Ravenwood - 09/28/03 02:37 PM
When I read about the French lunar mission, I knew there was a joke there. Rather than try to hash it out, I figured I'd just wait a few days and Scott Ott of ScrappleFace would get around to it. Hilarity ensues:
(2003-09-28) -- A French-made Arianne rocket took off from French Guiana last night on a European Space Agency mission to "go round and round the moon."What is amazing is that Ott doesn't really have to work too much. The story actually plunges itself into self-parody without too much outside effort. Kudos to Scott.The unmanned probe will take 15 months to get into lunar orbit, where it will try to determine the moon's mineralogical composition and whether it has water. The probe will not land.
Between 1969 and 1972, the United States launched six successful lunar missions, during which men walked, drove a small car and hit golf balls on the moon. They returned to earth with 842 pounds of lunar rocks, core samples, pebbles, sand and dust.
The European mission is dubbed SMART-1.
I'm curious as to why it is taking them 15 months to get to the moon. Didn't we go to MARS in less time, and land a rover?
Come on! The Frogs have never been in a hurry to do anything except surrender.
It's not taking 15 months for the usual reason (that the French are incompetent twats), but because it is testing a new propulsion system of - I think - a solar sail. The satellite will spiral 'round the Earth slowly gathering speed, and then go into a transfer orbit to the moon. No link(sorry) I seem to remember this from a science program.
Posted by: robert at September 29, 2003 3:37 PM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014
