[X] My Assistant

[jmknapp]

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?

[ilbasso]

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.

[dvandorn]

As for Tycho, the approach was so difficult, the landing ellipse covered so many areas of extremely rough terrain (er, lurrain) and the trajectory to get to such a southerly site reduced payload enough that Jim McDivitt, the head of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office in Houston at the time, laid down the law: "You will go to Tycho over my dead body."

Of course, McDivitt also said that he would resign as chief of ASPO before he would approve Gene Cernan to command Apollo 17. And, in fact, he *did* resign after Apollo 16. McDivitt felt strongly that Cernan was not an appropriate choice for a crew commander. Ever.

-the other Doug