[X] My Assistant

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

I know it may be too early for such a thread, but an announcement has to be made.

The official website of the LROC camera is:

http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/

A brief description plus status is available here:

http://www.msss.com/lro/lroc/index.html

[AndyG]

Curious as to the soon-to-be demonstrated LROC resolution, I've brewed up a "50cm/pixel" image of the Apollo 15 landing site, taken from the ascent 16mm film.



It's going to be fascinating to see what state the descent stages and tracks are now in, after ~ 500 cycles of -150C to 100C. (Descent stages were never manned - does that make it ok for UMSF, Doug? ;-))

[Greg Hullender]

Descent stages were never manned - does that make it ok for UMSF, Doug? ;-)

Using the yardstick that UMSF is about amateurs producing cool images from raw data from unmanned space probes, I'm hoping this will be fine. These are historical sites now, and that's a big part of what makes the images "cool". Digging through the raw data looking for these things (whether we process them or not) is a cool way to participate.

If people want to get into a discussion about what Apollo did, what value it had, whether it really happened(!), etc., then, yeah, I'd expect someone to pull the plug ASAP. But I can't imagine there'd be a problem just looking for the images of the landing sites. If nothing else, I think it's something 99% of us are eagerly looking forward to seeing!

Of course it ultimately comes down to whatever Doug says, but I think he likes a good rationale. :-)

--Greg

[MahFL]

I look forward to the LRO images of the human hardware on our Moon.........

I still chuckle at Buzz punching that reporter ....not that I condone physical violence of course......