Word: apollos
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NASA last week narrowed to five the number of lunar landing sites being considered for Apollo astronauts. Two of the three-mile by five-mile elliptical landing zones are in the Ocean of Storms on the west side of the visible face of the moon, one in the appropriately named Central Bay and two in the easterly Sea of Tranquillity. All are relatively smooth and unobstructed, giving the astronauts a good chance of selecting a spot that is free of boulders, ridges or rifts that could endanger the landing of the lunar module...
...sites have more in common: all lie close to the lunar equator-and for good reason. Plans for the lunar mission call for the Apollo command ship to circle the moon in an 80-mile-high equatorial orbit while the LM descends to the surface below. Setting down the LM anywhere but near the equator would require change-of-plane maneuvers-both for landing and returning-that would consume large additional amounts of the craft's precious fuel. Once a launch time has been set, scientists will pick a site where the sun will be at least...
Thus, in a single test, NASA was able to prove that both LM engines work well, that the descent engine can be throttled in space-the first big operational engine to do so-and that the Apollo mission could be safely aborted, if necessary, during the final descent to the lunar surface. The near-perfect results may enable NASA to cancel plans for a second unmanned LM flight and to move directly into a manned orbital flight-to check out LM's life-support systems-late in 1968. Looking further ahead, LM's success has also raised hopes...
...engineering test that was a preliminary to actual laser experiments during the Apollo moon mission, a group headed by University of Maryland Physicists Carroll Alley and Douglas Currie set up the lasers in four East Coast locations in addition to the two in the West. Each was projected backwards through a telescope-into the viewing end-toward Surveyor's lunar site. The telescopes were used not only to aim the beams precisely but also to further confine the beam of the coherent laser light, which diverges very little even without telescopic aid. Alley estimates that both beams had diverged...
...When Apollo astronauts finally set down on the moon, one of their tasks will be to set up an array of reflectors. Scientists will bounce more powerful ruby laser pulses off the reflectors and will measure the time it takes for the pulses to return to earth. This data will enable them to determine the distance from earth to a fixed point on the moon with an accuracy of 6 in., measurements that should enable scientists to learn the precise size of the moon, to analyze its motions, to confirm continental drift on the earth, and perhaps even to learn...