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Telescope on the moon idea poopooed

Vince1963

By Vince1963
in The Astro Lounge

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Vince1963

Vince1963

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Hi guys .. Just wanted to clear something up.... I was watching a program "living on the moon" screened on the 10th of this month on national geographic and i was surprised to see that NASA hopes to set up an human outpost on the moon by 2020. I was more surprised when they mentioned setting up telescopes on the moon especially after i started a post on here some months back and i was poopooed by some on people here. Well it may well happen, apparently the dark side of the moon is ideal for radio astronomy.. Did anyone see it? it was very interesting and one thing that i liked was actually being able to attach wings to your arms and being able to fly in space because on the low gravity .... inside this dome...AMAZING!!!!!! :icon_salut:

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Ganymede12

Ganymede12

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one thing that i liked was actually being able to attach wings to your arms and being able to fly in space because on the low gravity .... inside this dome...AMAZING!!!!!! :icon_salut:

That will be fun! The idea is so exiting I'm over the moon :D

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StevieDvd

StevieDvd

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Where's this "dark side" of the Moon?, the Moon rotates once a month so the radio telescope would have to be mobile to keep out of the Sun. :smiley:

An earth definition, if it was on what we call the light side the telescope would be pointing at earth - no so interesting!

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Vlad

Vlad

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You have to be joking! You really mean that an amateur astronomer actually thinks that the moon has a dark side?

I don't believe it, I just don't B####y believe it! :grin:

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Zakalwe

Zakalwe

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Hi guys .. Just wanted to clear something up.... I was watching a program "living on the moon" screened on the 10th of this month on national geographic and i was surprised to see that NASA hopes to set up an human outpost on the moon by 2020. I was more surprised when they mentioned setting up telescopes on the moon especially after i started a post on here some months back and i was poopooed by some on people here. Well it may well happen, apparently the dark side of the moon is ideal for radio astronomy.. Did anyone see it? it was very interesting and one thing that i liked was actually being able to attach wings to your arms and being able to fly in space because on the low gravity .... inside this dome...AMAZING!!!!!! :icon_salut:

I'll eat the desk that I am sat at if NASA has a human outpost on the Lunar surface in less than 8 years. At the moment they don't even have a way of gtting to Low Earth Orbit, never mind having any heavy lifters to break out of Earth's gravity well. I reckon that the Chinese will be the next ones to set foot on the Moon.

George W Bush did talk about a Lunar outpost (as did his dad....the man really has no imagination). NASA started on the Constellation program that would have returned the USA to the Moon, but it was cancelled back in 2010.

An earth definition, if it was on what we call the light side the telescope would be pointing at earth - no so interesting!

There is no dark or light side. There is a nearside and a farside however. And how big do you think the Earth is when viewed from the Moon?

If you were to land on the Lunar surface, then you'd probably do it on the nearside. Some of the Apollo FIDO and mission planners did draw up orbits and plans for a far-side landing in an attempt to get funding for the cancelled Apollo 18 amd 19 missions, but they failed (to get the funding). Going on the farside would require, as a minimum, Lunar satellites to act as relays for comms.

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Vince1963

Vince1963

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Well one side is always dark.. And is OFTEN referred to as the dark side... AND i'm only stating what was said on the program... I guess they just don't know what there talking about..... i mean!...If they have an idea that they can put a Radio telescope on the moon ( whether or not it will face the sun) or colonise it then i think they just might know what they are talking about and if it is feasible or not.. Oh if we are splitting hairs.... The moon is in a synchronous rotation to earth its orbit 27.3 days that is why one side always faces us..but it does not show the same side to the sun..

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cantab

cantab

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One side of the Moon will always have either sunlight or earthlight. The other side of the Moon will have neither for half the month, and can thus fairly be called the dark side.

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ncjunk

ncjunk

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One side of the Moon will always have either sunlight or earthlight. The other side of the Moon will have neither for half the month, and can thus fairly be called the dark side.

so exactly the same as the earths dark side then...ignoring the difference in lengths of darkness.

seriously, what are you refering to as the dark side? are you stating that its position is fixed and constant relative to a body in a fixed position on the surface? i.e. a mountain and hence this mountain can be in perpetual darkness or as.we tend to call it night time?

I'm in awe of this conversation..

or are we just stating there is always a bit of it...like the earth..that has a nighttime.

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661-pete

661-pete

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I think we've got a bit distracted from the serious side of the OP by all this 'dark side'/'far side' mixup - which is simply that, a minor semantic slip. :wink:

I may have been one of the 'poopoo'ers of the earlier thread, if so, I hope it wasn't taken personally! Just that I think it's now become easier, logistically speaking, to put a big optical telescope out into space, where it doesn't need a drive and doesn't suffer from gravitational flexing.

But if we want a radio telescope set up in a 'quiet' area, shielded from Earthly broadcasts, then the far side sounds like a good bet. One problem would be, it wouldn't be able to transmit its data direct to us Earthlings: it'd need relay satellites.

Servicing and repair of such an installation would be expensive! It costs a lot more to send astronauts to the Moon than just to put them in orbit.

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E621Keith

E621Keith

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Where's this "dark side" of the Moon?, the Moon rotates once a month so the radio telescope would have to be mobile to keep out of the Sun. :smiley:

The dark side of the moon is the side facing away from the sun. It goes round the moon once a month, like the dark side of Earth goes round once a day. :grin:

A mobile telescope that drives round the moon once a month sounds like a very interesting idea. May be it will make a good sci-fi novel.

Seriously, placing a telescope in one of the permanently dark lunar crater could be a very good idea. The 25K surface temperature should be good for IR astronomy.

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Zakalwe

Zakalwe

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Its probably far easier to place the radio telescope in Earth orbit (or at a Lagrange point). It could easily be shieled from Earths EM interference.

To put it on the Moon you'd have to lift it out of Earths gravity well, and then decellerate it into Lunar orbit, then get it saely down to the surface.

Putting it in orbit just means that it has to be lifted out of Earths gravity well, full stop. Far more efficient from an energy budget point of view.

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cantab

cantab

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When it comes to a radio telescope, considering the size it would have to be largely built on the Moon itself. Of course then you'd need...well I was about to say earthmoving equipment, but that doesn't seem right.

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Vince1963

Vince1963

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But if we want a radio telescope set up in a 'quiet' area, shielded from Earthly broadcasts, then the far side sounds like a good bet. One problem would be, it wouldn't be able to transmit its data direct to us Earthlings: it'd need relay satellites.

Servicing and repair of such an installation would be expensive! It costs a lot more to send astronauts to the Moon than just to put them in orbit.

Hi Pete.. thanks for that.

That was their reasoning for the radio scope... on the "far side".. the shielding from earth.

And i think the feasibility was also down to the fact that this was if the moon was colonised. Then i guess the maintenance cost would be reduced :icon_salut: .

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