's a pretty big meatball to leave out on the chopping block, too, I doubt those demonstrations are cheap for them, since they don't usually do them every day. A truely dedicated group that just wanted to be assholes could probably bankrupt them just sending people up for demonstrations.

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.