🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1480@xn.LL.MIT.EDU> wjc@XN.LL.MIT.EDU (Bill Chiarchiaro) writes:
>I checked the NASA Satellite Situation Report, Vol. 28, No. 4, Dec.
>31, 1988 for non-booster Apollo items still in orbit.  Here's what I
>found:
>
>Int'l Desig.	Catalog #	Name		Orbit		Mission
>
>1969 043C	3948		LM/DESCENT	Selenocentric	Apollo 10
 ...
>1969 059C	4041		LUNAR MODULE	Selenocentric	Apollo 11
 ...
>1972 031C	6005		LUNAR MODULE	Selenocentric	Apollo 16

If 10's descent module was severed before the crew boosted back to high
orbit from something with ~ 10km perilune, does this mean that the LM/D
is supposed to still be swooping down to 10km AGL several times a day?
That would be exciting if true.  However I don't believe it.

There may be little atmospheric drag to deal with, but those MASCONS
discovered from Lunar Orbiter onward must play merry hell with anything
in a low orbit.  10's LM/D is splashed.  It'd be interesting to know
where.  Some day a 3-meter Lunar mapping project will come across all
the Apollo hardware, I'm sure, plus assorted Zonds and Rangers and
Lunar Orbiters[?] and whatnot.
-- 
"My God, Thiokol, when do you     \\	Tom Neff
want me to launch -- next April?"  \\	uunet!bfmny0!tneff