So why won't NASA point the hubble to look at the moon? I think it would be excellent if we could see the flag or the imprints of the astronauts left behind from previous missions.... or are they not doing that because they're afraid of what they WOULDN'T see? Now Im not saying we never went to the moon but hey, why won't they do it?
Because its focal point to set too far out to SEE the flag on the moon. All you'd get is a bunch of blurry gray photos. Remember the Hubble is a DEEP space telescope.
Hubble would not be capable of imaging the flags left by the Apollo astronauts, much less the footprints, they are far too small. Besides, why would anyone NEED to? The Hubble has more important things to do, and we already have plenty of photographs taken by the astronauts themselves....unless, of course, you in fact ARE saying that we "never went to the moon", but don't want to admit it for fear of being ridiculed.
Do you seriously believe that they couldn't see the flag with current technology?? We've been able to read a newspaper from a satellite for years and you think we couldn't see the flag on the moon... interesting. On the subject of the moon landing, Im undecided on my belief of weather or not we went to the moon. "Apollo's total cost (in 1968 dollars): $24 billion."... sounds like alot of money.... perhaps a money laundering scheme... but thats not the subject of this thread. http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/SPACEFLIGHT/apollo/SP19.htm /\ the source of where I got the numbers
Do you seriously believe that they couldn't see the flag with current technology?? We've been able to read a newspaper from a satellite for years and you think we couldn't see the flag on the moon... interesting. On the subject of the moon landing, Im undecided on my belief of weather or not we went to the moon. "Apollo's total cost (in 1968 dollars): $24 billion."... sounds like alot of money.... perhaps a money laundering scheme... but thats not the subject of this thread. http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/SPACEFLIGHT/apollo/SP19.htm /\ the source of where I got the numbers[/QUOTE] Yes, I seriously believe you cannot see the flag with current technology, and so should you. An object on the Moon 4 meters (4.37 yards) across, viewed from HST, would be about 0.002 arcsec in size. The highest resolution instrument currently on HST is the Advanced Camera for Surveys at 0.03 arcsec. So anything we left on the Moon cannot be resolved in any HST image. It would just appear as a dot. A flag would be completely invisible. This is commonly-available information. You might want to read Phil Plait's explanations regarding why the notion that the lunar landing were a hoax is preposterous: http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html
I would suggest that you could see at least the landing site and the area that was walked/driven due to it not being disturbed since. The currently satellite equipment could potentially see it but it would have to have the same distance that is currently applied to our earth to be able to, currently the satellites would have to undergo complete redirection and distance which I'm sure isn't worth while just to prove or disprove a landing took place. From what I remember hearing there is intention of another moon landing in the future, perhaps they will prove it then.
The only visual evidence of the Apollo missions we can see with Earth-based instruments is the "halo" that the lunar landers created in the regolith when the decent engines blew the dust away. I've also read that the long shadows of the lunar landers are visible at sunset. And while they are not themselves visible, the reflectors left on the lunar surface have been bouncing laser beams back to Earth ever since.....evidence enough that the missions occurred, for all but the most paranoid, die-hard, conspiracy-theory whackos.
