for the ones who are following my blog (who like 3 people?), remember that i mentioned the "whitey on the moon" by gil scott heron. who criticized the fact that scientific advance on space travel advanced despite and probably due to the inequality and poverty in U.S. (USSR also).
some are actually not even sure about that:
you probably heard the conspiracy theories that the apollo 11 mission is the greatest hoax in the history, because U.S. government taped everything in a stage.
well, while writing my last post i realized that the lunar laser ranging experiments that measure the distance between earth and moon makes use of the reflectors that have been put on the moon by apollo 11 mission.
sorry to disappoint the skeptics but scientists are using the machinery that is set up on the moon by the apollo 11 astronauts. to be fair, the signal that arrive from the reflectors are very weak. and it is very hard to precisely aim for the reflector, a lot of painstaking analysis goes into finding the exact photons that bounce off the reflector.
coincidentally i found this guardian article from last month, reporting the cancellation of funding of mcdonald laser ranging station at fort davis in texas. national science foundation apparently does not find the science case strong. apparently laser experiments will continue in the future at apache point in texas and observatoire de la côte d'Azure in france.
p.s. thanks to giulia for giving me the idea for this post, and claudia for excessive ranting about the most ridiculous things on the moon.
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