Lunar Areas ‘Just Right For Landing’

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31871, 26 December 1968, Page 9

Lunar Areas ‘Just Right For Landing’

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright) CAPE KENNEDY (Florida), December 25. When the Apollo 8 astronauts made their second “live” television broadcast from lunar orbit they reported that the moon appeared to them as “a vastness of black and white.” The command pilot (Colonel Frank Borman) said his impression of it was “a vast, forbidding type of expanse of nothing . . . not a very exciting place to live or work.” The astronauts pointed to several craters near the Sea of Crisis, which they described as “made of dark, level material with fresh bright impact areas towards the edge.”

The television camera showed the moon through the window of the spaceship as it passed on its ninth and penultimate orbit of the moon. The orbit had an apogee (high point) of 63 miles and a perigee (low point) of 58.9 miles above the lunar surface.

At one point Major William Anders, who said he saw “a dark area which could possibly be an old lava flow,” described the moon as looking like “miles and miles of pumice stone.” The astronauts said the intensity of the sun’s reflec-

tion on the surface made it difficult to pick out features, but Major Anders said it was easy to tell the age of some of the craters. The older ones were dark and the newer ones had brighter interiors. “The Sea of Crisis is amazingly smooth,” he said. The astronauts, who had been obliged to change windows because of reflection from the inside of the spaceship, were obviously tired and talked less than they did during earlier telecasts. At times they sounded to televiewers all over the world like tour guides describing an area for tourists, and at one point they showed one of the possible landing sites for Apollo astronauts next year.

As they approached the lunar sunset the mountains and valleys of the moon were clearly visible. At. the end of the 27-minute transmission, each of the three astronauts read a passage from the Book of Genesis, describing the creation of the earth.

Earlier, Captain James Lovell had told the ground controllers: “It certainly looks like we picked an interesting place on the moon to land on. The back side looks like a sand pile my kids have been playing in for a long time.

It’s all beat up—just a lot of bumps and holes.” Major Lovell added: “The planned landing triangles are just right. I think, for landing conditions. The shadows aren’t too deep for you to get confused, the land has texture to it and enough shadows there should make everything stand out.” Major Anders reported during one pass across the face of the moon: “The area we’re over right now gives some hint of possible volcanic action though I can’t eyeball it [see it clearly enough) at the moment to pin that down. There are some craters and build-ups that definitely suggest volcanic activity.” Describing the lunar sunrise, Captain Lovell reported: “At about two minutes before sunrise you get the. limb [outer edge) beginning to brighten up into sort of a fine, white haze, a faint glow completely over the space just behind the limb ... It goes up quite a ways. It takes a fan shape, unlike the sunrise on earth, where the atmosphere affects it. “This is just sort of a complete haze all over the local area. It’s concentrated at the exact time the sun comes up at ignition and then goes away from the sun spots. Very interesting.”