Moon Landing Planned For Dark

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30063, 22 February 1963, Page 11

Moon Landing Planned For Dark

(NJB. Press Assn.—Copyright) WASHINGTON, Feb. 21. The first Americans to land on the moon probably will visit it during a lunar night and explore by earthshine—the lunar equivalent 'f moonlight. Scientists believe a temperature range of 270 degrees between the moon’s IS-day-long night and its equally long day will make the dark more bearable than the blistering beet of daylight The two astronauts will plan to spend 20 hours on the moon during the first visit, but their “Lem” capsule—the lunar excursion module—will

permit them to stay on the

lunar surface up to 48 hours if they wish. Lem will be attached to the three-man Apollo craft to be launched by a Saturn C-5 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, about 1970. Details of the moon visit were disclosed by the assistant programme manager for L m, Mr Frank Canning. Lem will resemble the cab of a two-man bubble-top helicopter with a great deal of window visibility. It will be 10ft in diameter and stand about 13ft on its five-point skid-type fixed landing gear. It will consist of* two sections—a descent stage (the landing gear and lunar touch-down engine)—which will be left on the moon, and the ascent or lunar take-off stage, with its engine. The capsule will land on the moon about 70 hours after

leaving the earth and after three to five hours of orbiting the moon. With the stay on the moon and the 70-hour return flight, the entire mission should take about 100 hours, but the craft will be designed to support a mission as long sa two weeks. Vesting of Lem will begin at White Sends, New Mexico, in about two years with suborbital flights to altitudes of about >OO miles. Manned orbital tests tn 1967 or 1968 will precede lunar flights, but crews never will occupy Lem on left-off from earth as ft is not designed to provide the stress protection that the Apollo craft itself will offer. The pilots probably will do 90 per cent of the landing operation visually unless lunar dust obscures their view.