Water on the moon

[Arch]

I'm no expert on orbital mechanics, but I think getting into a polar Lunar orbit rather than equatorial takes a lot more fuel. The handy thing about the orbit they did plump for is that if you don't do a burn to get you into a lunar orbit, you just scoot around the Moon and come back again. Came in handy for Apollo 13, that.
Of course, had Project Orion come to fruition, we'd have colonies on the Moon, Mars and Titan by now...

Yeah, and hovercars. I'm still bitter about the lack of hovercars.

 

[bauldbairn]

It's the top half of Eric Morecombe

It is!

Thought he was dead?

 

[661-Pete]

I'm no expert on orbital mechanics, but I think getting into a polar Lunar orbit rather than equatorial takes a lot more fuel. The handy thing about the orbit they did plump for is that if you don't do a burn to get you into a lunar orbit, you just scoot around the Moon and come back again. Came in handy for Apollo 13, that.

I'm no expert either, but I don't think that's it. The unpowered loop around the Moon and return to Earth, that happened with Apollo 13, would have worked whatever the orientation of the orbit to the Moon's axis.

I think on reflection, maybe it's because they didn't have any well-surveyed landing sites near the poles. All the Apollo landing sites were very carefully scrutinised by telescope and unmanned spacecraft, before the manned missions were sent. Too much slope would have been disastrous.

 

[rich p]

I'm no expert either, but I don't think that's it. The unpowered loop around the Moon and return to Earth, that happened with Apollo 13, would have worked whatever the orientation of the orbit to the Moon's axis.

I think on reflection, maybe it's because they didn't have any well-surveyed landing sites near the poles. All the Apollo landing sites were very carefully scrutinised by telescope and unmanned spacecraft, before the manned missions were sent. Too much slope would have been disastrous.

With respect, Pete, that's cobblers. The reason they didn't land on the poles was the risk of drowning.

Excuse my ignorance but does the dark side of the moon ever get the sun on it?

 

[TheDoctor]

Indeed it does. There isn't a 'dark side' as such, it's just a side that we can't see from Earth. It's always the same side facing us, and when we see the new Moon, the other side is sunlit. As it is during a solar eclipse, of course.
Incidentally, in Oz a good few years back, the Moon looked different, and it took me ages to figure out what was wrong.
It was upside down!

 

[rich p]

Indeed it does. There isn't a 'dark side' as such, it's just a side that we can't see from Earth. It's always the same side facing us, and when we see the new Moon, the other side is sunlit. As it is during a solar eclipse, of course.
Incidentally, in Oz a good few years back, the Moon looked different, and it took me ages to figure out what was wrong.
It was upside down!

Now I see!!

The eclipse bit makes it fairly obvious really. Silly me!

 

[rh100]

Indeed it does. There isn't a 'dark side' as such, it's just a side that we can't see from Earth. It's always the same side facing us, and when we see the new Moon, the other side is sunlit. As it is during a solar eclipse, of course.
Incidentally, in Oz a good few years back, the Moon looked different, and it took me ages to figure out what was wrong.
It was upside down!

The amazing thing though, is that it rotates at exactly the right amount to always face us, so we always see the same face of it from here.

 

[marinyork]

The amazing thing though, is that it rotates at exactly the right amount to always face us, so we always see the same face of it from here.

It depends what you mean by amazing. If you have a long enough period of time, it will tend to this state of affairs, crazy as it sounds.

 

[rh100]

it's been a long day, you've lost me, sorry, what do you mean?

 

[marinyork]

it's been a long day, you've lost me, sorry, what do you mean?

If we suddenly attracted a new moon and got rid of ours, over some period of time, a few tens of millions of years (I don't know it's late) the same thing would happen where the moon would end up rotating in sync with us.

 

[rh100]

Thanks, yes I see what you mean, I found this link interesting

http://www.wonderquest.com/MoonSpin.htm

I'm no expert on these things - but love to read and hear about them.

 

[marinyork]

I think it's in Mr Gamow's very famous classic book Gravity if you're interested. It needs elementary A-level mechanics to understand it. We had to do it as some kind of exercise in a Newtonian Mechanics module long since forgotten as you do.

 

[Chris Sirrus]

Our moon is tidally locked, it's quite common for moons, I think a few of Jupiter's moons are tidally locked too.

 

[rh100]

Thanks for that, but I tend to like things a la Focus Magazine, with pictures and arrows pointing at bits etc

 

[marinyork]

Thanks for that, but I tend to like things a la Focus Magazine, with pictures and arrows pointing at bits etc

It depends how picky you want to get. Torville and Dean?