Japan's KAGUYA spacecraft performs first lunar HDTV transmission

DirecTV's "Starship" has the right name, but it can't hold a candle to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) KAGUYA satellite which has beamed back the first ever HDTV images from the moon. Form its orbit about 100km above the moon's surface, the spacecraft trained its HDTV camera on the moon and sent the images back for all to see. There were only two "scenes" put in the can, both taken from the area around "Oceanus Procellarum." Click through to see (the very crispy, we think) stills from the captures as well as a short video clip. Alas, the video offered up by JAXA is a decidedly non-HD 480x270 pixels. Taking a lesson from Alien's "In space, no one can hear you scream" PSA, there's also no audio, so feel free to add your own soundtrack as you watch (some version of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" is the obvious choice).

[BenD Posted Nov 8th 2007 4:54PM]

But the real question is, can they now prove that the US's trip to the moon was fake?

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 8th 2007 5:00PM]

Well, I didn't see any lunar modules in the pics or the vid... Of course, these new pictures and video could have been filmed on a movie set AS WELL! :)

[JDM Posted Nov 9th 2007 12:21AM]

It would be nice if they had some good, quick way to release this. If they pressed them onto HD discs or sold very high quality downloads at a fairly reasonable price, I'd jump on it.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 9th 2007 1:36AM]

There is still a lot of moon surface to photograph so it may be a while till they prove if there was a moon landing.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 14th 2007 10:57PM]

There's plenty of proof that they landed on the moon, and none that they didn't. You're not interested in proof, or you would know that already. Go get a conspiracy theory that doesn't make you look like a idiot, Mmkay?