Various: The 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing has led to widespread coverage in the media. Some articles and websites that may be of interest to Physics Today readers include:
- NASA's official 40th anniversary website, which combines all the major news releases connected to the anniversary and background information.
- The BBC's Apollo Moon landing subsite in which Richard Hollingham assesses the scientific reasons for going back to the Moon.
- Science magazine has made free a number of selected articles on the scientific results scientists made from the Apollo missions.
From the Physics Today archives:
- Reflections on the Moon (September 1969), an editorial by Editor-in-Chief R. Hobart Ellis Jr on the scientific impact of the Moon landing.
- Apollo 11 Success Brings Astronomy Down to Earth (September 1969), Physics Today looks at how—because of the Moon landings—astronomy had truly become "a laboratory science."
- NAS Panel Urges Greater Role in Apollo for Science (February 1970)
- The interior of the Moon (March 1974) Don L Anderson looks at the unexpected and confusing data brought back by the Apollo astronauts.
- Countries Race to Launch Moon Missions (February 2005), a look at the new space race to launch scientific instruments to the Moon.
- Finally, Freeman J. Dyson in October 1968 looked back at the first Orion project, a spaceship design that would bear the same relationship to the Saturn V rocket as "the majestic airships of the 1930's bore to the Boeing 707. The airships were huge, flimsy, with a payload absurdly small in comparison to their size, just like the Apollo ships."
Google Moon has a visual map of the landing site.
Above: The original video of the moment that the Apollo Eagle module landed on the Moon.
Space.com on how the Apollo program is influencing the design of the Orion capsule that will lead NASA's new efforts to return to the Moon. The main two differences says, NASA engineer Jiff Geffre, is the electronics—which allows for significant automation of the spacecraft's flight—and the endurance—Orion will be able to stay on the Moon for days instead of hours. This builds on work they have done for the space shuttle.
Nature interviews Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt—the first and last scientist to touch the lunar surface. Schmitt decrys the lack of geologists in the next batch of astronauts to go through training and expresses skepticism that the Moon was formed by the collsion of another body with the Earth. "The primary fact that makes me sceptical is that we know, from the group of samples brought back from the Moon called pyroclastic glasses, that there is a reservoir of volatile elements deep in the Moon that, under the hypothesis of a giant impact, should not be there," he says.
A series of opinion pieces on whether the US should return to the Moon, include commentary by former NASA administrator Michael Griffin:
What is most striking about this 40th anniversary of the first human landing on the moon is that we can no longer do what we're celebrating. Not "do not choose to," but "can't."
By the 40th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition, the Oregon Trail was carrying settlers to the West. By the 40th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad, a web of rail traffic crisscrossed the continent. By the 40th anniversary of Lindbergh's epic transatlantic flight, thousands of people in jetliners retraced his route in comfort and safety every day. And on the 40th anniversary of Sputnik, hundreds of satellites were orbiting the Earth.
Only in human spaceflight do we celebrate the anniversary of an achievement that seems more difficult to repeat than to accomplish the first time. Only in human spaceflight can we find in museums things that most of us in the space business wish we still had today.
...At this 40th anniversary of Apollo, we need to ask ourselves a simple question: Do we want to have a real space program, or do we just want to talk about what we used to be able to do?
And from Tom Wolfe who points out that while Armstong walked on the Moon, NASA was already laying off scientists as funding for the Apollo program tapered off.
The reason why you have to dig a little bit back into the space race, says Wolfe, who describes the atmosphere and fear that existed in the US at the time of the 1957 launch of Sputnik:
Physicists were quick to point out that nobody would choose space as a place from which to attack Earth. The spacecraft, the missile, the Earth itself, plus the Earth’s own rotation, would be traveling at wildly different speeds upon wildly different geometric planes. You would run into the notorious “three body problem” and then some. You’d have to be crazy. The target would be untouched and you would wind up on the floor in a fetal ball, twitching and gibbering. On the other hand, the rockets that had lifted the Soviets’ five-ton manned ships into orbit were worth thinking about. They were clearly powerful enough to reach any place on Earth with nuclear warheads....
...Every time you picked up a newspaper you saw headlines with the phrase, SPACE GAP ... SPACE GAP ... SPACE GAP ... The Soviets had produced a generation of scientific geniuses — while we slept, fat and self-satisfied! Educators began tearing curriculums apart as soon as Sputnik went up, introducing the New Math and stressing another latest thing, the Theory of Self-Esteem.
And apart from Wernher von Braun, there was no one who could successfully defend NASA against Congress on philosophical grounds, which was its undoing, says Wolfe.
Clara Moskowitz looks at why it is so hard to go back. This time NASA is aiming for a sustained human presence instead of short visits. Moreover, NASA's current rockets and space shuttles aren't capable of surpassing low-Earth orbit to reach the Moon with the amount of gear required for a manned expedition.
Speaking Sunday at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum (from the left in above image), NASA Mission Control creator Chris Kraft, Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins. (Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls).
The International Geophysical Year helped heat up the space race, said Armstrong, and provided a mechanism for engendering cooperation between former adversaries through the first Apollo–Soyuz meeting in space in 1975, to the later joint missions to Mir and the International Space Station. "In that sense, among others, it was an exceptional national investment for both sides," he said.
Paul Guinnessy
