Lecture 2: Our neighbour the Moon, and Spaceflight

Further reading

• There's also sorts of useful data and statistics at "Chuck Wood's Moon: Compendium of Lunar Science and History" at http://www.lpod.org/cwm/DataStuff/Data.htm
• The "two moons" theory is described at "Earth may once have had two moons", http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14391929
• You can browse all the images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and see features as small as 73 cm on the lunar surface (!) at http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/
• Stop press! NASA just released some LRO images of the Apollo landing sites: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/apollo-sites.html
• NASA has a website called "Basics of Space Flight", http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/ which began life as a training document for NASA engineers, but which they quickly realised had much wider appeal. An excellent site to start exploring from.
• "The Slingshot Effect" by Bob Johnson has a very thorough discussion of gravity assist techniques: http://www.dur.ac.uk/bob.johnson/SL/
• NASA has a movie explaining the aerobraking technique which was used to get Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter into orbit: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/video/movies/aerobraking.mov

Source for images

• Background image: View of the lunar surface taken from Apollo 8, looking southward from high altitude across the Southern Sea. NASA Photo ID: AS08-12-2192. http://images.jsc.nasa.gov
• Deep Impact transit movie: from NASA Mission News http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/epoxi_transit.html
• Lunar libration: Antonio Cidadao's Lunar and Planetary Observation and CCD imaging http://www.astrosurf.com/cidadao/animations.htm
• Moon's orbit: redrawn from "The Once and Future Moon" by Paul Spudis, figs 1.5 and 1.6
• Moon at perigee and apogee: from "Inconstant Moon The Moon at Perigee and Apogee" by John Walker http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/moon_ap_per.html
• Microcrater: from A MEETING WITH THE UNIVERSE: Science Discoveries from the Space Program http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/EP-177/cover.html, Appendix A-1
• King crater: from APOLLO OVER THE MOON: A VIEW FROM ORBIT http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-362/cover.htm, fig. 149
• Gagarin crater field: from APOLLO OVER THE MOON: A VIEW FROM ORBIT, fig. 97
• Young craters: the young impact crater Linne, taken by Apollo 15. From APOLLO OVER THE MOON: A VIEW FROM ORBIT, fig. 102
• Euler crater: taken by Apollo 17. From APOLLO OVER THE MOON: A VIEW FROM ORBIT, fig. 138
• Tycho: from the Consolidated Lunar Atlas. http://www.lpi.usra.edu/research/cla/menu.html
• Tycho's central peak: from LRO, on APOD 2011 July 6 http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110706.html
• Orientale: taken Lunar Orbiter 5, http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/lunarorb.html
• Galileo image of Orientale: from the Galileo Legacy Site, http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/earthmoon-moon.cfm
• Basins: from a talk by Hal Levison, "Review of Dynamic Models Associated with Late Heavy Bombardment", http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~hal/talks/nice/Bomb/basins.html
• Lunar topography: from Araki et al, 2009, "Lunar global shape and polar topography derived from Kaguya-LALT laser altimetry", Science 323 897
• South Pole-Aitken: Clementine image, from NASA's Solar System Exploration Gallery, http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/display.cfm?IM_ID=802
• Old and young craters: from "Craters and Planetary History" by Steven Dutch, http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/planets/crathist.htm
• Crater size distribution: from "Introduction to Cratering Studies" by Greg Herres and William Hartmann, http://www.psi.edu/projects/mgs/cratering.html
• Pre-space flight depictions of the lunar surface: from a 1955 book "Exploring the Moon" by Roy Gallant, illustrated by Lowell Hess. From "Dreams of Space" by John Sisson http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~jsisson/john.htm
• Lunar surface: AS17-137-21011, from http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/iams/html/pao/as17.htm
• Late heavy bombardment: from "Impact Processes on the Early Earth" by Christian Koeberl1 Elements, vol 2 p. 211-216 (2006)
• Maria: from an essay on The Grand Canyon and the Moon by Charles R. Cowley http://www.astro.lsa.umich.edu/users/cowley/
• Moon rotation: from Clementine http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/EPO/Educator/educatorsvideos.php
• Moon interior: from Views of the Solar System by Calvin J. Hamilton http://www.solarviews.com/eng/moon.htm
• Hadley Rille: http://www.nasm.si.edu/collections/imagery/apollo/AS15/a15landsite.htm and NSSDC Image Catalog: Apollo 15 http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/imgcat/html/mission_page/EM_Apollo_15_page1.html
• Lichtenberg crater: Photo Number IV-170-H1, Digital Lunar Orbiter Photographic Atlas of the Moon http://www.lpi.usra.edu/research/lunar_orbiter/index.html
• Radar image of moon: from Cornell University: Chronicle Online http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct06/campbell.lunarice.html; LCROSS plume from http://www.space.com/7530-significant-amount-water-moon.html
• Throwing balls into orbit: redrawn from "To Rise from Earth" by Wayne Lee, Fig. 1
• Image of Earth: from Visible Earth: The Blue Marble, http://veimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/2429/globe_east_540.jpg
• All the orbit figures are redrawn from "To Rise from Earth" by Wayne Lee, animated by HMJ
• Mars image: HST pictures of Mars at opposition, taken on February 25, 1995. Image STScI-PRC1995-17a, from the Hubble Space Telescope News Center archive, http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/
• Aerobraking: from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter press release 25 August 2006, http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/newsroom/pressreleases/20060825a.html and Mars Global Surveyor MAG/ER http://mgs-mager.gsfc.nasa.gov/overview/aerobraking.html
• Aerobraking animation: extracted from NASA's Mars Exploration Program: Videos http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/video/movies/aerobraking.mov
• Jupiter image: from StarDate Online http://stardate.org/resources/ssguide/jupiter.html
• Slingshot diagram: redrawn from "The Slingshot Effect" by Bob Johnson http://www.dur.ac.uk/bob.johnson/SL/
• Galileo's VEEGA trajectory: from http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo/education/bulletin/launch_to_g29.html
• Mercury trajectory: from http://www.mercurytoday.com/messenger/missiondesign.html http://ulysses.jpl.nasa.gov/science/jupiter_two.html
• SMART-1 ion engine: from SMART-1: The magic of ion engines, http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/SMART-1/SEMLB6XO4HD_0.html

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Last updated 6 September 2011