We Did So Land on the Moon

Do you know those people who claim we didn't land on the Moon?  What's so disheartening about these folks is that despite all their reasons for why we didn't or couldn't accomplish such a feat, most of the time their disbelief boils down to a lack of imagination.  They think of the enormity of such a project and since they cannot imagine what it would take to get men to the Moon.  The equipment that would have to be built and the math, Oh My God the Math!  They've grown up jaded in a world where we've stopped exploring on a grand scale.

Luckily there are pictures.


From the NASA.gov website:

At the Apollo 17 site, the tracks laid down by the lunar rover are clearly visible, along with the last foot trails left on the moon. The images also show where the astronauts placed some of the scientific instruments that provided the first insight into the moon's environment and interior.

"We can retrace the astronauts' steps with greater clarity to see where they took lunar samples," said Noah Petro, a lunar geologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who is a member of the LRO project science team.

All three images show distinct trails left in the moon's thin soil when the astronauts exited the lunar modules and explored on foot. In the Apollo 17 image, the foot trails, including the last path made on the moon by humans, are easily distinguished from the dual tracks left by the lunar rover, which remains parked east of the lander.

"The new low-altitude Narrow Angle Camera images sharpen our view of the moon's surface," said Arizona State University researcher Mark Robinson, principal investigator for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC). "A great example is the sharpness of the rover tracks at the Apollo 17 site. In previous images the rover tracks were visible, but now they are sharp parallel lines on the surface."