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Decades-old photos help modern moon mission
Posted on Thursday, December 06, 2007 (CST) by Thoth
 Despite being more than 40 years old, images taken by five spacecraft that orbited the moon in the 1960's are proving invaluable in planning for humankind's return to the moon. Between August 1966 and August 1967, NASA's five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft returned more than 2,600 images of the moon and photographed 99 percent of the lunar surface.
This multitude of images has now been digitized, processed and made available online by the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI). "We wanted to make these images available to as wide an audience as possible," said Mike O'Dell, a programmer at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas. "Now, users can find everything in one place, searchable, with documentation and of a high enough quality to use directly or to at least identify which frames would be useful in higher detail."
Detailed study of Lunar Orbiter images is nothing new; the primary aim of the Lunar Orbiter project was to image potential Apollo landing sites in high resolution.
In fact the
first three Lunar Orbiters proved so successful at this task that the
remaining two missions were devoted to mapping the entire lunar
surface. During the intervening four decades, image-processing
techniques have taken a giant leap and the LPI took a few small steps
to ensure the Lunar Orbiter photos continue to look their best.
"We did a minimal contrast
stretch and then we used software to de-stripe the images, enhancing
their clarity and beauty," O'Dell said.
Age and wisdom
While these venerable
images are both fascinating and beautiful, with Japan's Kaguya and
China's Chang'e 1 spacecraft currently in lunar orbit and NASA's Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) set to lift off in late 2008, will these
aging portraits remain relevant for long?
"The Lunar Orbiter missions
were immensely successful," said David Kring, a visiting scientist at
the LPI. "Those images are the baseline for existing geologic maps of
most areas of the moon, including the lunar south pole, which is being
examined as a lunar outpost site," Kring told SPACE.com.
Craters at the south pole
might harbor water ice, which could be used to drink and for fuel. And
the polar location offers a spot with round-the-clock sunshine for
gathering solar energy.
The Lunar Orbiters commonly
obtained image resolutions of 500 feet and even managed resolutions of
3 feet in selected places, more than enough to hold their own against
their high-tech camera-toting descendants.
Return to the moon
These high resolution
images will play a major role in selecting landing sites for a return
to the moon under Project Constellation and also for more immediate
robotic landings. They might also be used to calculate how often the
moon gets hit by meteorites, something any astronaut stood out on the
lunar surface will want to know.
"Determining the size and
frequency of impacting near-Earth debris is important because it will
enhance our assessment of impact hazards, both on Earth and the lunar
surface," Kring said. "A comparison of the Lunar Orbiter data
represented on our new Lunar Orbiter Photo Gallery and future LRO
images is already part of the analytical plans for the LRO mission."
The lunar Orbiter data might also dictate what future explorers will do when we reach the moon.
"Lunar Orbiter images are
also being used to evaluate outpost architecture and to design
preliminary traverse routes across the lunar surface. The LRO data will
augment the Lunar Orbiter data and, in small localized areas, will
provide even higher-resolution coverage," Kring said.
Copyright: MSNBC
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No Comments Allowed for Anonymous, please register |
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Re: Decades-old photos help modern moon mission
by Kerux on Thursday, December 06, 2007 (CST)
(User Info | Send a Message) | A new book out by Richard C. Hogland called " Dark Mission: Secrets of NASA."' This book shows in detail the lies, misinformation and cover up by NASA since its conception to hide the photos they have of ruins on the Moon and Mars. A good read. But not so good for NASA.
Kerux |
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