MAPPING MOON

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30481, 1 July 1964, Page 10

MAPPING MOON

With the American Project Apollo astronauts preparing to land on the moon in only five or six years’ time it is becoming a matter of great urgency to provide maps of the lunar terrain. These are not only needed for the guidance of the astronauts on the moon but the height of mountains and depth, of valleys on the moon have a bearing on the selection of likely lunar landing sites. ~ The United States Air Force Aeronautical Chart and Information Centre is measuring from photographs tha shadows cast by lunar features and is using the results t© improve the contours and spot heights on the beautiful series of lunar maps that it has been turning out over the last year or two. Some of the photographs from which the maps are prepared are being taken with a specially designed camera

mounted on a 30 inch reflecting • telescope in the San Gabriel mountains in California. Scientists of the Lockheed Company are taking several hundred photos a month under contract to the Chart and Information Centre. Each successive month, due to the tilt of the lunar axis and the inclination of its orbit, the shadows of the lunar peaks fall .in slightly different places which can then be “tied” together.in much the same way as a surveyor relates the angles, heights and distances of a group of trig stations.

In about three years time photos of the moon, will be taken from lunar orbiting spacecraft. They Will reveal much more detail than those taken from the earth but the latter will provide an essential framework into which the details of the lunar-orbiter’s pictures can be fitted.