How about a webcam on the Moon?

[Sticks]

I was watching my DVD of the Dish with one of the comentaries and they mentioned that the camera that was used on the lunar surface to film the activities of Apollo 11 stayed transmitting for 24 hours after the astronauts had left.

This got me wondering if it would be possible to launch some kind of probe that could land on the Lunar surface with a webcam that say looked back at Earth. Powered of course by solar cells and some kind of rechargible battery. No scientific reason for it, but to provide a Moon cam for people to try out.

[PhantomWolf]

In theory yes, but is it really worth the expense?

[Bearded One]

Tag it onto another mission. Make it high-res but low frame rate. Might make a good advertising gimmick for the right company. "Blah Blah Inc. Takes you to new heigthts!" Legal considerations prevent anyone from tagging along on a NASA flight but maybe the Soviets or ESA will have a spot available. Might be boring during full moon though. Could be of slight scientific use as well.

[Romanus]

^
Ditto; it would be a good gimmick, but not much else IMO. As a stand-alone, I don't think it would be terribly interesting. The Moon's surface is changeless for all intents and purposes, and the Earth is motionless in the Moon's sky. However, the view during lunar eclipses (solar from the Moon ) would be truly spectacular.

[JohnD]

I think the images from Mars would spoil me for any static image from the Moon.
John

[djellison]

A couple of tech-startups were aimed at doing this basically - orbiter, then lander and even landing a rover on the moon for commercial purposes. ( Lunar Corp, Transorbital )

I supposed one could get something on the surface for a few hundred million dollars, but the returns would be minimal and the science return near zero.

Doug

[3rdvogon]

I was watching my DVD of the Dish with one of the comentaries and they mentioned that the camera that was used on the lunar surface to film the activities of Apollo 11 stayed transmitting for 24 hours after the astronauts had left.

I don't want to sound picky but the camera on the Apollo 11 mission did not continue sending pics after they left right at the moment of lift off the connection was broken and the picture was lost - it did not have its own power supply and transmitter. I remember this because I watched it live as a teenager.

On the later Apollo missions the camera (I think it was the one on the rover) was able to show the lift off and climb of the LEM on its way back up to orbit. It certainly continued to show pictures for some time afterwards.

[PhantomWolf]

It was 17.

As to sending a probe with a camera, been there, done that. Surveyor had TV cameras designed to do exactly that, just no internet to send the images too. To me I can't see the point really, it'd cost a lot of money and I can't see any gain for it.

[JonClarke]

if it could cope with both very high and very low light levels, and was landed in an area of high relief it could be very interesting. Lunar sunrise and sunset, changing shadows, earthlight, earth phases, the zodical light, the corona, electrostatic dust streamers, eclipses. More exciting than most web cams.

Jon

[cjl]

The problem would be the extremely long delay between events...

Having to wait 2 weeks between sunrise and sunset makes the action slow down just a bit...

[JonClarke]

Sounds like a lot of web cams about the place

[DaveC426913]

Yeah, as cjl and Romanus say, I don't see how it could possibly be interesting.

Earth would be motionless in the sky, and the background of stars and sun would revolve only once a month but would otherwise look identical to space as seen from Earth.

[a1call]

The MERs didn't cost all that much (relatively speaking ). Why not drop a couple or more on the Moon. I assume much higher bandwidths are possible from the Moon. Lots of science could be achieved specially if a real (being sarcastic) color camera or camcorder was used.

[SolusLupus]

Who cares if it's boring to the average person? Some people would enjoy checking up on it, and there would be potential scientific data available to those that would be interested in viewing that area...

Personally, I think that it would be great, especially if you add in some great "webcam shots" on normal missions, and I'm not quite sure where the expenditure is coming up. Hell, all you need a transmitted signal, a receiver, and then Youtube.

[JonClarke]

As I have already said, There would be a lot of changes going on on a daily basis. Lunar sunrise and sunset, changing shadows, earthlight, earth phases, the zodical light, the corona, electrostatic dust streamers, eclipses. The earth would move in the sky through liberation and nutation. If the Earth were very low in the sky and had nearby references like mountains it should be noticeable.

Jon

[cjl]

I'm not really sure that the changes would be on a daily basis.

The sunrise and sunset would be on a weekly basis, with a 4 week complete cycle, and likewise for earth phases. As for eclipses, those happen even more rarely, and I doubt that you would see much of the corona. The earth would not move significantly through the sky, with any movement being small and slow. Basically, nothing would happen more often than every couple of weeks.

[hhEb09'1]

Why land it? Put it in a polar orbit, and precess it somehow so it runs along the terminator--and it might be able to fly low for a long time.

Didn't one of our resident woos calculate the period of low lunar orbit last year? O wait, we've been there, right?

[Sticks]

Why land it? Put it in a polar orbit, and precess it somehow so it runs along the terminator--and it might be able to fly low for a long time.

Didn't one of our resident woos calculate the period of low lunar orbit last year? O wait, we've been there, right?

My understanding is that anything put into orbit around the moon will be pulled off to crash on the lunar surface by Mascons

[hhEb09'1]

My understanding is that anything put into orbit around the moon will be pulled off to crash on the lunar surface by Mascons

The link at your link says otherwise.

"There are actually a number of 'frozen orbits' where a spacecraft can stay in a low lunar orbit indefinitely. They occur at four inclinations: 27º, 50º, 76º, and 86º"

So, a polar orbit at 86º would do OK. The interesting times might still happen weeks apart, but a video scan of a large portion of the lunar surface, repeated, might turn up some things too--maybe evidence of recent impacts.

[Sticks]

How long would the periods of LOS be if it is in orbit, or would the polar orbit be such that there is no LOS

[hhEb09'1]

How long would the periods of LOS be if it is in orbit, or would the polar orbit be such that there is no LOS

Orbit would be a couple hours, so LOS for about one hour maybe--just TIVO then, and dump it down later?

[DaveC426913]

The earth would move in the sky through liberation...

Well, not so much a daily event, more like every couple of generations. Been 40 years since the last.

[JonClarke]

The sunrise and sunset would be on a weekly basis, with a 4 week complete cycle, and likewise for earth phases. As for eclipses, those happen even more rarely, and I doubt that you would see much of the corona. The earth would not move significantly through the sky, with any movement being small and slow. Basically, nothing would happen more often than every couple of weeks.

Isn't this supposed to be an astronomy board? Did people actually read what I said? Do people still look at the Moon through small telescopes?

The lunar landscape changes dramatically on a daily and even hourly basis as lighting conditions change. This is especially true in mountainous terrain.

The Earth will go through phases at the same rate as the Moon appears to on Earth. It will also show different patterns of cloud and land and sea on an hourly basis. How visible these will be will depend on the camera specs of course.

The corona will be visible for several hours, before sunrise and after sunset. This too will look different on every occasion. The dust streamers will be different every dawn and sunset. The zodiacal light will be visible for daws after unset and before dawn.

The Earth will shift its position by several degrees. This will be visible if the Moon is low in the sky and can be visually referenced against a mountain backdrop.

It is just a matter of getting a camera (or cameras) on the lunar surface with the right performance in the right place to see all this.

Jon

[NEOWatcher]

Isn't this supposed to be an astronomy board? Did people actually read what I said? Do people still look at the Moon through small telescopes? ...

The overall reaction I see is not that they don't see any benefit or interest, but that it is not worth the expense.
Yes; people still look at the moon in small scopes, but, the cost of a small scope is miniscule.
With all the satellites in orbit giving instantanious views of various wavelengths, a moon webcam would boil down to a novelty. Especially when you compare resolution.
I would tune in to it, but thinking that my tax dollars are going in part to get it done and that a frequency is also used up, I would say no.

Something like that should be up to a private venture to determine if advertising, or subscriptions could cover the cost of it.

[Laguna]

Something like that should be up to a private venture to determine if advertising, or subscriptions could cover the cost of it.

[Addmode=on] Subscibe to the moon webcam now! It's only $299 per month.[Addmode=off]

[antoniseb]

It is just a matter of getting a camera (or cameras) on the lunar surface with the right performance in the right place to see all this.

As others have noted, it would be really cool, but not $125 million worth of cool. On the other hand, if you are willing to wait a decade or so, it might be a worthwhile thing to bring to the Moon the next time people go there.

I'm not certain how you'd set it up to be received, since the the ability to receive such data is currently a scarce commodity; but with a little engineering, I'd guess that you could construct something that would transmit data in a form that amateurs with cheap equipment could receive (perhaps modulated into the on-off sequence of an solid-state laser).

You might be able to get something like that onto the Moon at a marginal cost of $1 million per camera (wild guess).

[Larry Jacks]

The MERs didn't cost all that much (relatively speaking ). Why not drop a couple or more on the Moon. I assume much higher bandwidths are possible from the Moon. Lots of science could be achieved specially if a real (being sarcastic) color camera or camcorder was used.

While some of the MER technology could probably be reused, there are a lot of things you'd have to change. For starters, the MER parachute/airbag landing technique wouldn't work. You'd need to develop a rocket powered landing system. The lunar environment is really harsh, so it's possible the MER rovers couldn't survive there. The amount of cold soaking during the long lunar nights might be to much for the batteries, although radioactive isotope heaters might provide enough heat. Likewise, could the MER's electronics survive the heat of the long lunar day or would they require modification?

It'd be very good to have MER-like capabilities on the moon. It just would be more difficult than simply building a copy of the existing design and sending it to the moon.

[Romanus]

I'd love to see an MER-like vehicle on the Moon, though as aforementioned, it would be a much harsher environment. The huge temperature swings would be particularly tough, and if the rover were solar powered, it'd be effectively dead and frozen for two weeks.

[cjl]

Isn't this supposed to be an astronomy board? Did people actually read what I said? Do people still look at the Moon through small telescopes?

The lunar landscape changes dramatically on a daily and even hourly basis as lighting conditions change. This is especially true in mountainous terrain.

I highly doubt you would notice a lighting change in only a matter of hours. The moon goes through one full sunrise/sunset cycle in right around 28 days. The angular movement of the sun in the sky would be just over 1/2 of a degree per hour. This would have slight if any impact on lighting conditions. As I said, it would not change as quickly as you are asserting, and as other people are saying it is not worth the $125m.

[PhantomWolf]

The huge temperature swings would be particularly tough, and if the rover were solar powered, it'd be effectively dead and frozen for two weeks.

In the early 70's the Soviets landed two rovers on the moon, they lasted 11 months and 4 months respectively. I don't see why rovers built with todays technology would last less time.