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Well, someone had to post it.
Posted on 09/19/2011 12:55:37 PM PDT by Red Badger
Actually, I consider it genius.
Exactly. The same initial momentum and gravity from the Earth and Moon would tend to hold it in proximity to the Earth. Like all of the other junk in space.
Unless, they lit the engine and aimed it towards the sun so that it would overcome the gravity and momentum.
My guess is that once you’ve started the return to Earth from the Moon, anything is going to go into a wide solar orbit unless you use fuel to change course and insert into Earth orbit. That’s pretty much the problem the Apollo 13 guys had.
(In other words, they dumped Snoopy sometime after leaving lunar orbit and sometime before Earth orbit insertion.)
Without other knowledge, I would have assumed that they left it in lunar orbit (or crashed it back into the moon like the later ascent sections of the lunar modules) rather than taking 2 extra tons out of lunar orbit with them.
The only one? I saw v ger in a theater and still watch today, I know, loser. Still love that flick.
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Well, someone had to post it.
The combination of the urban dictionary definition and the star trek reference is too much funny to bear!!!
My first thought exactly. They must have left the lunar lander attached to the command module for the Lunar to Earth burn, which doesn’t really make sense to me, but it’s the only explanation that I can think of.
OK, I did a little research here: http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_10i_Timeline.htm
It looks like after they separated from the LM ascent stage, they fired off its engine, and it must have gone off on its own.
Arg, I just saw this sitting in a browser window from quite a while ago... I forgot to hit send. Apologies if you guys have already hashed this one out. :)
For some reason I thought it had something to do with Snooki.
And over 40 years later and still relatively Earth-bound, we really haven't progressed much past the "Sopwith Camel"...
BTW, the Command Module was named "Charlie Brown."
-PJ
LOL, good one!
I like this idea, I’ve long thought it might be fun to hunt for it myself, but there are too many variables I don’t have good data for (expected spacecraft orientation, albedo for solar radiation pressure, etc).
It seems that it’s last known orbit would be a good start. Then use computer generated orbits to calculate the nearest possible match after 40 years. You should be able to narrow it down to a sector of sky that is the most likely, then begin scanning..............
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