Post by Kiwi on Mar 1, 2008 9:05:45 GMT -4
I'm probably not the only one who had little idea of what happened to Apollo 10's LM, and while browsing the readme file for the Apollo 10 addon for the free space simulation program Celestia, I came across the following interesting information that was new to me.
Apollo 10's Lunar Module, called "LM 4" or "Snoopy", is quite remarkable but nearly always forgotten against the much more glamorous Apollo 11 "Eagle". Despite of that, "Snoopy" is quite fascinating in its own way:
(1) It is the only one of the real flown Apollo LM's which still is somewhere out in space. All else LM's burned up in earth's atmosphere (Apollo 6, 9, 13) or were crashed into the moon, whether intended (Apollo 12, 14-17) or not (Apollo 11).
(2) LM 4 "Snoopy" up to now is the only spacecraft ever launched from moon orbit towards a sun orbit.
(3) "Snoopy" up to now is farthest out in space of all (former) manned spacecraft. In its heliocentric orbit it is as far as 2 AU from earth (during earth opposition).
(4) Apollo 10 and Apollo 12 share the record of the biggest number of real flight hardware objects left over by any of the Apollo missions (three major objects). Apollo 10's are LM "Snoopy", CM "Charlie Brown" and S-IVB 505. (As with most of the LM's, the S-IVB's of Apollo 13-17 were crashed into the moon; the S-IVB's of Apollo 8-12 are the only ones sent to solar orbit. BTW, Apollo 12's S-IVB came back in 2002 as object "J002E3").
So, Snoopy really is a quite lonesome record-holder.
(c) 2005 Diane Neisus (~Medusa) - diane_va@yahoo.com
(1) It is the only one of the real flown Apollo LM's which still is somewhere out in space. All else LM's burned up in earth's atmosphere (Apollo 6, 9, 13) or were crashed into the moon, whether intended (Apollo 12, 14-17) or not (Apollo 11).
(2) LM 4 "Snoopy" up to now is the only spacecraft ever launched from moon orbit towards a sun orbit.
(3) "Snoopy" up to now is farthest out in space of all (former) manned spacecraft. In its heliocentric orbit it is as far as 2 AU from earth (during earth opposition).
(4) Apollo 10 and Apollo 12 share the record of the biggest number of real flight hardware objects left over by any of the Apollo missions (three major objects). Apollo 10's are LM "Snoopy", CM "Charlie Brown" and S-IVB 505. (As with most of the LM's, the S-IVB's of Apollo 13-17 were crashed into the moon; the S-IVB's of Apollo 8-12 are the only ones sent to solar orbit. BTW, Apollo 12's S-IVB came back in 2002 as object "J002E3").
So, Snoopy really is a quite lonesome record-holder.
(c) 2005 Diane Neisus (~Medusa) - diane_va@yahoo.com