Why no pictures from the Moon?

[who?]

That's just BS. There ain't no way the moon is made out of rock. Rock would be way too heavy to stay up there.

Whenever the moon falls to the earth it has traveled forward past the earth and misses.

 

[CZroe]

xkcd to the rescue

Atlus-Centaur and Pegasus are measured in Centaurs and Pegasii.

 

[Brovane]

Dark is a relative term in this context. Just like the term "black hole" is a relative term and "dark matter" is a relative term, you know why they are called dark or black? The answer is very simple, we can't see them. Same thing for the "dark side" of the moon or the "far side" of the moon, same shit and we can't see any of them from where we are.

So, semantics my friend.

It is a outdated metaphor. It was comely used before we could send spacecraft to see the far side of the moon. The dark side of the moon concerns the area of the moon's surface where the Sun isn't shining during the lunar phases. So the dark side is facing away from the Sun not the Earth. The far side of the moon is the hemisphere that always faces away from the Earth.

 

[Brovane]

It has always been rather depressing to me that of all technology, manned space flight is THE premature ejaculator of them all. We started by putting a man ON the moon, then we started boldly going where hundreds have gone before (LEO) and now we can't even get there without hitchhiking.

Seeing what we did from scratch, knowing nothing, and figuring it out in a decade, now we can't even get back into low earth orbit in a decade.

I remember reading a anecdote about Lyndon Johnson. When he did see the budget for NASA and the severe cuts to the Apollo Applications Program in 1968 he just shook his head that everything that had been invested for Apollo was being thrown away. We had spent $25 Billion on Apollo and all that investment was essentially squandered to then develop the Space Shuttle.

 

[feralkid]

I remember reading a anti-dote about Lyndon Johnson.

 

[Brovane]

To early for me, I meant anecdote.

 

[bigi]

It was really more a question why NASA hasn't sent a rover like Curiosity to the Moon since we last left in 1972.

Thank you. You are a wise and intelligent being.

 

[Ichinisan]

cause we never go there anymore. We can see everything there is to see from earth with telescopes

except half of it.

there's nothing to see there.

that sounds like something someone hiding a secret lunar base would say.

My response:

Spoiler

[REDACTED]

 

[DesiPower]

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

 

[Red Squirrel]

Actually why don't we have rovers on there? Is the dust just too much of a problem for the bearings and such? Like would it just seize up fast no matter how good you try to seal it? Or is it just a complete lack of interest because they did all the research they wanted?

Nothing compared to what NASA has but here's a few pics I took of the moon myself.

..And the Earth.

Not bad for a $250 lens.


Oh, and Google Moon!
https://www.google.com/moon/

 

[ImpulsE69]

Humans: Trashing the universe one object at a time.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Stupid question time though...

How do objects that are round become tidally locked? Such as the moon... I know there are lots of theories about how the moon came to be, but doesn't it have to be spinning to end up sphereical, and not just some misshapen asteroid? Once it is spinning, wouldn't it keep spinning unless something catastrophic happened, which most theories point to that being BEFORE it was a moon. Even if it was a planet that got too close and pulled into Earth, it would have had to have been spinning to be formed in the shape it is in...

 

[Red Squirrel]

From my understanding the moon does spin but the axis points towards Earth due to magnetic attraction. Though I never even really noticed and don't have enough pictures to really compare how it spins but it looks like I may be right, here's another pic and you can see crators that in other pics are higher:

 

[ImpulsE69]

From my understanding the moon does spin but the axis points towards Earth due to magnetic attraction. Though I never even really noticed and don't have enough pictures to really compare how it spins but it looks like I may be right, here's another pic and you can see crators that in other pics are higher:

If that's the case, pow...never realized that.

EDIT: Googled it. Was completely mistaken

 

[conspiracycarl]

the moon landing was fake everyone knows that.

 

[Ruptga]

Astronomical bodies are round because they have sufficient gravity to overcome their rigidity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrostatic_equilibrium#Planetary_geology

Tidal locking happens because Earth's gravity distorts the near side of the moon (and vice versa) making it slightly elliptical. Before the moon was tidally locked that bulge would always be a little bit off center to the receding edge of the moon, because it was rotating faster than it was flying around the Earth. The moon lost rotational energy through the constant deformation of itself due to that bulge constantly being moved across its surface, until eventually its rotational period was the same as its orbital period and the bulge stopped moving across its surface. Earth isn't tidally locked but its rotation is very gradually slowing due to the same tidal forces.

 

[BudAshes]

From it. Like from the Curiosity on Mars.

Curiosity images

Fake. Clearly arizona.

 

[IronWing]

Fake. Clearly arizona.

I see the off road tracks but where are the shell casings, beer cans, and backpacks?

 

[JTsyo]

We might see landings this year for the Google Lunar X prize.

 

[JTsyo]

From my understanding the moon does spin but the axis points towards Earth due to magnetic attraction. Though I never even really noticed and don't have enough pictures to really compare how it spins but it looks like I may be right, here's another pic and you can see crators that in other pics are higher:

Tidal locking is a gravitational phenomenon. The moon's axis of rotation is mostly parallel with the earth's. When an object is tidal locked, its period of rotation is equal to its period of revolution. For the moon, both is 28 days, so we get the same face of the moon facing us.

 

[Exophase]

We haven't sent any rovers or manned missions to the Moon since the 1970s. I think China landed a rover on it recently but it didn't last very long.

JAXA (Japan) is still sending rovers up there. They had SELENE in operation from 2007-2009 and will be sending SELENE II in 2017. They've got some videos and pictures available.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Also the Chinese Rober "Jade Rabbit" is still functioning on the moon. albeit in a limited fashion.

 

[Scarpozzi]

They have more recent video and images of the missions on Mars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mOxQghay9w