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The Apollos That Never Were, Hardware fates and the dynamics of the program
jmknapp
post Jun 19 2008, 07:47 PM
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I was reading up on this mission and have a few questions:

1) Some of the instruments, e.g., LAMP (or LAVA LAMP, haha) will be used to identify any water ice in the "permanently shadowed" parts of polar craters. But with the Earth at least, the pole is said to have migrated quite a bit. Is the Moon conversely so locked in synchrony that its own pole can't wander appreciably? Seems like even if transient, it might not take too long to burn off any ice.

2) I was wondering what the first "earthrise" opportunity might be for LRO postcard purposes. According to the available SPICE kernels the initial orbit comes in around longitude 90 over the south pole and so from the point of view of earth circles without eclipse initially until it eventually precesses around or whatever.

3) The launch has been delayed by a month. Is there any possibility this mission might be cancelled? I.e., has NASA (read: US Congress) ever cancelled a mission where the spacecraft had essentially been built?


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ilbasso
post Jul 23 2008, 08:22 PM
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QUOTE (jmknapp @ Jun 19 2008, 02:47 PM) *
I was reading up on this mission and have a few questions:

...

3) The launch has been delayed by a month. Is there any possibility this mission might be cancelled? I.e., has NASA (read: US Congress) ever cancelled a mission where the spacecraft had essentially been built?


Sorry for the late reply here, here's another Yes answer. Apollos 18 and 19 had the hardware completely built. They were forced to cancel essentially because the money was not allocated to run the support operations.


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Manning the LCC at http://www.apollolaunchcontrol.com
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Tesheiner
post Jul 29 2008, 06:30 AM
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Moved posts related to VIP tour @ KSC to a new thread: Apollo 12 pre-launch, Some shots from a VIP tour of KSC, August 1969
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