The search is on:
In a celestial version of finding a needle in a haystack, Howes and his team are about to embark on the seemingly impossible: finding Snoopy!
After consulting members of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Faulkes Telescope team, who are working with the Space Exploration Engineering Corp and astronomers from the Remanzacco Observatory in Italy as well as schools across the UK, the team are under no illusion of how difficult the task will be as Paul Roche, Director of the Faulkes Telescope Project states: “To paraphrase President Kennedy, we are trying these things ‘not because they are easy but because they are hard’ — this will be a real test for the hardware and the people involved.”
The challenges facing the team are enormous, a fact that isn’t lost on Howes. “The key problem which we are taking on is a lack of solid orbital data since 1969,” he told Discovery News. “We’ve enlisted the help of the Space Exploration Engineering Corp who have calculated orbits for Apollo 13 and working closely with people who were on the Apollo mission team in the era will help us identify search coordinates.”
Here’s an interesting project. Have Paul Allen or someone put up a prize to not just find it, but to retrieve it, and put it on the lunar surface as part of the lunar Apollo historical sites. It’s the kind of thing we’d do if we were really a space-faring nation. And we will never do it with anything like an SLS.
The LM was great for it’s time, but a deathtrap by current standards. I would not like to be the one taking her to the surface and I doubt they could do it robotically. I’m sure we’ve still got pilots brave enough though. It would take an expensive training program for a one shot deal.
I’d have to thumbs down the project.
I didn’t say under its own power.
The search is only for the ascent stage in solar orbit, right? The decent stage crashed on the moon, correct?
The descent stage crashed on the moon, correct?
Presumably. It’s unlikely that its orbit would have been stable for long. Yes, Snoopy was the ascent stage.
Here’s a thought: surely a gen-u-wine authentic Lunar Module would have some value, right? Pretty high value, I should think. Why not just sell shares in a for-profit salvage venture?
Off topic but I found this to a unique way of solving problems.
http://news.yahoo.com/online-gamers-crack-aids-enzyme-puzzle-175427367.html
“Online gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Second Life or Dungeons and Dragons: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade.
Developed in 2008 by the University of Washington, it is a fun-for-purpose video game in which gamers, divided into competing groups, compete to unfold chains of amino acids — the building blocks of proteins — using a set of online tools.
To the astonishment of the scientists, the gamers produced an accurate model of the enzyme in just three weeks.”
Like SETI using distributed computing for data searches.
I can imagine we will see a lot more of this in the future.
Why not just sell shares in a for-profit salvage venture?
An interesting idea. Which raises even more interesting legal issues, given that maritime law doesn’t intrinsically translate to space (though life would be easier in many ways if it did).
No salvage rights in space, US government retains all rights to the LM under article VIII of the OST.
So if I spent a hypothetical billion dollars salvaging it, do you really think I’m going to just hand it over? They’ll either pay my cost plus profit, sign it over to me, or watch it burn up. Given that hypothetical billion bucks, my lawyers will be better than theirs.
Better make sure you’ve offshored your assets (and your ass) first, or you can kiss them both goodbye when the feds come knocking at your door.
There is quite a bit of Apollo junk floating around out there. For example, there were 9 Apollo flights that left orbit, so there are 36 SLA panels floating around the solar system, presumably still tumbling with the same angular momentum they had the moment they detached from the SIVB.
Better make sure you’ve offshored your assets (and your ass) first, or you can kiss them both goodbye when the feds come knocking at your door.
LEO is offshore. Build a space hotel, move ass and assets there, get some others to follow, and voila! Orbital Caymans!
Nemo, your thinking is US-centric. If I were (hypothetically again) to play that game, why would I do it from the USA?
Alan, I like your thinking. Given the resources required to salvage the lander the orbital residence would be appropriate. We could be space pirates!
Duh. That’s what I said. Can you read?
This reminds me of the trouble the Pioneer Venus 2 team had, recovering the import duty on the diamond used as one of the windows. Something about having to prove the diamond was permanently exported, I believe.
Something tells me that recovering that particular piece of treasure might be more trouble than it’s worth…
A LM ascent stage would make a good hood ornament for your galactic cruiser.
A note to the would-be space pirates here: There are very few nations on Earth that will guarantee your freedom after you have stolen a high-visibility, high-value asset from the United States Government, and they are not nations you will want to live in. In particular, El Presidente will want a huge cut of your profits in exchange for your continued freedom.
Note also that it will be a very long time before you can live in space for more than a few years without resupply shipments from Earth. There are a few nations whose banks will shield your illicit megabucks from the United States Government, and a few nations whose aerospace industries might be up to sending supply ships to Mars, but the intersection of the two is an empty set. And you die not long after the check for the next supply shipment bounces.
Snoopy is United States Government Property. Whatever you want to do with it, you really, really need to clear it with them first.
Alan, I like your thinking. Given the resources required to salvage the lander the orbital residence would be appropriate. We could be space pirates!
Think about the different reasons pirates came to be. Sometimes it was government sanctioned to get around law. Other times, it was a captain that wanted to get around law.
Perhaps the problem was not the pirates, but the law?
We are not at the point where a pirate could operate in space independent of the earth, but we will be in a hundred years or so. They may still need earth products, but they can take that away from others that get their products legitimately from earth.
They are, after all, pirates.
I prefer the wild west analogy myself. There will be cattle barons and other tyrants. It the one thing we always export. Some will find freedom, lot’s of space out there.