LUNAR EXPERIMENTS

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32524, 6 February 1971, Page 16

LUNAR EXPERIMENTS

( N.Z.P. A.-Reuter —Copyright) HOUSTON, Feb. 5. For the first time men have landed on the moon with scientific exploration as their prime object. On the previous landings of Apollo 11 and Apollo 12, first priority was given to testing equipment and procedures. In each case the landing was in a level region.

The Apollo 14 astronauts landed on the rugged Fra Mauro region, chosen for its scientific interest. Their tasks are far more ambitious than those given to their predecessors. The Apollo 14 astronauts will lay out a network of a dozen instruments, using their judgment to pick the sites. Marker flats will be set up and a sight taken on them to align geophones like those used by oil prospectors. They will then use a “thumper” to fire small explosive charges along that line, sounding deep layers of the moon.

The astronauts will use levelling and aiming devices to align instruments for longterm operation after they leave. On top of a “central station” that will process data from the instruments and send it to earth, they will aim an antenna at the planet. On their second excursion the men will haul a rickshawlike device on a 1.7-mile walk to and from the 330 ft high rim of a crater. At three points they will stop to take magnetic measurements. The data obtained will be of interest because the response of the moon to impact by vehicles has indicated “lumpiness” to a depth of at least 12 miles. It is suspected that bedrock on the moon lies beneath a deep covering of debris including material from iron meteorites spread over the moon through thousands of millions of years. To dig trench The spacecraft commander, Captain Alan Shepard, will dig a trench two feet deep and four feet long while his companion, Commander Edgar Mitchel!, makes magnetic observations. The

: trench will, it is hoped, exi pose any layers of debris. Four hundred grams of material will be taken from the floor of the trench and put into a sealed container for later analysis to see if it contains organic substances. As in the Apollo 11 landing, a laser reflector is to be set up for precise tracking of Earth-Moon distances as well as a seismometer for continuous operation. There will also be a chargedparticle detector to estimate energies of protons and electrons impinging on the moon.