Eugene A. "Gene" Cernan, USN Ret. (1934-2017)

Among the very last photographs ever taken on the Moon, immediately following a third and final EVA at Taurus Littrow, December 1972, Harrison Schmitt captured a gritty, dusty Apollo 17 cmdr Gene Cernan, just after their retreat to the relative safety of their lander. Findings from the Apollo landings demonstrates the challenge presented by the course fineness of lunar dust to human and spacecraft health. Astronauts report the lunar surface material smelled a bit like ozone and gunpowder.  Cernan, 82, passed away January 16, 2017 [NASA/JSC].

LADEE analysis maps lopsided meteoric dust cloud (June 26, 2015)
Apollo 17 samples further refine bombardment timeline (February 13, 2015)
Earth rising (May 15, 2014)
Range of Reactions to the Chang'e-3 Landing (December 18, 2013)
Snapshots from the Moon and Cislunar Space (July 25, 2013)
Apollo 17, Station 6 (December 15, 2013)
Oblique view of Taurus Littrow, from the West (December 19, 2012)
Apollo 17 lands, ending the Apollo era, 40 years ago (December 11, 2012)
Approach To Taurus Littrow Valley (December 11, 2012)
The last manned launch to the Moon (December 7, 2011)
Taurus Littrow Oblique (September 29, 2012)
Question Answered! (July 17, 2012)
Just Another Crater? (December 13, 2011)
Skimming the Moon (September 6, 2011)
Exploring the Apollo 17 Site (October 28, 2009)

Edgar Mitchell (1930-2016)

Edgar Mitchell, sixth human to visit the lunar surface, takes a live panorama of the close horizon using the first color television camera successfully operated on the Moon; at Fra Mauro, south of Copernicus, February 1971. Photograph by Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard [NASA/JSC].

Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, lunar module pilot on Apollo 14, passed away Thursday in West Palm Beach, Florida,  and on the eve of the 45th anniversary of his lunar expedition in 1971.

Mitchell joined Apollo 14 commander Alan Shephard, Jr., the first American in space, in the lunar module Antares, which touched down February 5, 1971, in the Fra Mauro highlands. Shepard and Mitchell were assigned to traverse the lunar surface to deploy scientific instruments and perform a communications test on the surface, as well as photograph the lunar surface and any deep space phenomena. It was Mitchell’s only spaceflight.

Mitchell and Shephard set mission records for the time of the longest distance traversed on the lunar surface; the largest payload returned from lunar surface; and the longest lunar stay time (33 hours). They were also the first to transmit color TV from the lunar surface. Mitchell helped collect 94 pounds of lunar rock and soil samples that were distributed across 187 scientific teams in the United States and 14 other countries for analysis.

Read the full NASA release HERE.

Armstrong's treasure of Apollo 11 artifacts found

Neil Armstrong's "McDivitt Bag," filled with priceless souvenirs of the July 1969 first manned expedition to the lunar surface, has been disclosed to the Smithsonian Institute by his widow. Among them, the 16mm DAC camera that captured the landing from the starboard window.

Jesus Diaz

Sploid/gizmodo

These are the contents of a mysterious white bag found hidden in Neil Armstrong's closet: Weird looking lamps, wrenches, utility brackets, sights, and a film camera that later was identified as the one that captured the famous Apollo 11's descent on the Moon's surface. Nobody knew about it, including his widow.

According to NASA, Carol Armstrong sent photos to Allan Needell, curator of the Apollo collection at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, who immediately knew what was inside: It was a McDivitt Purse full of parts from the Eagle, Apollo 11's Lunar Module:

After Neil Armstrong's death, his widow, Carol, discovered a white cloth bag in a closet, containing what were obviously either flight or space related artifacts. She contacted Allan Needell, curator of the Apollo collection at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, and provided photographs of the items. Needell, who immediately realized that the bag—known to the astronauts as the Purse - and its contents could be hardware from the Apollo 11 mission, asked the authors for support in identifying and documenting the flight history and purpose of these artifacts. After some research it became apparent that the purse and its contents were lunar surface equipment carried in the Lunar Module Eagle during the epic journey of Apollo 11.

These artifacts are among the very few Apollo 11 flown items brought back from Tranquility Base and, thus, are of priceless historical value. Of utmost importance is the 16mm movie camera with its 10mm lens.

The on-board 16 mm film camera, with which the landing, first steps, and take off of the lunar module Eagle from Mare Tranquillitatis were filmed, has been unearthed in a bag of similarly priceless small artifacts of the epic mission found in Neil Armstrong's closet in Ohio.

The camera was mounted behind the right forward window of the lunar module and was used to film the final phase of the descent to the lunar surface, the landing, as well as Neil Armstrong's and Buzz Aldrin's activities on the lunar surface including taking the first samples of lunar soil and planting the US flag.

Still from the Apollo 11 16mm DAC film camera shows Armstrong (with visor up) taking his initial, halting steps out onto Mare Tranquillitatis, still tethered to the spacecraft.

Thanks to the Neil Armstrong family, the Apollo 11 purse and its contents are now on loan at the National Air and Space Museum for preservation, research and eventual public display.

Here's a list of everything inside and how it looked inside and outside the Eagle:

Read the full article at sploid.gizmodo, HERE.

Grissom, White and Chaffee

Al Worden: 'NASA took a giant step backwards'

Brief walk in Deep Space: Apollo 15 command module pilot Al Worden leaves the confines of Endeavour for the first time in ten days, to retrieve film and data from the SIMS bay of the service module. The 39 minute spacewalk, August 5, 1971, took place as spacecraft, crew and cargo (including 77 kg of lunar samples) were steadily accelerating toward high-speed reentry and splashdown 30 hours later [NASA/JSC].

Apollo 15 command module pilot
Al Worden, with one of the controversial
souvenir flags flown with 1971 mission.

Cornelia Borrmann

Deutsche Welle

DW: What comes to mind when you see the moon at night?

Alfred M. Worden: Well, it's been more than 43 years since I was there. And I think if you go anywhere, 43 years later those memories are pretty dim in your mind, and it's pretty hard to recapture that. But I will tell you - if the moon is right, and particularly if I have some young people with me, I use it as a training tool to get them excited about astronomy. So I do use the moon, but don't just look at the moon and philosophize about what I did.

You witnessed magic moments of manned space flight - the Apollo era. How was it?

Every single person who worked on the program had one goal in mind: Get the guys on the moon and bring them back safely. There was no bureaucracy. If we had a problem, we sat around a table, we discussed it, and we decided then what to do. We listened to everybody. And then we gave an opinion. And we got through a lot of technical issues very quickly and came to the right conclusions, because everybody came together at the work level.

Nobody was trying to improve their position or ensure that their position did not go away. We did not have any managers that were jockeying for position to go higher. Everybody tried to do what was right to go to moon.

Read the full Berlin interview, HERE.

Bellcomm’s 1968 Lunar Exploration Program

Apollo 15 astronaut James Irwin works beside the mission’s Lunar Roving Vehicle, the first to reach the moon, July 31, 1971. Beginning with Apollo 15, NASA deviated from Bellcomm’s proposed Lunar Exploration Program outlined in 1968 [NASA].

David S. F. Portree
Wired

Bellcomm, Inc., based near NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, was carved out of Bell Labs in 1962 to provide technical advice to NASA’s Apollo Program Director. The organization rapidly expanded its bailiwick to support nearly all NASA Office of Manned Space Flight advance planning.

In a January 1968 report, Bellcomm planners N. Hinners, D. James, and F. Schmidt proposed a mission series designed to fill a gap which they felt existed in NASA’s lunar exploration schedule between the first piloted Apollo lunar landing and later, more advanced Apollo Applications Program (AAP) lunar flights. The trio declared that their plan was “based upon a reasonable set of assumptions regarding hardware capability and evolution, an increase in scientific endeavor, launch rates, budgetary constraints, operational learning, lead times, and interaction with other space programs,” as well as “the assumption that lunar exploration will be a continuing aspect of human endeavor.”

To bridge the gap between early Apollo and AAP, they envisioned a series of 12 lunar missions in four phases.

Read the full article, HERE.

Ballistic boulder at Hecataeus N

A house-sized boulder left a clear impression, immediately beyond the east rim of a young 1.6-km crater (rim crest to the left), all in a full-sized reproduction, 988 meter-wide field of view from LROC NAC observation M182995612R, LRO orbit 12068, February 4, 2012; 48.59° incidence, resolution 85 cm from 83.56 km over 20.98°S, 80.74°E [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

J. Stopar

LROC News System

The boulder above (21.085°S, 80.777°E) in the opening image is likely debris ejected during the violent excavation of the 1.6-km diameter crater immediately to the west (left).

The boulder was deposited ballistically; the distance it travelled and its time of flight are related to its ejection angle and velocity.

For the boulder, was this flight a "small step" or a "giant leap?"

Looking at the image above, we can deduce that the boulder was deposited with enough force to make a noticeable impression in the ground. However, a more forceful landing would have highly fragmented the boulder.

More examples of surface impressions formed by ballistic boulders from the fresh impact near Hecataeus N. Spotty trails mark where boulders rolled into a pre-existing crater (small yellow arrows). Another larger, boulder (25 meters in diameter, large white arrow) was thrown out of the crater to the southwest and carved a furrow in the ejecta blanket, coming to rest when it intersected a pre-existing crater rim (topographic high) [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

The boulder is located about 500 meters east of the crater rim crest, which is only about a third of the crater diameter. Thus, this boulder did not travel very far or very fast.

Explore the entire crater and its ejecta below:

Fresh impact on the west flank of Hecataeus N 4.3 km field of view from LROC NAC mosaic M182995612LR, LRO orbit 12068, February 4, 2012; 48.59° incidence, resolution 85 cm from 83.56 km over 20.98°S, 80.74°E [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

View full-window HERE.

The house-sized boulder (yellow arrow), which left its impression just beyond the east rim of the unnamed young 1.6-km crater that, in turn, sits on the west flank of Hecataeus N, shown in the context of a 7.86 km-wide field of view from LROC NAC mosaic M182995612LR, LRO orbit 12068, February 4, 2012; 48.59° incidence, resolution 85 cm from 83.56 km over 20.98°S, 80.74°E [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

The fresh crater (center) on the southwest slope of Hecataeus N (10.82 km; 20.91°S, 80.944°E) excavates the deepest material originally turned up by "N" while both, in turn, sampled the very ancient Hecataeus interior (southwestern half of this 40-km wide field of view) and, even further, material turned out by Humboldt, to the south (see below), a powerful impact that significantly filled in and covered over the floor of Hecataeus. This is an example of something planners look when making good landing site choices, ones likely to efficiently utilize precious resources. LROC WAC observation M177109146C (604 nm), LRO orbit 11236, November 28, 2011; 68.1° incidence, resolution 58.91 meters from 43.76 km [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

A general schematic map of geological types, representing the relative stratigraphy of the lunar surface affected by Hecataeus and Humboldt, in the south equatorial latitudes of the far eastern hemisphere, where the farside highlands begin, The fresh crater on the west flank of Hecataeus N is marked by an arrow.

The grooves carved by boulders ejected at relatively low velocities are in many ways similar to the spotty tracks etched by boulders sliding, rolling, and bouncing down steep slopes. Also, boulder tracks (like these) often resemble the astronauts' footprints on the lunar surface, since both have relatively recently disturbed the soil in narrow paths. 

In honor of the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing (July 20, 1969), revisit some of our previous posts about large boulders visited by astronauts:

Pinpoint Landing on the Ocean of Storms (Apollo 12)

Trail of Discovery at Fra Mauro (Apollo 14) 

Retracing the Steps of Apollo 15

Astronaut's Eye View of Apollo 16 Site

Station 6 - Apollo 17 

Finally, revisit some of the best LROC images of the Apollo 11 landing site and see if you can find any large boulders. You should find very few large boulders, as the mission planners sought a low-risk site for the first Moon landing:

High Noon at Tranquility Base 

Apollo 11: Second look 

A Stark Beauty All Its Own 

"Houston, Tranquility base here." 

Flip Book - Apollo 11 

Earth rising

The vastness of space, and the inviting terra firma of Earth and Moon. LROC Featured Image, May 7, 2014. LROC WAC M1145896768C, LRO orbit 20898, February 1, 2014 [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Paul D. Spudis

The Once and Future Moon

Smithsonian Air & Space

The LRO Camera Team recently released a newly obtained, beautiful image of the Earth above the north pole of the Moon.  In the history of lunar exploration, Earthrise photos have always been widely displayed and admired. Capturing the iconic image of a magnificent blue and white Earth hanging over the barren, gray surface of the Moon is one of the most memorable moments of man’s first flight to the Moon by Apollo 8 in December 1968.

This picture graced the covers of newspapers and magazines everywhere; it inspired a million words of prose and created the modern environmental movement as we know it. Few single images have had such pervasive and lasting power.

Apollo 8's overview effect: Iconic Earthrise image, AS08-14-2383, Bill Anders' serendipitous photograph of Earth as the first manned flight to the Moon swung around from the farside, December 24, 1968 [NASA/JSC].

The Apollo 11 crew landed on the lunar surface a few months after that Earthrise photo was circulated. During this and subsequent missions (all on the central near side of the Moon), it was reported by the media that Earth always appears stationary in the same part of the sky as seen from the Moon’s surface.

In November 1969, the Apollo 12 crew put up a large inverted umbrella antenna to improve communication data rates from the lunar surface; it had to be set-up and aligned, but once pointed at Earth, it remained pointed at it forever.

Simulated time-lapse view of Earth from the vicinity of the Moon's north pole, where the significance of the Moon's libration creates changes in a notional viewers perspective. Earth appears to swing through a Lissajous figure in the sky. Three lunar days are squeezed into 1:45 using Celesta.

Because the Moon orbits the Earth and is in synchronous rotation with its orbital period, we always see the same side.  Hence, there is a near side (the hemisphere we see from Earth) and a far side (the side we cannot see from Earth; it is often mistakenly called the “dark side”).

A consequence of this synchronous rotation is that from the Moon, the Earth appears stationary in the sky, just as the hub of a bicycle wheel remains stationary from the viewpoint of one of its spokes. Thus, while the Sun rises and sets according to the slow rotation rate of the Moon (one complete rotation every 708 hours, half day and half night), the Earth is always in the same spot in the sky. Of course, because it is illuminated by the Sun, it changes its phase on the same timescale as does the Moon as seen from Earth, although reversed (a full Moon on Earth is a new Earth from the Moon and vice versa.)  From the far side of the Moon, one does not see the Earth at all.

Are spectacular views of Earthrise only visible from spacecraft in orbit about the Moon? Not quite.

Two points about the Moon’s orbit make the story a bit more complicated. First, the Moon’s orbit around the Earth is not circular but elliptical, its distance ranging from 363,000 km up to 405,000 km from the Earth. Second, the plane of the Moon’s orbit is inclined about 5 degrees to the ecliptic (the plane of the Earth-Moon system’s orbit around the Sun). These two facts mean that the Moon librates, or “wobbles” both left and right (an effect of its elliptical orbit) and up and down (an effect of the inclination of its orbital plane). These librations are not overwhelmingly significant, but result in some interesting effects around the limb of the Moon – the great circle made up by the 90 degrees east and west longitude lines, including both poles.

Earthset, from 1080p video captured from Japan's lunar orbiter SELENE-1 (Kaguya) October 31, 2007, as spacecraft and camera, in polar orbit, began its track north from the south pole (on the rim of Shackleton crater, center left) over the Moon's farside, leaving Earth to set behind Malapert massif, a nearside fragment of the rim of immense South Pole-Aitken impact basin [JAXA/NHK/SELENE].

The Earth as seen from the Moon is about 2 degrees in angular width (about 4 times the apparent diameter of the Moon and Sun as seen from Earth). Earth’s disk is roughly equivalent to the size of a quarter held out at arm’s length; the Moon’s apparent disk is pea-sized. Because of the Moon’s longitudinal libration, the “limb” areas near the 90 degree meridians are sometimes visible to Earth and other times not. Thus, the Earth will sometimes appear in the sky and sometimes be hidden below the Moon’s horizon – in other words, an observer along this line of longitude will see an Earthrise and an Earthset.

The longitudinal libration is about 8 degrees, so the observer on the lunar limb would see the Earth slowly rise above the horizon and clear it by its apparent diameter, then slowly sink below the horizon by the same amount. That Earthrise will be slow indeed – it will take a couple of days for the full disk of the Earth to rise above the horizon. This cycle would repeat on a monthly timescale, as the Moon completes one revolution around the Earth.

Similarly, one would also see the Earth rise and set at the poles of the Moon, although to a different magnitude. The polar view is almost completely dominated by the latitudinal libration, caused by the inclination of the Moon’s orbital plane. This variation is about 6.5 degrees (it includes the Moon’s spin axis obliquity of 1.5 degrees) and would vary on a similar monthly timescale. These variations will become important if future lunar inhabitants live at the poles, as I think likely. As the Earth will sometimes be out of direct view, it is likely that we will depend on relay satellites for continuous communication. Polar inhabitants will also see a “different” Sun from what they’re accustomed to on Earth – at the lunar poles, the sun rotates around the horizon, rather than rising and setting.

Cernan and Earth. At Taurus Littrow, Earth maintains its position. Ground controllers did occasionally admonished Apollo 17 Cmdr. Gene Cernan's partner Jack Schmidt for lifting his solar visor to get a better look at a rock, from time to time, during the last walks on the Moon. But at this point, however, as he traded poses with Schmidt using Earth as a backdrop, Cernan did briefly lift his visor halfway, allowing posterity an atypical view of an actual human face on the Moon in December 1972 (AS17-134-20471) [NASA/JSC].

Thus, there are places on the Moon from which we can stand and contemplate the sheer beauty and magnificence of a slowly rising Earth. Given the sea change in global perspective provided by the famous Earthrise picture taken by the Apollo 8 crew almost fifty years ago, what societal impacts will occur when a human being stands on the lunar surface and watches the Earth slowly rise above the horizon? I suspect that a similar shift in planetary perspective will occur. If history is any guide, such a shift will have profound psychological and political implications  – both positive and negative – in our reach for the stars.

Dr. Paul D. Spudis is a senior staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. This column was originally published by Smithsonian Air & Space online, and his website can be found at www.spudislunarresources.com. The opinions he expressed here are his own, but these are better informed than most.

Ranger: America's first successful lunar program

Replica of Ranger Block III (Rangers 6-9) spacecraft on display at the National Air and Space Museum. The replica spacecraft made of parts from Ranger test vehicles and is about 3 meters tall and 4.5 meters across [Smithsonian Institute].

Andrew J. LaPage
The Space Review

With the successful landing of the Chinese Chang’e-3 lunar spacecraft on December 14, 2013, and the subsequent deployment of its Yutu rover, the Western press has been filled with claims of how the Chinese are catching up with the American space program. Usually overlooked by these writers is the fact that these Chinese successes would have been almost impossible without the pioneering efforts (and many painful failures) of the American and Soviet lunar programs a half a century earlier.

NASA’s earliest Pioneer lunar probes, a program started by the military and inherited by the agency after it was founded in October 1958, were plagued by a series of launch vehicle failures (see “The Pioneer lunar orbiters: a forgotten failure”, The Space Review, December 13, 2010). Out of all of NASA’s initial attempts to launch probes towards the Moon, only the tiny six-kilogram (13-pound) Pioneer 4 built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and launched on March 3, 1959, by a team at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) headed by Wernher von Braun (which would become the basis of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center) managed to escape Earth’s gravitational grasp to make a very distant flyby of the Moon.

The initial flights of NASA’s first in-house lunar program, Ranger, which was built and managed by JPL, fared little better than the Pioneers. The two flights of the Block I Ranger, which were designed to test the innovative Ranger design in extended Earth orbit, were stranded in short-lived low Earth orbits due to failures of the upper stage of the Atlas-Agena B launch vehicle (see “Ranger: Voyage to the Moon and beyond”, The Space Review, August 22, 2011). The three Block II Ranger flights, which were designed to hard-land a small probe on the lunar surface, fared little better. While most of the launch vehicle issues were resolved, fatal malfunctions of key spacecraft components resulted in complete failure of all of these missions (see “The Difficult Road to the Moon”, The Space Review, January 23, 2012).

Impact site of Ranger 7, a 14 meter-wide crater near the center of Mare Cognitum (10.634°S, 20.677°W). 487 meter-wide field of view from LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) observation M153014430L, LRO orbit 7693, February 22, 2011; 33.97° angle of incidence, resolution 49 centimeters per pixel from 42.69 km [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

As 1962 was drawing to a close, the situation with the American Moon program looked bleak. The failure of the last Block II Ranger, Ranger 5 launched on October 16, 1962, was NASA’s sixth consecutive lunar mission failure in three years. Only 17 months after President John F. Kennedy committed the United States to landing a man on the Moon with Project Apollo, it was beginning to look as though the Americans would never make it. If NASA could not get a simple unmanned probe to the Moon in working order, how could they hope to pull off the much more complicated mission of a manned lunar landing?

Read the full article at The Space Review, HERE.

Related Posts:

Ranger 7: Making an Impact on History (November 7, 2013)

LROC Coordinates of Robotic Spacecraft 2013 Update (September 25, 2013)
Surveyor Crater, Before and After (July 9, 2013)
Graves of the GRAIL twins (March 19, 2013)
48 years of memories of Alphonsus and Ranger 9 (January 24, 2013)
Ranger 8 impact on digitized LOIRP image (July 31, 2012)
The discarded extension of the Ranger program (April 30, 2012)
"Boy, that sure looks like Luna 9!" (December 3, 2011)
Apollo 13 S-IVB Impact in Apollo seismic recordings (March 22, 2010)
The LCROSS 'Smoking Gun' (November 13, 2009)
LCROSS confirms water on the Moon (November 13, 2009)
When bombing the Moon was a good idea (October 21, 2009)
Apollo 14 S-IVB Impact Crater (October 8, 2009)

Apollo 17, Station 6

Station 6 allowed Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Jack Schmitt to explore a collection of boulders and regolith that represent rocks from the mighty North Massif. Five large boulder fragments lie at the base of a long boulder trail, all from a single boulder that rolled down the hill and broke apart. LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) observation M134991988R, spacecraft orbit 5027, July 28, 2010; angle of incidence 64.66° at 0.5 meters resolution from 43.83 km over 19.19°N, 30.8°E [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Jeffrey Plescia
LROC News System

The North Massif lies along the northern side of the Taurus-Littrow Valley, the landing site of Apollo 17. Station 6 was visited during the third and final surface EVA of the expedition and of the Apollo program, December 13, 1972, and was intended as a location to collect ancient highland material from the North Massif as well as a dark mantle that locally covers the region.

The sampling station is about 100 meters above the general valley floor elevation of 2560 meters below global mean average. The North Massif rises some 1400 meters above Station 6 and likely formed in a few seconds as the result of the massive impact that created the Serenitatis Basin.

One of the key science goals at Station 6 was to collect impact melt caused by that event. When rock is melted its radiometric clock is reset to time zero, so a sample of impact melt can be age-dated to determine when the basin formed.

Traverse map of the Apollo 17 site. Station 6 is along the base of the North Massif on the north side of the valley and is circled in red [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

At Station 6, five large blocks are clustered together on a surface that slopes toward the valley floor at about 16°. They lie at the end of a 980 m long boulder trail that formed as a single large boulder rolled down the hill. The trail is about 10-12 m wide with a scalloped edge and periodic small transverse ridges. This irregular pattern is the result of the irregular shape of the boulder. The original boulder was probably about 18 x 10 x 6 m. The largest fragment (Block #2) is about 10 m across.

It appears that the rolling ceased when the boulder broke apart and came to the rest in its present location. As the boulder rolled down the hill slope, it pushed up material along the edge of the track forming a berm. A small berm is also visible in front of the largest fragment. An expanded view of the boulders from an LROC image is shown below. Subtle brightness differences are apparent in the largest boulder in the center, and correspond to different rock types (the boulder is a breccia).

The five major blocks at Station 6, and an additional one farther down slope, are clearly visible in LROC NAC M134991788RE, as is the boulder trail above the blocks. Afternoon illumination, sun from the west [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Pictures taken during the Apollo 17 EVA at Station 6 illustrate the relative size of the boulders; below Jack Schmitt is seen after after sampling the boulders.

Jack Schmitt picking up the gnomon after collecting samples. This view is to the southwest, and the Apollo 17 lunar module stands sentinel in the upper right deep background (AS17-140-21496) [Eugene Cernan/NASA/JSC].

Jack Schmitt put the Apollo 17 lunar module "Challenger" in some perspective, capturing this monochrome shot, through a 500 mm lens, and from over 3 km) from Station 6. From another panorama of EVA images, AS17-139-21203-5 [Harrison Schmitt/NASA/JSC].

A number of samples were collected at Station 6. The illustration below shows the boulder group and a map made during the mission. The map indicates the location of the rock and soil samples as well as the location of the panoramic images.

LROC image of the boulder complex (top); map of the boulder segments and the sample locations (below). North and South Panoramas designate locations where the hand-held panoramic image sequences were captured. The numbers refer to specific Apollo samples [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Samples from the station include a single drive tube, ten rock samples (3 from the surface, four from block 1, one each from blocks 2, 4, and 5), several sediment samples (3 from between major blocks, one down slope from the blocks, one from the boulder track, and another from on top of block 1), and one rake sample from the ejecta blanket of a small crater to the northwest of the blocks.

Light-colored inclusions in the matrix of one of the boulders (Block 1) (AS17-140-21442) [NASA/JSC].

The boulders consist of clast-bearing impact melts. Despite the color differences, foliation and frequency of vesicles, the boulders consist of a chemically uniform matrix with clasts ranging in size up to about 1 meter in diameter. The clasts consists of rocks across the anorthosite-norite-troctolite suite or their impact-modified derivatives. Simonds (1975) suggested that the matrix is a clast-bearing rock formed by the mechanical mixture of cold, generally little-shocked clasts and superheated impact melt that rapidly quenched to form very-fine subophitic to ophitic crystalline groundmass. These samples have ages of around 3.98 Ga and are interpreted to represent the age of basin-forming event that produced the material, probably the Serenitatis Basin (as discussed in Ryder et al., 1997). However, more recent work suggests that the rocks collected at Station 6 may actually be ejecta from the Imbrium Basin forming event.

Explore the Taurus-Littrow Valley yourself, HERE.

Previous LROC Featured Images RE: Apollo 17:
Oblique view of Taurus Littrow, from the West (December 19, 2012)
Approach To Taurus Littrow Valley (December 11, 2012)
Taurus Littrow Oblique (September 29, 2012)
Question Answered! (July 17, 2012)
Just Another Crater? (December 13, 2011)
Skimming the Moon (September 6, 2011)
Exploring the Apollo 17 Site (October 28, 2009)

China's Jade Rabbit, it's time in the Sun

China's "Yutu," the "Jade Rabbit," rolls out onto Mare Imbrium, Sunday, December 14, 2013. Still from master video display in Beijing [CN].

Mike Killian
AmericaSpace.com

Today, exactly 41 years after the last human footprint was made on the moon by Gene Cernan, China became the third nation to touch the lunar surface – joining an exclusive club and earning a round of applause from around the world.

The last lunar landing was performed by the Soviet Union on the Luna 24 sample return mission in 1976, and the United States remains the only country to have ever landed humans on the lunar surface (last human mission to the Moon was NASA’s Apollo 17 in December 1972). 

The mission, named Chang’e 3 after the Chinese goddess of the Moon in ancient myth, is China’s third unmanned lunar mission, but it’s also the first landing – the next step in China’s ambitious Lunar Exploration Program.  Chang’e 1 launched in 2007, and Chang’e 2 launched in 2010. Both missions orbited the Moon and carried out various studies, while also mapping the surface in its entirety, and both missions paved the way for Change’3 to land on the surface.

Another LROC NAC observation of the landing site of China's Chang'e-3 lunar lander and Yutu rover, this opportunity around half a meter per pixel superior in resolution than one noted earlier. The vehicles have separated following the successful landing, December 14, 2013 - the 41st anniversary of the last moonwalk of the Apollo program in 1972. 638 meter-wide field of view from LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) observation M1116664800R, orbit 16786, February 28, 2013; angle of incidence 44.83, resolution 1.1 meter per pixel from 145.32 km over 44.61°N, 340.3°E [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

The mission began two weeks ago today with a picture-perfect liftoff from the country’s Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China.  Chang’e 3 soared skyward into the black of night atop a powerful Long March-3B rocket, and minutes later the Chang’e 3 lunar lander and its six-wheeled rover, named Yutu, or “Jade Rabbit,” separated from the rocket’s third stage while coasting into a beautiful sunrise 300 kilometers over the Pacific Ocean.  From there it was a five-day trip to reach lunar orbit, and a week later for Chang’e 3 to begin its descent.

Read the full article, HERE.

A 2318 meter-wide, full-resolution field of view from the same LROC NAC observation, M1116664800R [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Snapshots from the Moon and Cislunar Space

Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan (UR, LR), CM pilot Ron Evans (UL, LR) and LM pilot and geologist Harrison "Jack" Schmitt (LL) relaxing in the Apollo 17 Command Module America after Cernan and Schmitt returned from three days of exploring the magnificent Taurus Littrow valley, the last manned expedition to the lunar surface 40 years ago, December 1972 [NASA/ Arizona State University].

Mark Robinson

Principal Investigator

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera

Arizona State University

This year, we commemorate the forty-fourth anniversary of the first human lunar landing. By now, the whole world is very familiar with the high-quality Hasselblad snapshots taken by the Apollo astronauts during their voyages. However, 35-mm cameras were also carried on some of the Apollo missions for both surface and orbital imaging. Most of the surface 35-mm images are extreme closeups of the lunar regolith from the Apollo Lunar Surface Closeup Camera (ALSCC; Apollo 11, 12, 14); sometimes called the Gold Camera after its Principal Investigator Thomas Gold.

The Nikon camera used on board the Apollo Command Module was equipped with a 55-mm lens and was loaded with either black-and-white or color film. During Apollo missions 16 and 17, black-and-white film was used for dim-light photography of astronomical phenomena and lunar surface targets illuminated by Earthshine. During Apollo 17, color film was used for documenting various activities in the Command Module.

The 35-mm frames are now scanned as part of a joint project between Arizona State University and the NASA Johnson Space Center to scan all of the original Apollo flight films.

Boot print anaglyph - Stereo anaglyph (get out your red-blue stereo glasses!) AS14-77-10369a,b from the ALSCC showing extreme detail of an astronaut bootprint in the fine-grained lunar regolith. The original field of view is about 3 inches on a side [NASA/Arizona State University].

The Apollo 17 crew seems to have had the most fun with the 35-mm format! Gene Cernan, Ron Evans and Jack Schmitt snapped quite a few spectacular black-and-white images showing the view out of the window of their Command Module, the America. Some of these images are a bit grainy, resulting in a very different feeling than the crisp Hasselblad photographs. They also took numerous color candid shots inside the Command Module. It is rare to see such carefree moments during the Apollo missions, but you can feel the relief and happiness after the astronauts so successfully fulfilled their surface mission!

Reiner Gamma illuminated solely by earthshine (35-mm Apollo 17) - Reiner Gamma, one of the enigmatic lunar swirls; their origin is related to localized magnetic fields within the crust AS17-158-23894 [NASA/Arizona State University].

Many of the window shots present an oblique view across lesser known regions of the Moon. The terminator (boundary between night and day) scenes are always captivating. Look closely at the scene below; near the center is a shallow-sloped scallop-shaped rise. Just below and to the right are two other smaller rises - perhaps these are low shield volcanoes? You can dig deeper by visiting the LROC QuickMap browser and see if the NAC images can elucidate what is seen here (Natasha crater is at 19.973°N, 328.843°E).

Mare Imbrium meets Mare Procellarum (Apollo 17 35-mm frame) a complex region composed of nearly buried peaks that are part of the Imbrium rim, impact craters, and volcanic forms. Annotated AS17-160-23992 [NASA/Arizona State University].

Relive the incredible adventure that was Apollo, browse the Apollo 35-mm archive and the rest of the Apollo scans (Metric, Pans; Hasselblads to follow next year). While browsing, map out your own next mission to the Moon! The hard part is figuring out where to visit next. Enjoy!

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Saturn V artifacts recovered from Atlantic floor

One of five F1 engine thrust chambers from the Saturn V used to launch Apollo 11 to the moon on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Image from Bezos Expeditions released March 20, 2013 [Bezos Expeditions].

Space.com has uploaded a 14 image slide show (available HERE) of Saturn V first stage salvage operations. The artifacts were discovered nearly a year ago far out off the coast of Georgia, under 4500 meters of water.

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'There's poop on the Moon'

Jason Major

Universe Today

When the Apollo boys visited the Moon back in the ’60s and ’70s they left more than just some experiments, rovers, and family portraits behind –- they also left, shall we say, a little bit of themselves on the lunar surface. It makes total sense when you think about it, but still… there’s poop on the Moon.

Read the article, HERE.

'When we blew up Arizona to simulate the Moon'

The first round alone required 141.75 kg of dynamite and 6120 kg of fertilizer mixed with fuel oil. Archive photograph [NASA/USGS].

Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley
The Atlantic

In the late 1960s, NASA created an off-world analogue with dynamite and fertilizer bombs outside Flagstaff, Arizona, so that astronauts could train for the Apollo missions.

Thanks to a well-timed tip from landscape blogger Alex Trevi of Pruned, Venue made a detour on our exit out of Flagstaff, Arizona, to visit the old black cinder fields of an extinct volcano--where, incredibly, NASA and its Apollo astronauts once practiced their, at the time, forthcoming landing on the moon.

The straight-forwardly named Cinder Lake, just a short car ride north by northeast from downtown Flagstaff, is what NASA describes as a lunar analogue: a simulated off-world landscape used to test key pieces of gear and equipment, including hand tools, scientific instruments, and wheeled rovers.

Apollo 15 Jim Irwin and Dave Scott of Apollo 15 train in experimental vehicle "Grover" [NASA/USGS].

As Northern Arizona University explains, NASA's Astrogeology Research Program "started in 1963 when USGS and NASA scientists transformed the northern Arizona landscape into a re-creation of the Moon. They blasted hundreds of different-sized craters in the earth to form the Cinder Lake crater field, creating an ideal training ground for astronauts."

Read the full and copiously illustrated article HERE.

48 Years of memories of Alphonsus and Ranger 9

Alphonsus crater, at "dead center" of experienced amateur observer and Fayetteville, North Carolina newspaperman Johnny Horne's 5 inch reflector, Saturday evening, January 19, 2013 [Fayetteville Observer].

Johnny Horne
Fayetteville Observer

Last Saturday night I was at my telescope trying some photographic techniques on the moon using a 5-inch refractor telescope. .

I was photographing the large lunar crater Alphonsus which was just coming into sunlight, its central mountain peak casting a  shadow across the crater floor.

The 67-mile wide Alphonsus was one of the first lunar craters I could identify through my small telescope as a child in the 60s…finding it with the aid of a moon map in Sky and Telescope magazine. My interest in astronomy was fueled, as was the case for so many of my generation, by the US space program…both manned and unmanned.

One evening in March 1965 I was watching the evening news, specifically a story about one of the Ranger moon probes.

Alphonsus crater in a monochrome (689 nm) mosaic stitched together from eight sequential orbital observations of the LROC Wide Angle Camera in 2010. The March 24, 1965 impact site of Ranger 9 (captured at very high-resolution by LROC below - 12.8288°S, 2.3919°W) is marked by the arrow [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

The Ranger probes, unlike later robotic probes that would soft land on or orbit the moon, were designed to impact the lunar surface…not so much a landing site as a smoking hole in the moon…

They would be taking pictures and sending them back to Earth right up until  impact.

That’s if they even made it to the moon.

Read the full article, HERE.

This exceptionally detailed photograph of the impact site of Ranger 9 on the floor of Alphonsus appears to include an inner disk of darker material perhaps 10 meters across. LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) observation M170579736R, LRO orbit 10272, September 13, 2011; angle of illumination incidence 16.1° at 49.6 cm per pixel resolution from 44.64 km [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

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Anniversary of Ranger 8

The proper course for lunar exploration (1965)

MOLAB with side-mounted drill and Apollo LEM as conceived in 1964-1965. The MOLAB would have arrived on the moon ahead of the piloted LEM on an unmanned LEM Truck [Bendix/NASA].

David S.F. Portree
Beyond Apollo
WIRED

For a time, Thomas Evans headed up the Advanced Lunar Missions Study Program in the NASA Headquarters Office of Manned Space Flight. By the time of the 11th Annual Meeting of the American Astronautical Society (AAS) in May 1965, however, he had retired from NASA and become a farmer in Iowa. This gave him the freedom to speak his mind about what he felt were the Apollo Program’s shortcomings.

Evans told assembled members of the AAS that “the idea of a manned [landing] on the moon was so spectacular. . .that [it] dominated most pronouncements and thoughts on the space program.” He argued, however, that this objective had “too much the flavor of a stunt to be the final goal of a $20 billion national effort.” Evans maintained that

[Our] situation today is comparable to one which might have occurred during the railroad building era in America a century ago. It is as if the federal government had invested vast sums in the construction of the first railroad spanning the North American continent, but had procurred only a single engine and caboose. . . The first crossing by that engine and caboose would have been a major milestone in man’s progress and would have been greeted with enthusiasm and applause. But then those responsible for the program would have faced a major decision. . .Should the project be stopped? Should the engine-caboose be run repeatedly back and forth across the Continent to constantly remind the world of our great achievement? Or should a further modest investment be made in. . .some freight and passenger cars, to convert the system into something of practical value? Only the last solution would have been tenable then, and only a similar constructive approach would seem acceptable now.

 Evans argued that the Saturn rockets and Apollo spacecraft NASA had under development would provide “an excellent base upon which to build a broad program of manned. . .lunar exploration beyond the first landing.” Evans pointed to statements by President Lyndon Baines Johnson and Vice-President Hubert Humphrey which he said made clear that “the United States fully intends to explore the moon, not merely to visit it.” He also noted that NASA expected to be able to launch six Saturn V rockets per year beginning in 1969.

Read the full article, HERE.

Brainerd Holmes (1921-2013)

D. Brainerd Holmes: TIME, August 10, 1962
[Boris Artzybasheff].

Ben Evans
AmericaSpace

In spite of a relatively short career within NASA’s senior leadership, D. Brainerd Holmes – who died on Friday, aged 91, from complications of pneumonia – established himself as a shining star in the Apollo era, to such an extent that he found himself on the cover of Time magazine in August 1962 as the agency’s ‘Space Planner’. This brilliant electrical engineer saw military service in World War II and later forged an engineering and industrial career with Western Electric, Bell Laboratories, RCA and Raytheon and, as NASA’s Director of the Office of Manned Space Flight from September 1961 until August 1963, was instrumental in tackling the practicalities of President John F. Kennedy’s thorny goal of putting a man on the Moon. Several years later, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin accomplished that goal, Holmes told the New York Times that “we should remember such endeavors as these and know that when given a challenge Americans today can be as hard, as aggressive and as brave as the men who founded this land”.

Dyer Brainerd Holmes was born on 24 May 1921 in Brooklyn, N.Y., but grew up in East Orange, N.J. After graduating from Cornell University with a degree in electrical engineering, he entered the Navy and served throughout the final years of World War II. Returning to civilian life, Holmes worked at Bell Telephone Labs from 1945-53 and at RCA from 1953-61, where he rose to become general manager of the Major Defense Systems Division. Within this role, he oversaw the development of the Talos anti-aircraft missile and electronic systems for the Atlas missile. During this period, he also project managed a federally-sponsored effort to design and implement the Air Force’s Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS), with radar installations in Alaska, Greenland and the United Kingdom, whose intent was to detect Soviet missile launches.

Read the obituary at AmericaSpace, HERE.

Hugh L. Dryden and the American Space Program

President John F. Kennedy is briefed by Wernher Von Braun (partly hidden) and Hugh Dryden (to the right of the President) at Pad B, Complex 37, Cape Canaveral, Florida, November 1963 [John F. Kennedy Presidential Library].

Paul D. Spudis

The Once & Future Moon

Smithsonian Air & Space

As a memorial to honor Neil Armstrong’s contributions to aeronautics and astronautics, a bill (HR 6612) was recently introduced by Congressman Kevin McCarthy and passed by the House of Representatives to change the name of the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center (a field center proximate to Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave desert north of Los Angeles) to the Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center.  While I take a back seat to no one in regard to my respect and admiration for Neil and his life of accomplishment, I think that this effort is both mistaken and inappropriate.

Who was this Dryden guy anyway?  Hugh L. Dryden was an American aeronautical engineer who became the last head of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)* in 1947 and the first Deputy Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958.  Dryden had a long research career in the complexities of airflow and the boundary layer, critical subjects in the science of aerodynamics.  Dryden’s published work in this field became standard texts for upcoming aeronautical engineers and aircraft designers.  Dryden, a quiet man whose life story is filled with notable achievements and roles, took the lead in establishing the National Academy of Engineering, the sister entity of the National Academy of Science.

In 1958, an act of Congress established NASA which absorbed the NACA and its aeronautical research facilities, including the field centers of Langley Aeronautical Laboratory near Hampton VA, Lewis (now Glenn) Research Center in Cleveland OH, and Ames Research Center next to Moffett Field in CA.  President Dwight D. Eisenhower tapped T. Keith Glennan to be NASA’s first Administrator.  Hugh Dryden was asked to join the new agency as its first Deputy.  In his new role, Dryden was a key link to the immediate past, providing both institutional memory and continuity of service.  The NACA had been involved in space research, including the X-15 project, a rocket-powered, piloted aircraft capable of supersonic transport to the outer fringes of the atmosphere.  Neil Armstrong, a NACA test pilot, flew seven X-15 missions before his career as a NASA Gemini and Apollo astronaut.

Dryden and the NACA worked with the U.S. Air Force on the MISS (Man-In-Space-Soonest) project, which ultimately became Project Mercury, our first human spaceflight program.  This program was being developed and managed out of Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, a NACA facility.  The Space Task Group at Langley was headed by Bob Gilruth (later center director of Johnson Space Center), with Max Faget as one of his young, bright engineers grappling with the problems of hypersonic and orbital flight.

Hugh Dryden performed admirably the job of technocrat and manager during these early, exciting years, but perhaps his biggest contribution to space history is barely known.  The fate of Project Mercury was unknown in early 1961.  Recently sworn in as the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy seemed supportive of bold new technical endeavors but had been largely silent on his plans, if any, for the civil space program.  Although Kennedy made much about a supposed “missile gap” with the Soviet Union, this policy discussion was focused entirely on our parity in ICBM deployment (or rather, the alleged lack thereof).

This all changed in April of that fateful year.  The Soviets launched Yuri Gagarin on his single orbit flight, once again beating America to the punch by putting the first man in space.  In the same month, the United States suffered a humiliating military and diplomatic setback with the very public failure of an American-instigated invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.  The new President eagerly sought a high-visibility field of endeavor (preferably technological) in which America could demonstrate its superiority over the USSR.  Initially, the desalination of seawater was a leading candidate among the many projects Kennedy considered.  However, at the height of the Cold War, that challenge didn’t quite fill the bill.

On April 14, two days after Gagarin orbited the Earth, Kennedy met with his new NASA Administrator James Webb and his deputy, the holdover from the Eisenhower Administration, Hugh Dryden.  During this meeting, Dryden pointed out that while the Soviets could beat America to many different space “firsts,” a near-term human landing on the Moon was out of reach for both nations – that while declaring a “contest” with the Soviets on virtually any space goal ran the risk of America losing, odds were even for the first manned lunar landing.  America could not go to the Moon now, but likely we could within a few years.  Thus, if space was to be the chosen field for a superpower contest, Dryden believed the goal of a human lunar landing was the challenge we could win.

51 km-wide Dryden (33.215°S, 203.849°E), prominent among the craters named after Americans who pioneered lunar exploration in and around the Apollo basin. Simulated oblique view from 54 km altitude, LROC WAC mosaic over LOLA topography in NASA's ILIADS application [NASA/GSFC/LMMP/Arizona State University].

Kennedy received a detailed memorandum outlining all his space options from Vice President Lyndon Johnson on April 29, 1961, but Dryden had already forcefully made his case for a lunar landing to the President two weeks earlier.  It is often thought that Wernher von Braun was the one who convinced Kennedy that the Moon was the proper goal for Apollo, but Dryden had digested and presented von Braun’s technical arguments in policy terms that Kennedy could understand.  In the public’s mind, von Braun was “Dr. Space,” largely because of his work with Walt Disney in the 1950s popularizing the idea of space travel.  But it was Hugh Dryden who helped turn the dream of landing people on the Moon into a political commitment from the President and ultimately, a reality.

Hugh Dryden remained the Deputy Administrator of NASA until his untimely death in 1965.  He has been honored with a crater named for him on the Moon and as the namesake of the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, an entirely appropriate memorial given his contributions to aeronautics and his key role in the establishment of the Apollo program.  He was at the right place (the White House) with the right President (Kennedy) at the right time (when America needed a challenging yet achievable space goal).  His life was one of service and excellence.  I think it does a disservice to the memory of Hugh Dryden to re-name the Dryden Flight Research Center and what’s more, I believe that Neil – the consummate gentleman – would also view HR 6612, the congressional bill passed to drop Dryden’s name and insert his in its stead, as unnecessary and wrong-headed.

I certainly agree that we should name a major facility for Neil Armstrong.   May I suggest that the first manned lunar outpost be named for Neil Armstrong – the first man to set foot on the Moon.

* Pronounced by saying each individual letter: “N-A-C-A,” not as a single word, as we do for its successor agency, NASA.

Originally published at his Smithsonian Air & Space Magazine blog "The Once and Future Moon," Dr. Spudis is a senior staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute. The opinions expressed are those of the author and are better informed than average.