Вот супер интересная статья, как раз по теме этой ветки. И мои мысли очень хорошо подтверждаются
Я эту статью приводил здесь, но никто её как бы и не заметил...
Ссылки по теме - Астронавты "на Луне"
NASA's Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology
ALHAT project
December 30, 2008
~ Добраться туда, где ещё не бывало космического корабля
(название вообще улёт, речь в статье идёт о предстоящих посадках людей на Луну)
Though the last Apollo mission alighted on the moon more than three decades ago, the story of their landings, and where each of those 24 lunar module footpads settled into the soil, is still something Epp considers worthy of note. He is the manager of NASA's Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT) project - an undertaking designed to provide America's next moon crews with invaluable data that could make the difference between a good day and a very bad day.
The ALHAT system is designed to automatically detect hazards such as craters and boulders and then direct the lander to the safest touchdown location available. It is a job ALHAT must perform - on-the-fly.
Boulders, craters and sloping hillsides are hazardous surface features that are easily understood. Any one big enough - and in the right place - can leave a lander at a precarious angle or even cause it to topple over. A lunar surface hazard perhaps not so easily understood, but just as important, is the blinding dust that can be kicked up by a lander's rocket exhaust. That dust can block an astronaut's view of the boulders, slopes or craters below.
"A laser is why ALHAT can operate just as well in the dark as in the light," said Johnson. "When we zap the surface with laser light, some of it bounces back. We have receivers that can read the signature of this returned laser light. We put that information through specially-designed computer algorithms, and what comes out is a three-dimensional glimpse of the lunar surface. That happens 30 times a second."
With 30 separate three-dimensional glimpses of the lunar surface coming through each second, the result quickly becomes a detailed 3-D map of the moon's undulating surface. Mountains, craters, hills and boulders you cannot see out your window appear on screen. ALHAT automatically compares these surface features with a three-dimensional lunar map stored in its memory.
"That is called Terrain Relative Navigation," said Johnson. "It is very important to know early in the descent that you are on the correct trajectory. And if you are not on the proper course, the sooner you know that, the easier it is to rectify things."