When will a satellite orbit the moon and map it like Google?

what is holding a country or private funded organization to get a satellite up in space to orbit the moon and take detailed pics to the quality of Google earth or better? the pix people show on this site of the moon are so distorted and unclear they look awful..and then people fight over if some blurry pic is an alien building or an actual rock formation on the moon

Strangely enough this has already been done here:

www.google.com...

However they have based it on the clementine dataset from 1994 which is particularly bad regarding quality and resolution

reply to post by sherpa


Photos from the Clementine mission are not only a little weak, they are also fewer than needed for a full coverage, that is why there are some missing areas from the globes made with Clementine photos.

I don't remember if Kaguya is going to map the whole of the Moon (this reminds me of a song ).

Edit: I forgot to say that mapping all of the Moon's surface will take some time if it will be done in high resolution, the higher the resolution the smaller the area visible in each photo, so the more orbits and photos per orbit needed.

That is one of the reasons why mapping a whole planet (or a large satellite) in high definition is not one of the first priorities of the space agencies.

[edit on 30/12/2007 by ArMaP]

High resolution images from the lunar orbiter missions can be found here:

Lunar Orbiter Digitization Project

[edit on 30-12-2007 by Acharya]

reply to post by sherpa


Yes -- there is "Google Moon" using Clementine's images, but next year NASA is sending tthe Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to the Moon. The LRO will take pictures with a maximum resolution of 0.5 meters per pixel -- That's far, far better than Clementine or the current Chinese orbiter Chang'e 1, which has a resolution of about 100 meters.

Here is a link to NASA's LRO page:
NASA LRO

There is a story about "Google Moon", but they don't mention whether or not the LRO photos will be part of Google Moon in the near future.

New higher-resolution lunar imagery and maps that include NASA multimedia content now are available on the Google Moon Web site.

Updates include new content from the Apollo missions, including dozens of embedded panoramic images, links to audio clips and videos, and descriptions of the astronauts' activities during the missions. The new content is overlaid on updated, higher-resolution lunar maps. Also added are detailed charts of different regions of the moon suitable for use by anyone simulating a lunar mission.

«NASA's objective is for Google Moon to become a more accurate and useful lunar mapping platform that will be a foundation for future web-based moon applications, much like the many applications that have been built on top of Google Maps,» said Chris C. Kemp, director of strategic business development at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. «This will make it easier for scientists everywhere to make lunar data more available and accessible.»

www.newsfood.com...

Well there you go illegalalien all these informative posts in just over 30 minutes you gotta love ATS.

Now I have got to get my stars out whose first.

reply to post by internos


It's interesting that someone on NASA said that about Google Moon when NASA has its own (but open source) World Wind.

i remember watching a program where they said a satellite was going to map the moon using some sort of laser like the kind they use to map ocean floorbed topography they could then render the information into a 3 dimensional map and people could then get in a virtual buggy and drive across the moon surface it was really cool