QUOTE (nprev @ Jul 22 2006, 12:51 AM)
...Wish that I could live long enough to see the Apollo 11 site preserved & enshrined as a monument for all humanity...in a thousand years or so, this landing may well be all that school=children somewhere else remember about the existence of the United States (or even the Earth itself?) for their tests....talk about profound!
Here's a somewhat off-topic question: How, exactly, would y'all preserve the Apollo 11 landing site (or, if possible, all of the Apollo landing sites) and still allow people to visit and see them?
You can set up cordons around the equipment -- the descent stage, the EASEP or ALSEP experiments, etc., and let people walk up fairly close to them. But how do you preserve the footprints in the soil?
I've thought of any number of things, from elevated plexiglass flooring laid atop the original surface, to some kind of plastic that can be applied directly onto the original surface but which does not deform the most subtle patterns in it... and each has its own (possibly insurmountable, pardon the pun) problems.
I'd hate to have to make people look at these historic sites through drop-a-quarter telescopes from a couple of km away. But I think you have to preserve the footprints and such. So, what are y'all's ideas?
-the other Doug