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CookieTonsure | on: Lunar Flyby
The main point of the voyage was to see the far side, and also to report on previously-unseen portions of the Moon that hadn't really had human coverage in the past.

Since all the Apollo landings were on the near-side of the Moon, they were in fact less accessible to this crew.

My disappointment lay chiefly in their L.O.S. periods, because in 2026 why does Earth lack operational satellites that could relay comms from the other side? Or a space optical/radio telescope that would benefit massively from the darkness and shielding of a Moon-sized body? No humans necessary for that. Of course, you couldn't power such a craft with solar power...

_moof | parent | next
Mostly because there's been very little US activity on the Moon to justify it. Orbiting the Moon can also be a pain - its gravitational field is "lumpy" - but you can manage that by making your orbit bigger (higher). See this paper if you're interested in details as they pertain to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been flying since 2009: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20070035736/downloads/20...

China has a lunar comm relay IIRC, to support some surface operations on the far side.

dylan604 | parent
> because in 2026 why does Earth lack operational satellites that could relay comms from the other side?

The moon is not an easy body to orbit. Keeping something in orbit around the moon requires a lot of station keeping which requires a lot of fuel. Once that fuel runs out, the orbit will not be stable. People have talked about trying an Earth-Moon L2 point, but that's not as stable as Sun-Earth L2 where things like JWST are located.