NASA Launching unmanned mission to the Moon tonight from VA.

[High Exposure 5,664]

And it will be visible from NJ AT AROUND 11:27 PM!

 

It is a new rocket class, the Minotaur 5 - a five stage spin stabilized rocket carrying an unmanned payload called the LADEE.

 

http://www.ibtimes.com/nasa-ladee-launch-live-stream-how-watch-moon-probe-launch-friday-night-1403048

[High Exposure 5,664]

Watch live online here:

 

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html#.UiqX-2S9Kc3

 

Click the Android or OIS link to the left of the box of on mobile phone or tablet.

[Lalo 13]

Love this stuff, thanks for the heads up!

[checko 180]

It's not what it seems. 

[dajonga 397]

Ok, that was pretty cool. I went outside and watched it go thru 2 stages. I did not see the 3rd stage light up.

 

I tried to wake up my 11 year old. He wanted nothing to do with it.

 

Loser.

[Contrvlr 17]

House faces South, stepped outside and got to see it for about a minute and a half , thanks for the heads up

[CAPTBIL3 10]

Just watched it launch from my apartment window, WOW is all i can say.

[checko 180]

I went outside and seen something bright.  I assume that was it lol

[High Exposure 5,664]

I wish I knew about is earlier! I would have had a Rocket party!!!

 

I love this stuff!

 

People built a vehicle that will launch from Earth and go to the motherlovin' moon! That amazes the crap out of me. The amount of knowledge we have gained in such a short time is truly awesome! What we still don't know is humbling...

 

This kind of stuff makes me harder than Chinese arithmetic!

[checko 180]

I'm way more amazed that there are people from earth, who walked upon another celestial body, and came back like it was nothing. 

 

That is if you believe in that of course.....

[maintenanceguy 510]

Definitely one of the cooler things I have seen.  Perfect night for it.  Saw it come up over the horizon, head east, saw the second stage fire and the first stage fall away.  It left a huge vapor trail that we could see clearly in the starlight.   Amazing considering I'm 100 miles away and was probably 200+ miles away when stage 2 fired.

[njJoniGuy 2,131]

It was probably just another NSA listening station!

[tony357 386]

I'm way more amazed that there are people from earth, who walked upon another celestial body, and came back like it was nothing. 

 

That is if you believe in that of course.....

I was once a centipede and reincarnated as a human, it is messed up because i keep trying to get into tight dark spaces..

[maintenanceguy 510]

If... Small word big meaning....... I'm one of those that don't...

 

Me too.  My reason:  I was an engineering student in the late 1980's.  I had a project that involved vertical take off and landing and I became familiar with what was the state of the art in VTOL at the time. VTOL simply was not perfected enough in 1969 to be able to work flawlessly on the moon where we didn't know much about the surface.  Rockets pushing against a soft surface are a lot different than pushing against a solid surface (close to the ground) and the landing location was a crap shoot - we didn't know what to expect ahead of time.   And even at 1/6 the gravity of earth, the luner lander could not have carried enough fuel to escape the lunar gravity.    After this project, a bunch of us enginerds were sitting in a dorm watching TV and footage of the liftoff from the surface was shown.  We pretty much yelled in unision:  "No f'n way" and we were all kind of decided that it must have been a hoax. 

[paulnj088 9]

i saw it!!  i didnt know what the eff it was untill i came on here

i must say, the sky has been really alive these past couple of months...ohh the things i see

[10X 3,301]

Me too. My reason: I was an engineering student in the late 1980's. I had a project that involved vertical take off and landing and I became familiar with what was the state of the art in VTOL at the time. VTOL simply was not perfected enough in 1969 to be able to work flawlessly on the moon where we didn't know much about the surface. Rockets pushing against a soft surface are a lot different than pushing against a solid surface (close to the ground) and the landing location was a crap shoot - we didn't know what to expect ahead of time. And even at 1/6 the gravity of earth, the luner lander could not have carried enough fuel to escape the lunar gravity. After this project, a bunch of us enginerds were sitting in a dorm watching TV and footage of the liftoff from the surface was shown. We pretty much yelled in unision: "No f'n way" and we were all kind of decided that it must have been a hoax.

A rocket doesn't "push" against anything, though the lunar surface is plenty solid. An inch or two of dust doesn't interfere with the whole action <=> reaction thing.

 

The landing sites had been mapped fairly well from low lunar orbit before the first manned flight. We'd already sent two dozen unmanned missions there.

 

The lander didn't escape lunar gravity-it wasnt intended to.  The much larger command module engine did that.

[RUTGERS95 890]

wait a minute....are you guys saying we didn't go the moon and come back?

[ryan_j 0]

We didn't go to the moon, and the Earth is flat too.

[Vlad G 345]

I think you can buy telescopes big enough to see the landers if you spend some coin. Or you can shoot a laser at the mirrors they installed.

[10X 3,301]

Yes, we did.  Six times.  

 

Plus three manned Apollo lunar orbital missions.  Preceded by  five unmanned Lunar Orbiter missions, 1 successful Pioneer unmanned mission, assorted unmanned Ranger lunar missions, and five soft lunar landings (one with restart and subsequent take-off) by unmanned Surveyer spacecraft.

 

Plus all the stuff the Soviets did.

[Kaiser7 33]

I tried to watch it from my house, but didn't see anything.  My girlfriend, who lives in Upper Darby PA climbed on her roof to watch it, but slid and fell off her roof.

Fortunately she only cut her hand up a bit and wasn't seriously hurt.

[Pythagoras 2]

I think you can buy telescopes big enough to see the landers if you spend some coin. Or you can shoot a laser at the mirrors they installed.

 

^This. Thank you. Anyone who doesn't believe can find out for themselves with only a reasonable amount of equipment and little know-how.

 

There are too many actual conspiracies going on these days to keep stirring up this old bullspit.

[High Exposure 5,664]

So "Capricorn 1" waaaas a documentary got it

 

I believe we did it. I believe is was a national pride thing after losing the race to the "first man in space" to Russia primarily. I believe it was also a distraction for the people.

 

I don't believe we went there initially for any other reason than to get ther first. We were in the middle of an unpopular war which for all intents and purposes it appeared that we were losing to the Communists. The race to the moon was just another way to achieve victory over the Reds and was a convinet political distraction to all the bad things going on in our country at the time.

 

As for why we didn't stay or colonize, or keep going back? Well while I believe the journey was feasible, the amount of resources it would have taken to actually colonize the moon, build permanent structures, or do any kind of work to mine it for resources and ship back to Earth was just not possible at the time with the tech available and it was not profitable enough, politically or monetarily. The juice wasn't worth the squeeze, as they say. The landing were "enough" and provided the victory we needed and the distraction we wanted and served the purposes required. National pride soared, the Russians knew we did it first, and people forgot about some of the worse stuff going on. The mission, as it was intended was accomplished.

 

As tech gets better it will become a reality that we will land there again, and we will likely set up permanent structures with an enclosed atmosphere. I believe this will primarily be done as a test run for a mission to Mars.... And I for one can't wait!!

[Smokin .50 1,907]

So "Capricorn 1" waaaas a documentary got it

 

I believe we did it. I believe is was a national pride thing after losing the race to the "first man in space" to Russia primarily. I believe it was also a distraction for the people.

 

I don't believe we went there initially for any other reason than to get ther first. We were in the middle of an unpopular war which for all intents and purposes it appeared that we were losing to the Communists. The race to the moon was just another way to achieve victory over the Reds and was a convinet political distraction to all the bad things going on in our country at the time.

 

As for why we didn't stay or colonize, or keep going back? Well while I believe the journey was feasible, the amount of resources it would have taken to actually colonize the moon, build permanent structures, or do any kind of work to mine it for resources and ship back to Earth was just not possible at the time with the tech available and it was not profitable enough, politically or monetarily. The juice wasn't worth the squeeze, as they say. The landing were "enough" and provided the victory we needed and the distraction we wanted and served the purposes required. National pride soared, the Russians knew we did it first, and people forgot about some of the worse stuff going on. The mission, as it was intended was accomplished.

 

As tech gets better it will become a reality that we will land there again, and we will likely set up permanent structures with an enclosed atmosphere. I believe this will primarily be done as a test run for a mission to Mars.... And I for one can't wait!!

 

^^^^^THIS^^^^^

 

I LIVED through the Space Race.  I WAS GLUED to the TV on July 29th 1969.  I watched every broadcast for every Lunar Flight.  Especially Apollo 13.  I own practically every piece of footage available on the US Space Program.  I've talked with both film and camera manufacturers about their Space Cameras and Space Films engineering and manufacturing.  I have an acquaintance who was an Engineer for Grumman and who worked on the LEM.  I've seen the "evidence" of the Nay-Sayers that the landing was a hoax (the famous "shadow" pix of the LEM on the surface).  As a Pro Photog, I'm convinced that the reflection of the Lunar surface filled-in the shadow, thus debunking the Hoax Theory.  Overcoming 1/6 G wasn't hard for a rocket motor to do when the LEM left the Lunar Surface.  The Astronauts replaced the weight of their Hasselblad cameras and lenses with Moon Rocks, bringing back ONLY the 70mm film magazines.  These cameras are still on the Moon.  The walls of the LEM in some places were ONLY a few millimeters thick of layered reinforced foil.  More weight savings.

 

As for not establishing a permanent Colony, well the Saturn-5 Rocket, at 363 feet tall, could only carry so much of a payload all the way to the Moon.  Funding for a much larger multi-stage Rocket design was needed to encompass such a huge endeavor, and it never would get past Congress.  Payload weight and size were always the big concerns.  Two MILLION parts all had to work correctly, at the right time, every time, in order to go to the Moon and BACK!  As the Apollo Program was winding-down, the DOD became keenly interested in the Shuttle Program.  In fact the DOD itself had the final say on the length of the Shuttle Bay (this has been declassified) at 60' 0" as they had in-place a program to launch and capture satellites for use in the Star Wars Program.

 

I wish we would go back to the Moon.  But we as a Country are going to have to make it a PRIORITY to do so.  And that will take both commitment and backbone!

 

It boggles my mind to think that we lost ONLY three Astronauts (in the "Plugs-Out Test" for Apollo 1) during the entire Apollo Program, but TWO entire CREWS of SEVEN during a Launch (Challenger) and a Re-Entry (Columbia).  May their souls forever rest in peace....

 

Dave

Amateur Space "Junkie"

[RUTGERS95 890]

I am dumbfounded by this thread to be honest.  Only 1 time in American history did all of our resources and technological know how go into something prior to the moon adventures and that was WW2.  The amount of evidence, ability to actually see the left over landing equipment, items brought back and first hand accounts is overwhelming.  I always respect people's opinion but on this, you guys ought to be on a reality show with Nancy Pelosi.  Yup, that's the company you guys are keeping....lol

[mipafox 438]

Upset I missed this.

 

Good work, HE.