NASA | LRO: Coming Soon to a Moon Near You

[fakhrytatanaki]

that pretty cool animation

[SatoTM3]

i pick phobos! shotgun

[TicklesMeSillyYou]

i sure don't wanna live in the moon.. if something fucked up. everyone is doom LOL.

[TheSnotrag2009]

ok.....if they send a leuitenent ripley and her cat jonesy out there then im scared. as long as she doesnt come back to earth then im fine.

[EUROSUN1]

America is in massive trillions upon trillions of dollars debt. They don`t have the money to go to the moon. The only way is to borrow even more money to achieve that. Americans have become too naive and unrealistic. They need to get real other wise their children will have to pay debt all there lives and their country will become a 3d world nation.

[Trianothingy]

Lol. Nobody knows that NASA has kept a secret about aliens/alien bases on the moon. Its actually top secret and no one believes it only some..

[Props2u]

I love NASA and space exploration, but i find this to be a complete waste of time and money. Maybe i dont get the ultimate goal here, but theres only so much gray dust you can put under a microscope and say "its ummm still gray dust". Why are they bothering? Lets get men to Mars, forget the moon.

[richardwjwong]

One step at a time man, the manned mission to Mars would be most likely a one-shot attempt due to current circumstances. It's a safer approach to practice landing on moon before we step it up to Mars.

[fogaoagas]

The future moon missions are in preparation for a future manned Mars mission. They can't just get to Mars right away without proper testing of the technology.

It's not like Nasa can use 1960's space technology to go directly to Mars, they have to test it first get it? Would you drive a car that didn't undergo a crash test? I don't think so...

[Props2u]

The way I look at it is, with todays technology doubling at the current rate of every 8 months and shrinking, by 2020 or 2030 they will have ways to completely by-pass this moon base for a Mars trip. The moon is just 1/4 million miles away and Mars is 30+ MILLION miles away. Thats hardly a shortcut. We couldve had men on Mars already if they didnt blow billions on all them robots with pitiful B&W cameras. "Look! More barren landscape! Get the artist so he can color these!"

ugh... no more.

[dethaduj]

Distance is not the issue. The moon is our closest test-bed for mars and may have H20 which will can use for fuel and for, well... water! After our moon we will go to one of Mars' moons, then to mars itself. Humans to Mars will be a HUGE undertaking and I can't see it getting funded easily. BTW The Mars rovers cost a paltry $300 million.

[Props2u]

Aha it turns out i was right. And my comments got thumbs downed lol. Look up the Washington Post article called, "NASA: U.S. Likely Won't Send Man Back to Moon by 2020". It came out today. Its a waste of time and money... period. And Nasa might even cancel the Ares I rocket which theyve already spent billions on. Smart move, i support that. Nasa needs to relax and wait until our technology makes these things affordable so they can do something significant.

[SirMildredPierce]

"NASA: U.S. Likely Won't Send Man Back to Moon by 2020".

Well I suspect this has more to do with politics and less to do with the practicality of establishing a base on the moon in our goal to get to Mars.

I for one do not support manned missions to either the moon or mars if it means cutting the budgets in other space programs, which is what happened when Bush announced the return to the moon. Sending 10 probes instead of sending 1 man is a far better use of money and resources.

[Celly222]

I gotta agree with props2u on this one. NASA sends men to the moon 1/2 a CENTURY ago and now it still takes a decade or more to get back??? lol. By this time they should have that technology down. I figured theyd say, we can send them back to the moon..... next week lol. When there was a space race with Russia they made it happen in no time. And now some 60 years later they suddenly forgot how they did it? pfft. Screw the moon, no one will care. Im glad theyre canning this useless mission.

[SirMildredPierce]

"NASA sends men to the moon 1/2 a CENTURY ago and now it still takes a decade or more to get back???"

Okay, but yiou are completely ignoring the fact that they are going back for completely different reasons, they are going back this time to stay, and it stands to reason that is going to take a lot more resources, a lot more time, and just plain they are going to bring a LOT more stuff... has nothing to do with forgetting how to do it.

[Props2u]

Really, NASAs problem is they fail to wow the public anymore. I remember waiting forever for that probe to land on Titan. Constantly hearing about methane lakes etc, i got all excited. It lands, takes 1 measly B&W picture.... nothing but rocks. :(

Phoenix in northern Mars, scrapes some soil, a speck vanishes. NASA shouts WATER! The public yawns. Spirit & Opportunity last long. They drill rocks that showed us they are... rocks. Oh and take more B&W pix.

I dont know how many billions..... (cont)

[Props2u]

I dont know how many billions of dollars went into all that, but is it really worth it? Now they want to start a moon base to link to farther mission and go back to re-study more grey dust. The public is saying... STOP!

How many billions of dollars is going to be taken out of circulation for all that? As technology grows, each year you get more for the same price. They need to wait it out. They simply cant do anything good with todays technology and its cost.

[ApolloWasReal]

In the 1960s, NASA needed an onboard computer for Apollo. No existing computer came close. So they sponsored one that used integrated circuits to get the size and weight down. They bought fully half of Fairchild Semiconductor's production. In 1968, several Fairchild people formed a new company you may have heard of: Intel.

Yes, NASA needs to spend its money wisely. But space is a big technology driver. The spinoffs are unpredictable, but can be very significant.

[SirMildredPierce]

"Really, NASAs problem is they fail to wow the public anymore"

I'm not really sure how to respond to that, it's just so superficial. To expect that the mission of NASA should be to "wow" as opposed to doing that whole boring science thing? That's just stupid... And you again claim the reason they want to go to the moon is to "study grey dust" when I pointed out below that the purpose is quite the opposite... The public is not saying STOP. You are.. because you have some arbitrary bias..

[SirMildredPierce]

"The moon is just 1/4 million miles away and Mars is 30+ MILLION miles away. Thats hardly a shortcut."

Study up on orbital machanics and you'll see there is a flaw in this assumption. It has little to do with how far an orbit is and more to do with how fast you are going. It takes more energy to put something in Low Earth Orbit (maybe 300 miles up) than it does to go from LEO to the moon, which is of course literally hundreds of times further away.....

[cfytcf]

Isn't the LRO tied up with establishing a prescence on the Moon, to make a Mars mission more feasible?

[SirMildredPierce]

"Lets get men to Mars, forget the moon."

This is a good question, why go back to the moon?

Well if we are going to go to the Mars, the Moon is going to play an important role for that...

1. It's much easier to launch from the Moon to Mars than from Earth (less gravity to overcome), and as such we would have to establish a permanent base.

2. The Moon will be a good proving ground for the technology we intend to deploy on Mars and a good training ground for those we intend to send.

[fredgt28]

All these new US mission to the moon is suddenly appearing not for the purpose of discovery or even even out the game with the Chinese. But to plant the flags and the props so that the Chinese wont discover the fact that the US never landed there in first place.

[dethaduj]

No Fred. No.

[kuyarick]

we need to rape the moon for all its got and leave the earth alone

[ronnysoeberg]

This makes me a bit sad.. An orbiter.. Where is the adventure? No one is going to get all pumped up and teary eyed about this. Space exploration pretty much died in the 70s. NASA needs to get funded bigtime, get some real projects going. Columbus went across the sea in a boat, he didn't throw a bottle with a pen and some paper in it in the ocean hoping it would wash ashore on the beaches of north america to be found by the natives who then wrote a letter and sent it back.. no one woudl care..

[CoolHand032]

Columbus wasn't looking for North America...He thought he reached India. Good intentions on your part, poor arguement.

Either way, the Moon is much more dangerous for us and I think research is a good plan. If the first human colony on the Moon fails, it will kill a lot of the excitement and make people not want to do it anymore. If the first one is a success, it will get people thinking about everything it could mean.

[isat123456789]

this is orgasimic

[HeavyJohnsson]

Its not the first time they sent up an orbiter, but where are all those closeup pictures of the moon? Also the japanese and chinese, still no crystal clear orbiter pictures released? I wonder why. We still havent seen those new close up pictures? Have you, I haven't?

[rokyn2000]

Landing a vessel on the moon today i hard, landing a vessel on the moon in 69 was impossible. I dont really think that they actually landed on the moon, i think it was done in a studio. It was done because the US wanted to prove they had better tech than russia.

[deltavee2]

Just because you can't figure it out doesn't mean it didn't happen, meathead. Enough with the conspiracy crap. It happened. Do some f***ing research instead of trolling.

[noxus1111]

In 1969, they lied about the moon landing

it was Pathetic...

[kenhes]

How so?

[dethaduj]

I know Nox, 'they' said it was a hoax to fool the Russians (because, you know - they would never corroborate our clams anyway!) and that 'the Govt.' killed 3 astronauts in a fire to prevent one of them from talking. When in reality thousands of talented engineers and technicians working in hundreds of industries backed by American tax dollars achieved the seemingly impossible task of landing men on the moon and returning them safely home. I agree Mr. 1111 (is that binary?) - Screw those liars!

[Destroyer670]

If the moon is like the earth's mantle it should have the metals needed.

[jaggaaz]

I agree..but how about transporting them back to Earth? therefore it becomes meaningless unless we have one of 2 things:

1) an economical way to transport things from Moon to Earth or,

2) find out if Moon can support life..which in my opinion is not true..less gravity than Earth, cann't hold atmosphere, and besides if it was possible, I think we would have atleast seen some vegetation there..

[mitchelitis12]

2. the gravity has an atmosphere, just not a good one, and it might sustain life but not have anys :D

[jaggaaz]

yeah..thats what I meant..

my point was if it has any useful atmosphere..then we might have seen atleast some vegetation there..well we would need water too and CO2 as well..its too complicated for me to guess the sources for CO2 to keep supporting plants, if any, there..and water..I just dont' know if Moon has any..

[mitchelitis12]

well to creat an atmosphere you dump a pile of carbondioxide on a planet/ moon, then plants, then you wait a white, then you add animals, i think it would be fine up there because the carbondioxide would green house it making it warm too :D

[braddudeguy]

Really? I thought an atmospheres couldn't be made, they were just... there.

[jaggaaz]

There are other gases which are needed for our survival too..N2 etc...its not that easy to create an image of Earth' s atmosphere anywhere...;p

I have no idea about what NASA plans on doing with this project..but extraction of materials doesn't sound bad..and maybe then just transport by literally throwing them from the moon..lol...

[mitchelitis12]

we can make most gasses tho, even ozone.... why we don't idk

[panefuldeath]

because making ozone would be a waste of resources. Why spend billions of dollers repairing the ozone layer when we can see sunscreen?  Not being critical, just answering the question. now you know.

[mitchelitis12]

we already make ozone already, any plasma arck ( a spark) makes ozone if there oxygen, alot of placed make it as a bi-product

[RagingKnight]

Because there is no profit in it. That is why space exploration is null...instead the government rather spend millions of dollars making weapons of destruction to reel in the profits than to start building the first near light speed space ship.

[eTernaLBOWLING]

lawl, if only you knew... heard of h3? helium 3? google it :).

[NexIuguolo]

Lots of civilians think it's a waste of money because they don't realize the impact that our extraterrestrial discoveries make on the terrestrial. And even when they do realize the discoveries, they cannot fathom the philosophical and real implications that those discoveries have.

I heard Ashton Kutcher on Bill Maher saying that we should stop "sending things to Mars". The problem with that is it seems like the cool thing to say and it seems to make sense to the uneducated.

[Stubbsander]

Let me guess. You've played Spore, haven't you. :D

[mitchelitis12]

i has, but i'm still talking with truth :P

[noxus1111]

I think we'll have to wait a long time b4 we do any of that stuff :)

[Destroyer670]

Why don't we just build the structures on the moon instead of transporting them back to earth.

[jaggaaz]

what use would they have there?

[Destroyer670]

Its much cheaper than build them on earth and send them to the moon.

[Quilbo]

we still can't do it

we know that Utopia Planitia would be better, but for now we can only send in space things built on

earth

If, for instance, ESA foundings in 2006 were more than 3 bilion dollar, while a SINGLE USAF Carrier costs around 5.6 billions, then we'd go farther with space tech,

[BarrybritpopfreekS]

I want the photographs already!

[vicsilverhalo]

i hope i get a chance to buy land on the moon!

[ExplosiveSam]

I have already buaght a achor of land ;)

[mitchelitis12]

how much?

[X3freako]

the day men created the first ship to travel in space with a faster than light engine

[VultureCulture2000X]

Hope there will be a colony till 2030.

[TheAussie00]

I think we should leave the Moon alone. We have enough problems on our own planet which require resources now.

[Tripp393]

Goddamnit we're not done with the moon yet? Call me when you find the monolith.

[KX125dude]

Done with it??? We havnt even started.

[IFloridaMotocrossI]

KX 250F's are better...

[Atoyota]

I think 1st priority is the space elevator.

We can use the moon not to colonize it but as a resource and building platform... which entails some colonization/exploration.

But 1st a bridge to space.

[kahnicles]

as if we could pull that off now

[Atoyota]

The tether is the main obstacle, and that's a lot closer than you think.

[selpriyan]

u have any full sex url

[ru11zz]

hahahahahhah they have full sex of LRO :D

[kahnicles]

well i won't hold my breath but I will cross my fingers coz i sure do wish it were so

[crimsoncoin]

a colony on the moon, would be awesome.! and to be used as a substation for mars expeditions and exploration and observation, are we gonna try, I would support such a motion! ha ha lol....

[BRANSCOMBEx]

The Japenses AJAX found no evidence of the moon landings and they scanned the whole moon in HD.

[NB5BHVL]

LMAO it's people like you that kill me with laughter

[russtex]

I agree NB5BHVL....lol.

[NB5BHVL]

If it wasn't for stupidity we'd all have nothing to laugh about lol

[BRANSCOMBEx]

I just seen this as breaking news today on TV...

I know America went to the moon. Russia watched them go there and back on Radar....

PLUS the U.S went back like 5 times. So...

It wasn't faked. BUT there is no visual evidence... You think Aliens took the rover???

[NB5BHVL]

I don't know you tell me? Your the one who trust in the Japanese

[NB5BHVL]

Just abit of info to you also, I am one of the many back in the days of Apollo in the 60's that use to watch the Apollo take flight to the Moon and back and I am not talking about that I saw this on TV...I saw this with my own eyes...At "Cape Kennedy" at the launch pad, Also use to watch it take flight from my school while I was living in Orlando Fla,

[AnnieMouse60]

The Japanese probe camera didn't have the resolving power to pick out something as small as a LEM descent stage. That wasn't what it was designed to do. Other instruments DID pick up rocks that had been changed by rocket exhaust though.

[videouzleg]

Are there any videos on Curiosity rover yet?

[buttercupcake27]

NASA i know you can so why are you lagging it? just wondering =)

[hyhhy]

Looks pretty good.

From what I've understood, the far side of the Moon would be a good site for observatories, because the humans that live on Earth produce all kinds of interference that is blocked on the far side of the Moon.

Will be interesting to hear what LRO finds out.

[pirvix]

Great!!!!!!

[GeminiAzules]

Either that or mobile self propelled structures & debris tracking ;)

[GeminiAzules]

If we build on the moon, one thing is for sure; we will gain huge advances in structural armor and point defense software. Considering theres not much between the surface and space debris.

[pallerasate]

very nice!!!