Listen to this PodcastMore 60-Second Science
In 1970 the Soviet Union put a laser reflector on the moon, carried by a rover. A few months later, it disappeared. Some speculated that the rover had fallen into a crater or parked in such a way as to render the reflector inaccessible. Now, after 40 years on the lunar surface, the reflector has been found.
A team at U.C. San Diego had been searching for it. Earlier this year, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter camera provided images of the original landing area. A sunlit speck, miles from where the team was looking, turned out to be the rover and reflector. The San Diego team was quickly able to pinpoint the reflector’s location to within 10 meters.
Scientists send laser pulses to the moon and measure signals that bounce back from three reflectors left by Apollo astronauts, along with another Soviet one. This information helps track the moon’s position and orbit. And the researchers say that the rediscovered Russian reflector is particularly useful for studying the moon’s liquid core and testing ideas about gravity. Says team leader Tom Murphy of the reflector, “It’s got a lot to say after almost 40 years of silence.”
—Cynthia Graber
[The above text is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
See what we're tweeting about
8 Comments
Add CommentSo, is it "finders keepers"? Does someone have to go up and aim it? Did we find it because it's only (or optimally) visible under certain conditions? Are there photos of it available online?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFinders Keepers? At the current cost of launching anything into space with our current approach of using what amounts to re-purposed ballistic missiles modified so that they are safe for humans by virtue of their being slowed down so they don't crush the passengers, that lunar artifact could be made out of solid platinum and encrusted with diamonds (much like the revolving doorway our elected and appointed leaders pass-through as they leave government and enter what we amusingly call 'the private sector') and its value would not even pay for the trip.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat fact should serve as a reminder that there are far cheaper ways to get stuff into space, though there's not much money to be made at present by making it cheaper to get to space, and tons of money to be made by integrating expensive and tax-payer funded projects that go to the lowest bidder...Ha ha!
When alternate launching systems that would be much cheaper and open the doorway for industrial exploration and development are proposed, we are told that we already have a system thatl works (but just needs to be made more efficient) and another one such as Robert Truax's 1960s concept "SeaDragon" or Dr Hunter's recently proposed "quicklaunch" is too expensive. Oh, my splitting sides.
Hi doug... that sounds a bit like a typical conspiracy theory. What evidence do you have that there is a vastly cheaper way to get payloads into space?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suspect if that were true, someone would be using it. Even if the evil U.S. government and Corporate conspiracy powers that be wanted to crush the "better way" to favor their own ends.... other countries surely would be using these excellent cheaper and smarter methods in order to catch up or beat us at the space game.... wouldn't they? Or are all global powers in on it?
As for "finders keepers"... um no one is keeping it... anyone can bounce a signal off it if they want to, it is a reflector sitting on the moon... not a space hotel we captured and converted to a military officer's club.
Unless Nasa updates the Shuttles to the technology of the Flying Saucer for only $150 million, and flying them for another ten years, instead of spending One Billion Dollars per launch now, Russia might go there and put it in good working order again. $50 million for the Patent owner (me) and $100 million for the conversion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhoever rules Space, rules the World.
Tharriss: Good points. True; how do we prove the assertions that there are far cheaper ways to get material into orbit without actually doing it? If you search for the term "sea dragon rocket" and look into it, you'll see that the reason it was not pursued was due to mission constraints to reach the moon by 1970. If a project to develop "sea dragon" was pursued it would delay the project. The feasibility and the expected advantages are not much in question from the studies, including other sea-launch experiments using existing rockets.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe 'quicklaunch' by Dr Hunter is likewise pretty straight forward and the details have been pretty well examined through previous experiments in which Dr. Hunter says he has conducted in conjunction with high velocity projectile studies. Try looking for the youtube of Dr. Hunter's google-tech-talk from last November (2009) and take a look.
As to the argument that "if it were so good, why aren't we already doing it", it's a good question and subject for debate regarding policy and leadership's capacity to comprehend, as well as ulterior motives. Cheers.
cool discovery...didn't know the moon had a liquid core...any references...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen I was a grad student in the 1960s, my adviser (Jim Faller) showed me a glass corner-cube and explained how no matter how I rotated it, when I looked into it I would always see my eye looking back... and said he was working with folks to put one on the moon to look at with a laser in a telescope. Formidable! The laser is 50 years old this May. Take a look at the Web exhibit on <a href="http://www.aip.org/history/exhibits/laser">the history of the first lasers</a> for a fascinating peek at how scientists make great discoveries--with voice clips from oral history interviews.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvery time cheap spaceflight comes up NASA answers, "It's a neat idea but we gosh darn it just can't achieve a mass ratio of 10." That's *always* their answer. It's the only problem they ever bring up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd yet it's mathematically provable that even if a MR of 10 is impossible, that simply means you look at 1.5 Stage to Orbit or Two Stage to Orbit. NASA *never* mentions these. Why not? It's the obvious solution. The rocket equation says so. Core MR of 6.4 and drop off tanks equal with MR=1.7 would easily do the job. NASA never says that 6.4 is completely unachevable. So NASA is either run by the stupidest people on the planet or...
Conspiracy is probably the wrong word. It's not a conspiracy when tens of thousands of people have been brought up to believe something that's simply wrong, and never question it. Nor is it a conspiracy when people are told they'll be sacked if they don't tow the party line.
On the other hand, a small cabel of people who get together and threaten to cut NASA's funding if anything threatens the money being funnelled into respective interests, and thus deliberately subvert billions of dollars from their publically stated aim, is a conspiracy. But hey. That's what congress does.