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Author
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Topic: Landing the Apollo 10 LM descent stage
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mensax
Member Posts: 861
From: Virginia
Registered: Apr 2002
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posted 10-10-2006 03:27 PM
   
I was wondering if it would have been possible, or if any consideration was ever given, for the descent stage of Snoopy to have made a gentle landing on the Moon.How much more effort would have been needed to install a landing computer and a camera on this stage so that when Thomas Stafford and Gene Cernan were finished with this section it could have gone on and landed, much like the Surveyors. I believe I'm correct that it would have landed at the future Apollo 11 site. It could have taken photos on the way down to give the next crew a better idea of the terrain conditions. It could have even filmed the Eagle coming in for a landing. Wouldn't that have been something. |
ilbasso
Member Posts: 1527
From: Greensboro, NC USA
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted 10-10-2006 05:10 PM
Couldn't have happened — all the attitude control thrusters and guidance computers were in the ascent stage. Nice fantasy, but it would have been a LOT easier to send a Surveyor to the landing site instead! |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3633
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 05-08-2016 06:21 PM
The LM staging occurred on REV 14. Stafford and Cernan spotted the LM descent stage again on REV 26. From the transcripts:CDR: Okay. Real fine and just might pass along to the FIDO troups down there that we noticed a star we could not identify coming up and we said well, there must be something else in orbit with us and sure enough this last pass it got close enough. It's the bottom part of Snoopy and Gene-o with his monocular can see his legs - the reflection off his legs. So, as he went out ... behind us, like, I guess I read that ... we're going to slowly catch up with him. Well, we're starting to catch up with the bottom part of Snoop, but something has torqued him out of plane a little bit, and he's going out of plane into the south of us. Maybe a MASSCON grabbed ahold of him, or something, but we're catching up with him. There's no doubt about it. And we can actually see the different colors of reflected light off the black in the silver panels. Over.CC: Roger. Good show. We'll pass that on to the FIDO. |
Fra Mauro
Member Posts: 1739
From: Bethpage, N.Y.
Registered: Jul 2002
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posted 05-10-2016 08:41 AM
Considering that the Eagle landed about 3 miles long, the video might have been a bit of a disappointment. |
Buel
Member Posts: 828
From: UK
Registered: Mar 2012
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posted 05-10-2016 04:59 PM
quote:
Originally posted by mensax:
It could have even filmed the Eagle coming in for a landing.
quote:
Originally posted by ilbasso:
it would have been a LOT easier to send a Surveyor to the landing site instead!
I had never previously given any thought to either of these. Even if they were not realistic... what a thought!
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schnappsicle
Member Posts: 407
From: Houston, TX, USA
Registered: Jan 2012
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posted 05-10-2016 09:24 PM
This has been my fantasy too. While it's too late to get ground coverage of any of the Apollo landings, I was hoping that the next time we land in the moon, the landing craft can release a small robotic rover that would land and give us some great coverage of man's next lunar landing. The biggest problem I see is there might be too much dust to see the actual landing, but it would be a great thing to see regardless. |
rasorenson
Member Posts: 112
From: Santa Clara, CA, USA
Registered: Nov 2009
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posted 06-01-2022 05:28 PM
Does anyone know the final impact location of the Apollo 10 Snoopy descent stage on the lunar surface? Thanks!Editor's note: Threads merged. |
oly
Member Posts: 1383
From: Perth, Western Australia
Registered: Apr 2015
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posted 06-02-2022 07:30 AM
The Apollo 10 Lunar Module descent stage was jettisoned into lunar orbit. It is presumed to have impacted the lunar surface at an unknown location when its orbit naturally decayed sometime in 1969.Given that the moon's gravity was discovered to be "lumpy" by Apollo 8 and 10, and that no seismic equipment had been deployed on the moon at that time, an impact was never detected and its orbital decay was never accurately calculated. |
rasorenson
Member Posts: 112
From: Santa Clara, CA, USA
Registered: Nov 2009
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posted 06-02-2022 04:00 PM
Thank you. |
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