Post by JayUtah on Feb 15, 2006 14:46:17 GMT -4
The cameras carried in the SIM bays of the J-mission service modules were state-of-the-art reconnaissance cameras. NASA was strictly forbidden from pointing the cameras at Earth from Earth orbit. Those pictures still remain the highest-resolution optical images you can get of the lunar surface. Yes, when later missions produce similar photography, the conspiracists will have to answer how NASA was able to do it in 1971.
The Clementine photo is algorithmically produced. You start with intensity-only images at different wavelengths of the same area. Then you register them. Then you apply a computer algorithm. So if you have, say, four images at different wavelenths, then the intensity of the final pixel P is a mathematical function of the same pixels, P1, P2, P3, and P4, in the other images. What that means is that you can't fly over the lunar surface and see with your naked eye what the Clementine photo captures.
As I recall, field-sequential color was being contemplated for purposes other than space television. The trick, from the signal processing point of view, is to produce a signal that is simultaneously a black-and-white picture and a color picture.
Getting millions of pages of fabricated paperwork consistent is indeed a monumental task. And getting it to remain consistent (or at least plausible) as science progresses is even more monumental. But what is really a hassle is putting in the right amount of inconsistency. No engineering project of any scale has a fully consistent set of paperwork. If you delve greatly into Apollo documents you begin to see discrepancies and mistakes, such as the dimensions of the LM door. You can find different measurements in different references, sometimes because the spacecraft design was changed, and sometimes because different references were used, and sometimes because it was measured differently. Fully-consistent (down to the last detail) information on a topic is usually a good sign that someone has taken great pains to make it consistent, usually with the suspicion that someone will be scrutinizing it very closely. In other words, if something is too perfect, you should be worried.
The Clementine photo is algorithmically produced. You start with intensity-only images at different wavelengths of the same area. Then you register them. Then you apply a computer algorithm. So if you have, say, four images at different wavelenths, then the intensity of the final pixel P is a mathematical function of the same pixels, P1, P2, P3, and P4, in the other images. What that means is that you can't fly over the lunar surface and see with your naked eye what the Clementine photo captures.
As I recall, field-sequential color was being contemplated for purposes other than space television. The trick, from the signal processing point of view, is to produce a signal that is simultaneously a black-and-white picture and a color picture.
Getting millions of pages of fabricated paperwork consistent is indeed a monumental task. And getting it to remain consistent (or at least plausible) as science progresses is even more monumental. But what is really a hassle is putting in the right amount of inconsistency. No engineering project of any scale has a fully consistent set of paperwork. If you delve greatly into Apollo documents you begin to see discrepancies and mistakes, such as the dimensions of the LM door. You can find different measurements in different references, sometimes because the spacecraft design was changed, and sometimes because different references were used, and sometimes because it was measured differently. Fully-consistent (down to the last detail) information on a topic is usually a good sign that someone has taken great pains to make it consistent, usually with the suspicion that someone will be scrutinizing it very closely. In other words, if something is too perfect, you should be worried.