Seeing is believing

Dear Editor:It has been 40 years since Apollo 11 landed on the moon. There have been three probes sent to the moon in the last few years by Japan, China and India but none of them took any photos of the six landers, flags, three rovers, or any of the other gear that should be there. Did America ask them not to take a camera that could photograph them? The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) was sent up June 18 to map the lunar surface. NASA stated the LRO can take images with resolution down to 3.3 feet. With today's technology, NASA could have put a color video camera with a zoom lens so we could see the red, white and blue on our six American flags, not just an image camera that shows black and white. We should have sent an orbiter that can do what our Google Earth zoom-in satellite camera can do. We could call it "Google Moon Orbiter." I kept a "Look" magazine from 1969, and in it, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong stated they left behind cameras, walking boots, equipment boxes, an aluminum pole, two backpacks, urine bags and other equipment to lighten the load for take-off. Also, the plaque announcing man's arrival attached to the forward leg of the lunar module. It's disappointing that NASA did not use a Google Earth Technology satellite camera that could zoom in, in such detail. Was this the government's intent to not use this type of camera? On the www.nasa.gov website, images were sent to Goddard Space Flight Center at Arizona State University. The images have terrible resolution. There are six total. Five of them are of Apollo 11, 14, 15, 16 and 17 Lunar Modules, all of which needed to be pointed out with a blatant arrow, and was still very difficult to make out. The last picture very poorly showed the "scientific instruments, astronaut footpath, Lunar Module and Lunar Module shadow." On the website, the article claims to receive pictures from a wide-angle camera that will show color images in the near future. Seeing is believing. These pictures are not believable. - Mike Sandoval, Downey

********** Published: July 24, 2009 - Volume 8 - Issue 14