vq
Earth
What time is it again?
Posts: 129
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Post by vq on Aug 30, 2009 3:18:17 GMT -4
Probably a dumb question, but did the astronauts ever leave sight of the lander while they were on the surface of the moon? If so, what systems were in place to prevent them from getting lost?
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Post by PhantomWolf on Aug 30, 2009 3:32:32 GMT -4
Yes, with the rover in 15, 16, and 17 and by walking on 14
The LRV has an inetial guidance system onboard that tracked where they went. the LM was at 0,0,0 so all they had to do was head back to that spot to locate the LM, they could also follow their tracks back which was the method used on Apollo 14.
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Post by Kiwi on Aug 30, 2009 7:06:01 GMT -4
For one example, the Apollo 17 guys lost sight of the LM on the way to Turning Point Rock and Tracy's Rock (Stations 6 and 7), and on the return journey. Here it is in the distance, above the centre right fiducial, in the patch of light grey, AS17-141-21600. By just dropping down the hill they would lose sight of it. And again, to the right of the top of Tracy's (or Split) Rock, between the fiducials, AS17-140-21493And a telephoto shot from a similar position, AS17-139-21204When they were at Nansen crater during EVA 2, they were more than twice as far from the LM and had to go over at least one hill to be in line with it. In fact, this is one of the pet "theories" of some of the hoax-promoters. They see an Apollo 15, 16 or 17 photo with the LM in it, then see another with a similar mountainous background and no LM, so cry "fake," or "cardboard backdrop." They seem to be quite ignorant of the fact that sometimes it takes a large change of location in the order of kilometres to make distant mountains look substantially different, but only a change of a few dozen or hundred metres to greatly alter the foreground and middle ground.
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Post by trebor on Aug 30, 2009 15:45:03 GMT -4
That is quite a freaky picture, shows just how hard it is to judge distances in the Apollo images.
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vq
Earth
What time is it again?
Posts: 129
|
Post by vq on Aug 30, 2009 16:43:09 GMT -4
Thanks for the responses. I had forgotten that the rover had an inertial nav system in it. I was just thinking that it would be pretty terrible if they got disoriented during an EVA and couldn't find the LM.
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Post by stevehislop on Sept 4, 2009 9:45:48 GMT -4
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