Author Topic: Happy Moon Day!  (Read 1905 times)

Offline Lunadyne

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Happy Moon Day!
« on: 07/20/2018 04:51 pm »
Happy Moon Day everyone!

Don't forget to look up at the Moon this evening and give Neil a wink.

And it's not too early to start thinking about next year's 50th anniversary.  How will you celebrate the single greatest achievement in human history?  Sure we (the U.S.) can't get people to the Moon now, or even to orbit for that matter, but all those decades ago we were awesome!

Carpe Lunam!

Offline Lunadyne

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Re: Happy Moon Day!
« Reply #1 on: 07/22/2018 04:11 pm »
Wow! 

To celebrate Moon Day, China Plus/China Radio International published a comprehensive overview of China's missions to the Moon to date: http://chinaplus.cri.cn/news/china/9/20180720/159762.html

As Dr. Spudis at the Lunar & Planetary Institute keeps pointing out, notice how China is demonstrating the ability to move from destination to destination in cislunar space.  The article also claims that the Yutu mission found a new type of Moon rock.

Here in Dallas, the tenth annual Moon Day event at the Frontiers of Flight Museum was another blowout success.  It's being referred to, by the visitors, as the premiere Summer STEM event in North Texas.  They started letting folks in at 9:30 instead of 10:00am to get them out of the torrid Texas heat, but there was still a line out the door at 10:45 when I got there for my cislunar econosphere lecture at noon (blew everyone's minds, as usual).  The live telecon with an astronaut in Star City was a huge hit, as he could see the packed and enthusiastic auditorium.  Mercury 13 applicant Wally Funk taught girls how to breathe better.

Next year is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing.  How is it going to be celebrated in your community?  Maybe a parade?  Maybe Moon movies in the park?  Maybe a NASAnaut rubber-chicken-circuit lecture at the local library?  All it takes is one person to get the ball rolling and make it happen.  I know this as fact because I created the Moon Day event in Dallas in 2008 at the museum's behest for the 2009 40th anniversary, and crafted and nurtured it into what it is today.

Will you be the one to make something cool happen where you are?

Offline A_M_Swallow

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Re: Happy Moon Day!
« Reply #2 on: 07/22/2018 08:58 pm »
There is a reasonable chance that on of the Lunar CATALYST and Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) projects will succeed in landing a probe on the Moon within the next 2 years. NASA could pay to attach a plaque commemorating the Apollo landings.

Offline Lunadyne

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Re: Happy Moon Day!
« Reply #3 on: 07/23/2018 04:06 am »
I think you missed the point of my post. 

If you want a plaque on a CATALYST/CLPS lander, why don't -you- make it happen?  It can be and has been done before.

Ideas are a dime a dozen, cheaper if you want them wholesale.  Action and results are far, far more rare, and actually mean something.

In Ben Bova's book 'Moonrise', the protagonist has a mantra that's apt for something like this:

"If it's to be, it's up to me."

Offline A_M_Swallow

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Re: Happy Moon Day!
« Reply #4 on: 07/23/2018 10:22 am »
I think you missed the point of my post. 

If you want a plaque on a CATALYST/CLPS lander, why don't -you- make it happen?  It can be and has been done before.

Ideas are a dime a dozen, cheaper if you want them wholesale.  Action and results are far, far more rare, and actually mean something.

In Ben Bova's book 'Moonrise', the protagonist has a mantra that's apt for something like this:

"If it's to be, it's up to me."

I do not work for either NASA or any of the lander manufactures so I cannot use US government funds to pay for the plaque. Astrobotic Technology charges $1,500,000/kg, which is more than I can afford to pay for my self.

Offline Lar

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Re: Happy Moon Day!
« Reply #5 on: 07/24/2018 05:23 pm »
I do not work for either NASA or any of the lander manufactures so I cannot use US government funds to pay for the plaque. Astrobotic Technology charges $1,500,000/kg, which is more than I can afford to pay for my self.
Start a publicity campaign. Do a kickstarter to get the plaque itself built. Determine who might be a good contact at Astrobotic Tech to sell on the idea. There are lots of possible channels besides just straight up paying.

For the 45th we recreated the actual mission here at NSF, in real time (except +45 years exactly) as if it were being covered using today's technology.  One of the coolest things i've ever been involved in. Cost? zero.

(start here: lots and lots to read  https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=35180.0 )
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Offline zenden

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Re: Happy Moon Day!
« Reply #6 on: 08/01/2018 06:03 am »
Great read, Lar!
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