"For the past 30 years, a small reflective plate about 18 inches square has been sitting on the lunar surface quietly bouncing laser beams back to Earth. It continues to defy the predictions of some early Apollo planners who guessed the specialized mirror would quickly be buried in powdery moondust.
When Neil Armstrong placed and balanced the Laser Ranging Retro-Reflector on the white ground just a few giant moonsteps from the site where the Eagle touched down, nobody could have known the device would be as useful at the turn of the 21st century as it was then. But thanks to its simple, non-mechanical design and an extraordinarily placid lunar world, scientists still use the reflector to follow the most miniscule wobbles in the moon's spin and orbit."
...
"The Apollo 11 retro-reflector and similar units left later by the Apollo 14 and Apollo 15 missions, and one Soviet lunar probe, have produced many important measurements. These instruments are the only Apollo experiments still working, and, according to Carroll Alley, the University of Maryland physicist who was principal investigator for the reflector experiment, "There seems to be no measurable degradation in their performance." "
http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/apollo_mirror.html
Space/Science » in reply to re: Uh, yeah Chris. I'm gonna do that....
re: Uh, yeah Chris. I'm gonna do that....
The whole thread (40 posts)
- OK! TIt's timne to end this cosmic bogeyman BS about the hazards of lunar dust.
- Agreed! It's time to end this cosmic bogeyman BS about the hazards of lunar dust.
- re: Not sure where you are coming from. Dust on the Moon is an engineering problem yet to be solved.
- This issue was discussed in the Physics Today article.
- re: Are you trying to claim micrometeorites and cosmic rays do not hit the surface of the Moon?
- OK, you have a point there
- This issue was discussed in the Physics Today article.