To date there have been 49 objects crashed into the Moon, either accidentally, post mission, or by decay. This is often done for Lunar Seismography. The only difference this time is that the object, a Centaur stage, will be trailed by a second instrumented platform that will fly through the Ejecta and photograph and sample it.

quote:

Originally posted by rigil101:
Sounds like a very bad idea to crash something into the moon to me. This is going to eject a debris field that may stay in orbit for years. This could take out the next spacecraft we send there including manned space flight.

The ejecta will just fall back to the surface. I don't think there is any trajectory or velocity that a purely ballistic object can have that would put it into a full orbit.

This is a new photo that NASA has release from the LRO satellite that shows the crater where the Apollo 14 S4-B third stage was crashed onto the surface for a seismic study. They've been doing these test for a long time.

Apollo 14 S4-B Crater

So . . . if you're watching the moon on TV, at what heavenly body is your telescope pointed?

My wife, Claire!

quote:

Originally posted by dude_funk:
Is there a way for an average guy to verify that the Apollo Moon landing did happen or otherwise?

I am old enough to remember seeing the Apollo, S-IVB and the tumbling panels of the launch adapter on their way towards the Moon the first night following the launch. They stood out as bright points against the night sky.

I have also personally carried out (at Table Mountain) that experiment MB did of flashing a laser beam onto the Laser Ranging Rero-Reflectors left at every Apollo site as part of the ALSEP. The necessary equipment has become far cheaper and more capable in the years since the landings, and I expect that any decent college observatory could now carry perform that experiment and obtain a meaningful result.

I was finally able to track down a video for the ignorant Hoax CTs who have blathered on repeatedly about how the Moon Landings were faked using state of the art film animation techniques. Well, this is an Apollo Era state of the art simulation from NASA illustrating the Moon Mission using the finest animated graphics available. Perhaps it was only because we were so much more sophisticated, or better educated than the CTs are today, but most of us were able to distinguish rather easily between live video coming from the Lunar surface and animations. Now i know some people today can't tell the difference, but everyone in the world could back in the day.

Apollo Simulation

quote:

Originally posted by roofingguy:
They've crashed objects into the moon several times.

The later Apollo mission(s) had the third stage crash into the moon, instead of continuing off into space, in order to view the event on the seismometers left by previous missions.

We have been crashing stuff into the Moon going back to the early Ranger (US) and Luna (USSR) probes in the early 1960s. In all these cases, the impacts lack sufficient kinetic energy for the ejecta to achieve orbital velocity. Those asteroidal impacts which have sent minuscule amounts of Lunar debris to Earth involve much greater velocity and mass than spacecraft.

We are able to produce perfect images from the surface of Mars but not capable of taking a clear and sharp image of the lunar landing?
Those blurry pics are a joke!
Just wondering!
OK, ok, we did land on the moon!

quote:

Originally posted by viducce:
We are able to produce perfect images from the surface of Mars but not capable of taking a clear and sharp image of the lunar landing?
Those blurry pics are a joke!
Just wondering!
OK, ok, we did land on the moon!

HELLOOOO!!!!...

Anybody in there? *knock,knock* Sounds very hollow and empty to me..

Most of the images of Mars has been taken by the Hubble, and of miscellaneous Mars-probes.

We haven't had a Lunar Probe photographing the moon before just recently, The Hubble cannot get images of the LEMs or the other things that was left on the moon.

For God's sake , Pay Attention.

HST Landing Site Image

LRO pictures of Apollo Sites including LEMs and Foot Prints.

LRO Apollo Landing Sites

LRO Apollo 12 Landing Site with vehicles and footprints.

LRO Apollo 12 Site.

quote:

Originally posted by viducce:
We are able to produce perfect images from the surface of Mars but not capable of taking a clear and sharp image of the lunar landing?
Those blurry pics are a joke!
Just wondering!
OK, ok, we did land on the moon!

The pictures you are referring to were taken by a Mars Lander, actually sitting on the surface of the planet Mars. Distance from camera to subjects, from a few inches to a few miles. Resolution and clarity are all that should be expected from placing highly expensive optics directly on the surface.

Now, the pictures taken of the Moon right now are either from Earth or from Lunar orbit. Distances ranging from 240,000 miles all the way down to 60 miles or so. Magnitudes of range different.