I've always been intrigued by space and especially the Apollo moon missions, so this past week I've been somewhat obsessed with the photos and news stories leading up to the anniversary today.
I was especially interested on Saturday in this story: NASA has realeased photos taken by the lunar orbiter that NASA launched last year of the Apollo landing sites. This is Apollo 11:
But my favorite is this one, from Apollo 14, which shows the astronaut foot path back and forth between the LM and a scientific experiment site.
I've often wondered if you could see the landing module with a telescope. I learned this week that there's no telescope on Earth large enough because the machinery is so small in scale. Anyone who's been to the Johnson Space Center and seen the lunar lander display knows exactly how big the lunar lander isn't. But the satellite orbiting the moon could do it.
It looks like everything has been perfectly preserved for 40 years. I would love to be the guy at some point in the future who's out for a walk on the moon and gets to see that history first-hand. I think it would be terribly interesting to see the condition of the materials used to build the lander after 40 years in space in the moon's environment. Is it pristine? Are there signs of rust (which would open up all sorts of questions regarding water)? How is the integrity of the metal?
I think that would tell us a lot about the moon's environment over time and the viability of man's existence there. That would be a worthy reason to go back.
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