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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: It's Moon-landing Monday
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2009 Jul 21, 01:00 -0700
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2009 Jul 21, 01:00 -0700
Greg, you wrote: "It seems that a 2009 PDA is sufficient to handle trajectories, triangulations and three dimensional cross track error with optimal thrust applications to rendezvous or orbit." Yes, it sure would be good enough for the calculations. I proposed a laptop in case anyone wanted to bring the entire Hipparcos star catalog or maybe a complete topographic map of the Moon at ten-meter resolution (this doesn't exist yet, but it will be available very soon). Some things to consider: There are lots of satellites orbiting the Earth. Could you use them for anything? By 2029, there would probably be a dozen satellites orbiting the Moon. Any use for them? And finally, as it seems to me, the big difference between terrestrial celestial navigation and this "space" navigation is that you can see thousands of stars 24 hours a day (unless your spacecraft is surrounded by clouds of ice particles, as during Apollo 13). If you think about it, that changes everything. What could you do while approaching the Moon if you could see tenth magnitude stars on its limb? -FER --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ NavList message boards: www.fer3.com/arc Or post by email to: NavList@fer3.com To , email NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---