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Originally Posted by BenGun
Don't belittle me! I KNOW that there have been several landings but that was not my point.
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Nowehere Man was not belittling you or or anyone else. It is not unknown for hoax believers to come along who don't even know that there was more than one lunar landing, and your use of the singular in relaying what your friend said made the response perfectly valid. Additionally this was directed at your friend, not you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BenGun
It struck me rather odd that something on the way to the moon simply returned on its own.
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Firstly, the stage was not on its way to the Moon. Once the LM had been extracted the S-IVB stage was shot off in an entirely different direction.
Secondly, it is not at all uncommon for things on the way to the Moon to come back on their own. It's called a free-return trajectory.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BenGun
If the Saturn stage would have stayed in earth orbit, any astronomer (certainly one) would have spotted it
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It wouldn't need to be an astronomer. The S-IVB stage is huge, and mostly white. It would be visible to anyone who hapened to look up at the right moment, and its size would mean it would have to be catalogued to avoid the possibility of running into it with another satellite later on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BenGun
Does this mean that the upper stage is circling BOTH (?) Earth and the moon?
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No, just that everything has a gravitational effect on the orbit of the stage. It mainly is affected by the Sun, but as it wanders closer to the Earth/Moon system those bodies will also have an effect, depending on their relative distance. In a large Earth orbit the Moon will probably have some perturbing effects on the motion of the stage, which is possibly one reason it was later re-ejected from Earth orbit.