Video from the LRV - where to find?

[raven]

True, but I hope they do find life.

[Halcyon Dayz, FCD]

Mars is the most Earth-like planet we have access to.
Studying it might give us some new insights on how our own planet works.

[Kiwi]

Basically, this guy wants a video showing the astronauts parking the rover, walking back, climbing in, taking off.

In that case, he can't have it just as he can't have a video of Armstrong viewed from the lunar surface as he exits the hatch and climbs down the ladder, because it doesn't exist and never could have because of the way things were done back then.  There were plenty of activities that were only partially videoed or not videoed at all.

The one and only video camera on the moon was on the rover, so what is his proposed scenario?  That there should have been more than one camera?  Or the camera should have been removed and placed somewhere else, or Jack Schmitt should have neglected his close-out duties and operated the camera to satisfy some nutty requirement 40 years later?

Has he listened to all the audio and studied the transcripts and the lunar surface checklists and other documents and all the still photos that have been provided as evidence of the activities?

What logical fallacies has he committed here?  "If I ran the zoo..." must be one of them.  Is there a name for, "I can't understand it so it must have been faked"?

Feel free to use the quotes in my signature if they could be useful, but I doubt it.

[Noldi400]

Basically, this guy wants a video showing the astronauts parking the rover, walking back, climbing in, taking off.

I've told him, this is not possible, because there was a 17 hours interval between close-out of the last EVA, and lunar liftoff. Also, the LM had it's back to the rover, because it was landed with it's back to the sun, so the commander could pick a safe landing spot. He couldn't do that with the sun in his eyes, and the rover couldn't film anything usefull if the camera looked into the sun.

Edit: Also, I suspect the batteries on the LRV wasn't up to the job, videotaping 17 hours.

Well, more to the point, the TV camera being mounted on the LRV, it can't very well show it being parked and the astronauts dismounting.

[Halcyon Dayz, FCD]

Is there a name for, "I can't understand it so it must have been faked"?

Looks a form of the argument from incredulity.

[ka9q]

Mars is the most Earth-like planet we have access to.
Studying it might give us some new insights on how our own planet works.

Sure, but there's more to how our planet works than the life on it.

[Halcyon Dayz, FCD]

Mars is the most Earth-like planet we have access to.
Studying it might give us some new insights on how our own planet works.

Sure, but there's more to how our planet works than the life on it.

Definitely.
I was thinking about climatology and geology and such.

I don't think there's life on Mars.
Once life establishes a foothold it will colonise every niche it can find, it's persistent and resourceful.
Once there's enough of it it changes the environment.
If there was life on Mars it would be all over the place, and it would be obvious.

[cjameshuff]

I don't think there's life on Mars.
Once life establishes a foothold it will colonise every niche it can find, it's persistent and resourceful.
Once there's enough of it it changes the environment.
If there was life on Mars it would be all over the place, and it would be obvious.

There are places on Earth with no signs of life that would be obvious to the probes we've sent to Mars, apart from the high-oxygen atmosphere. And we may in fact have seen changes produced by microbial life. Purely geological processes can account for things like the "blueberries", but they quite often involve microbial activities as well. The surprisingly un-oxidized interior of the mudstone Curiosity drilled into might even be a sign that the mud contained biological materials that preserved it against oxidation. All we can be sure of is that it probably could have supported life, and was probably quite hospitable at one time (though perhaps not to us).

[Allan F]

I've been reading a lot about the LRV lately. I wonder what changes would be made today, if one was to be constructed. Obviously a better (several?) TV-camera would be used, an active antenna system which could keep transmitting even on the go, navigation system, carbonfiber for the frame. What else?

[Allan F]

Is there a name for, "I can't understand it so it must have been faked"?

Looks a form of the argument from incredulity.

At one time he was talking about Buzz Aldrin and his slide rule, used to compute the descent to the lunar surface. I asked him to provide some more info, like a link to a description how this was done. Didn't get it. Then he was on about his years as a factory worker, where he didn't know what he was producing. This he compared to the workers who manufactured parts for the various spacecrafts. It's been going on for a couple of weeks now. The dutch petrified piece of wood mistaken for a moon rock has been up, talked about, and forgotten.

Edit: A month and a day now, actually.

[ka9q]

I've been reading a lot about the LRV lately. I wonder what changes would be made today, if one was to be constructed.

Being a communications engineer, naturally I would love the chance to design a new comm system for a lunar rover using today's technology.

The link to earth would operate on a higher frequency band and of course be entirely digital. This would provide considerably greater capacity. HDTV should be no problem.

The high gain antenna would track earth automatically while in motion. A phased array would be ideal so it wouldn't have to physically move; physically this would be a flat plate. A single antenna pointed straight up would suffice for landing sites near the center of the moon's disc, but sites closer to the limb might require the rover to carry several antennas, one pointed to each side of the rover and that might be too heavy. If a mechanically pointed high gain antenna had to be used, I'd include a medium gain backup to automatically maintain a lower speed link while the high gain antenna is acquiring.

Lunar surface communications should use an ad-hoc network, with nodes automatically discovering and relaying data between other nodes as well as sinking and sourcing their own data. WiFi hardware could be used almost off-the-shelf. One would go on the LM, one on each astronaut's PLSS, and one on the rover. Additional standalone relay units could be provided and deployed along the rover's path to provide communications beyond line of sight; depending on the terrain and the path to be covered, this might entirely eliminate the need for direct rover-to-earth communications.

The rover would be capable of full remote operation after the astronauts have left. This was proposed for the Apollo LRV but couldn't be accomplished before the end of the program.

Thermal control, especially of the batteries and electronics, was a serious headache in the Apollo LRV. It would be great to improve this, though I'm not sure how. It would be especially important if the rover is to continue its mission by remote control after the astronauts have left. The peak temperatures at solar noon and the long, cold lunar night are both difficult problems.

[cjameshuff]

Thermal control, especially of the batteries and electronics, was a serious headache in the Apollo LRV. It would be great to improve this, though I'm not sure how. It would be especially important if the rover is to continue its mission by remote control after the astronauts have left. The peak temperatures at solar noon and the long, cold lunar night are both difficult problems.

You might just have the rover travel during twilight periods, and spend the rest of the time in deployable aluminized "hog shelters" that provide shade during the day and trap ground heat during the night, giving it a chance to do excavation, sample gathering and analysis, etc.

[Allan F]

Solar panels for power - could be shaped to protect the electronics and batteries against direct sunlight? The frame and motors shouldn't be sunlight sensitive. Can't the motors be radiant cooled with cooling vanes in shadow?

[ka9q]

At local noon, the problem isn't sunlight so much as thermal radiation from the lunar surface, which hits over 100C. I like cjameshuff's idea of taking a siesta under some reflective blankets, but it would still need some sort of radiator to avoid reaching equilibrium temperature with the surface.

[cjameshuff]

At local noon, the problem isn't sunlight so much as thermal radiation from the lunar surface, which hits over 100C. I like cjameshuff's idea of taking a siesta under some reflective blankets, but it would still need some sort of radiator to avoid reaching equilibrium temperature with the surface.

The surface only reaches that temperature in the sun. Under the shelter, heating would be limited to what reflects into the shelter from outside and what conducts directly, which should be quite limited due to the low thermal conductivity of the surface. The shelter would maintain a relatively cool patch during the day, and a relatively warm patch during the night.