I was thinking putting three satellites on the moon would give you a small triangle and would give you some interesting information from a GPS point of view. It could augment our GPS system. And being on the moon, could provide 3 units, mounted together.
I'm just bringing it up.
Why, or why not?
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Nate The Surveyor, post: 424683, member: 291 wrote: Why, or why not?
Probably a cost/benefit thing. Soft landing a unit on the moon would cost a lot more than orbiting one. In fact I'd guess it would cost more than orbiting a few dozen of them.
Also, I'm thinking your triangle would be incredibly small compared to the distance from the earth to the moon. Those three would essentially be the same as having just one given their relative proximity to each other vs the distance they are measuring.
The moon is on average 19 times the distance of the GPS satellite orbits.
So you have
-high cost of delivery and soft landing on moon
-weak signal unless you build it with high power transmitters (and big solar array, hard to deploy on landing)
-much more complicated calculations for position, involving moon's orbit and libration
to gain
-Little more benefit than one more satellite, because of the small angle between any number on moon. You might gain in resolving ambiguities, but not much in DOP.
Seems to be the type of question pondered up after partaking in a communal peace pipe with the local hill-billies.
clearcut, post: 424806, member: 297 wrote: Seems to be the type of question pondered up after partaking in a communal peace pipe with the local hill-billies.
Somehow this whole thing led to Youtubing Claire Torry in Pink Floyd's Great Gig in the Sky
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Two words....moon people
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James Fleming, post: 424815, member: 136 wrote: Two words....moon people
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My brother asked me something similar a year ago. It was more along the line of obtaining better elevations probably thought of from the Big Bang episode where the geeks blasted a laser at a target on the moon and determined an expected distance.
I would prefer an array of photo satellites to see the whole moon at once. Same with mars and all the other planets. This originates from the Martian and the gaps in visibility from the lack of satellites. Does not help us until we really start mapping.
How about orbit, rotation and the revolving Earth? Not to mention that the moon is not on an equidistant orbit.