nasa the national aeronautics and space
administration presents aeronautics and
space report
march seven scientists took a good look
at the Sun the occasion a total solar
eclipse an event of such magnitude will
not occur again until 2024 54 years from
now another Tyros operational weather
satellite was launched in 1970 it's
looking at the Earth's cloud cover and
returns daily weather information
orbited also Nimbus an advanced weather
researcher to communication satellites
were successfully launched as part of a
global communication satellite system in
aeronautics NASA continued its research
in wake turbulence these smoked our
tests show how tornado-like patterns of
air are churned up as a large plane
passes by causing potential hazards for
lighter aircraft nasa's earth resources
planes made high-altitude pictures of
peru's devastating earthquake pictures
that will contribute to the remote
sensing of future natural disasters they
also made temperature and color
measurements over the tuner rich fishing
grounds near oregon an effort to assist
pacific coast fishing plates to increase
their catch while enroute to the moon
the third manned lunar landing attempt
was cancelled when an oxygen tank
ruptured the Apollo 13 astronauts
Louisville haze and swaggered were then
safely recovered from the Pacific Ocean
on April seventeenth
at 3pm September 30th the last of the
huge first stage engines that lift the
Saturn 5 moon rockets off the launch pad
were successfully test-fired trying out
life support systems for long-duration
spaceflights of the future for college
students from California spent 90 days
confined in a space station simulator
the crew drank water and breathe oxygen
reclaimed from their body wastes and
emerged after their confinement showing
no apparent ill effects
beginning october 18 soviet cosmonauts
andreia Nikolaev and vitaly sebastian
off toward the US and several NASA field
centers during that same month the
United States and the Soviet Union
agreed to study ways that American and
Russian space ships could meet and join
in space 1970 was the year of lunar
research now for the first time a
special report on what we've learned
reporter Sally Ann Haynes reviews the
moon owned and new from Galileo to 1971
for more than 20 centuries the moon has
been studied and investigated by skills
and ingenious men they have come to
realize that in comparing the moon with
you we can learn more about the history
of both and ultimately more about the
history of the solar system as a whole
in the process we would gain a new
perspective about our own place and role
on our small blue planet
before mound Apollo flights to the moon
we could only study it remotely
primarily by way of instruments such as
the telescope and recently in history by
way of automated spacecraft early in the
seventeenth century Galileo Galilei
became the first of the great scientists
to use the telescope a quite novel
instrument at the time to study the moon
I feel sure that the surface of the Moon
is not perfectly smooth free from any
qualities and exactly spherical has a
large school of philosophers considers
on the contrary it is full of
inequalities uneven full of hollows and
protuberances just like the surface of
the earth itself his discoveries helped
overturn andro Gnaeus beliefs popularly
held and taught for 14th century and lay
the foundation for modern lunar science
Galileo would be followed by a stream of
other scientists and a mass of new
information and knowledge the centuries
of investigations produced a great deal
of information about the moon
for instance the moon orbiting once
about every four weeks always keeping
the same face toward Earth is far larger
in more distance compared with its
planet then are any of the other moons
of our solar system compared with their
plants in fact the moon is often
considered a planet in its own right
further some scientists believe that the
moon is gradually pulling away from the
earth which in turn is gradually
revolving slower and slower on its axis
there is at least some evidence that the
moon was much nearer earth in the past
although no one knows just how near it
might have been
the surface of the Moon has actually
been described as a cosmic battlefield a
place terribly hostile to life it is
alternately baked and frozen in
temperatures ranging from some 250
degrees fahrenheit above zero for some
250 degrees below zero and it is seared
by radiation in some
as a whole the surface of the Moon may
be divided into the heavily cratered
Highlands which Galileo called the
brighter pots and the Mario which
Galileo called the doctor pots the
Highlands are far more rubbin having 20
to 30 times more craters in the Mario
this means that the formation of craters
has slowed drastically by the time the
Mario basins were filled
in essence the highlands were formed
when the moon was a growing dynamic body
the maurya when the moon was far less
active in contrast with the moon's face
the far side is almost totally covered
with Highlands there simply are none of
the great Mario telescopes and automated
satellites brought us close up looks at
many individual features for instance in
the highlands craters which look much
like certain volcanoes on Earth other
craters which look like impact sites
sometimes with streaks of debris
radiating hundreds of miles away from
their centres mountain ranges which
tower thousands of feet above the
surrounding Plains
symmetrical Hills known as domes
apparent red glows first seen in the
1950s where the Highlands and Marya meet
there are features which look much like
ocean waves approaching a rugged
shoreline the maurya basins are
comparatively smooth and flat like into
a frozen seen by the first men to orbit
the moon and they are marked by
so-called wrinkle ridges which have the
appearance of frozen waves phantom
craters evidently real craters virtually
inundated by Mario materials then there
are valleys which wander for hundreds of
miles across the surface
great fractures or thoughts which may
slice across the moon's face for a
hundred miles there are the newly
discovered mass concentrations or mass
cones buried beneath the circular Marya
and their gravitational attraction
actually distorts the flight path of
space vehicles circling the moon
from surveyor spacecraft there was even
some knowledge of the nature of the soil
and the chemistry of materials yet for
all we had learned for all we had
discovered even with unmanned space
vehicles which landed on the surface and
manned apollo vehicles which orbited
above the surface the moon still somehow
seemed remote and inaccessible until
that day in july 1969 forward toward
putting feet down two and a half
three feet two and a half down make that
0 for forward forward ripped into the
right little ok and a half 30 second
over just picking up some dust
at the saddle up there I'm back right
okay engine stop we copy you down eagle
Griffin and gaudy babe here Hinkle air
planted in a sense from this moment on
the old moon that had once been the
stuff of impossible dreams completely
disappeared and the news of mountains
and valleys and stoned earth and
possible dreams took its place I will
get to the details of what's around here
but it looks like a collection of just
about every variety of shape angularity
granularity but every variety of rock
you could find fairly large number of
craters of the five to fifty foot
variety and some reaches the small 2030
feet I i would guess and literally
thousands of little one and to put
craters around the area there is a hill
and you just about on the ground track
ahead of it difficult to estimate but
despite the a half a mile and throughout
the world there was renewed Duluth not
just in American technology but in human
abilities
thus in the moon Sea of Tranquility a
new chapter in the history of science
was begun simultaneously a carefully
developed in planned programme of
scientific investigation was set in
motion
there would be new information about the
internal structure of the moon the
chemical composition of the rocks and
soil the dynamic processes at work and
the ages of the materials scientists
shared a great sense of excitement in
the highest priority scientific
undertaking the astronauts collected a
selection of samples of the lunar
surface the first extraterrestrial
materials ever to be brought to work
from a known context in an experience so
new every fragment of information was of
intense scientific interest define an
artery I can pick it up loosely with my
toe it says 'add here is fine layer like
powdered charcoal to the full and size
of my fruit I only go in a all action a
maybe an eighth of an inch but I
can see the footprints of my food from
the trench and me fine antiparticle in
the sentence of small craters the
astronauts discovered strange features
which looked much like splattered solder
or glass
the astronauts discovered rocks which
had been hurled from neighboring crazies
yet they saw no impact scars in a
powdery surface for the rocks truck the
scars had apparently been eroded away by
an unknown process the astronauts set up
an array of instruments in effect a
miniature scientific station to return
data to earth long after the men
themselves had left one of the
instruments relatively simple in concept
was a reflecting device which would
intercept a laser beam for Earth and
send it back on itself measuring the
time it took the beam to travel from the
earth to the moon and back scientists
could calculate the distance to the moon
within a few inches they will be able to
use such precise measurements in
studying the earth for instance the
variations in its rotation rate the
wobble of its axis the drift of its
continents
another of the devices was a seismometer
an instrument which detects vibrations
of the lunar surface the vibrations
reflect something of the nature of the
internal structure and energy release of
the moon a few months later when Apollo
12 landed in the ocean of storms the
astronauts given more time for
scientific work on the surface were able
to enlarge on all that the Apollo 11
astronauts had accomplished they were
able to range farther collect morn that
are documented samples and set up a
larger scientific station the scientific
exploration of the moon was now well
underway the lunar materials returned to
earth were met with high excitement more
than 140 scientists from this country
and abroad punished into painstaking and
intensive investigation we're broadening
our horizons we were never able to do
that while the intense activity that
took place on the surface of the earth
when it was a young planet had wiped out
the record of the first million years in
his history the moon is now restored
that missing record in Safari to related
to the earth I think it had contact with
the feelings of every person not merely
the specialists regarding what are you
doing here on the face of this planet
typical of the detailed efforts were
studies with electron microscopes which
produced magnifications up to 1 million
times and more
for some of these studies samples were
sectioned with a knife which has the
sharpest edge known it can split a hare
into 10,000 sections the scientists
often felt a sense of wonder what they
saw this dust which looks like gray
material without interest has
exceedingly beautiful and varied forms
just from an aesthetic standpoint as
well of course from a scientific
standpoint when you put it under the
microscope the material is just
beautiful aesthetically and of course
it's beautiful scientifically among the
materials there are crystalline rocks
clearly marked as igneous by bubble like
cavities and by their chemistry they
were crystallized from molten silicon
material in a lunar Inferno with
temperatures well over 2,000 degrees
Fahrenheit there are other rocks which
consist of fragments of the igneous
rocks embedded in lunar soil call brick
Sia's they were formed when meteorites
impacted on the surface producing such
tremendous pressures that rubble and
soil were welded into solid rock both
the igneous rocks and the breakfast fare
clear witness to prolonged meteorite
bombardment they have been rounded as if
they had been severely sandblasted
fitted where they have been struck by
micro meteorites traveling with high
velocity
and some coated with floss a material
which had been melted and splashed by
meteorite impact rocks from Apollo 11
and Apollo 12 are in some ways similar
but there were important differences in
chemistry mineral composition and
texture further the minerals of the
Apollo 11 rocks took on their present
arrangement about 3.7 billion years ago
the minerals of the Apollo 12 rocks
about 3.3 or 3.4 billion years ago an
indication of two different events
separated by several hundred million
years the ages were far greater than
many expected it was probably during
this time more than three billion years
ago but the maurya basins were filmed
while the Apollo 12 rocks were generally
somewhat younger the collection did
needled one unique and quite complicated
rocks number 13 now famous in lunar
science portions of rock 13 proved to be
some 4.6 billion years old very nearly
the age of the solar system itself this
may be some indication of what to expect
from the lunar Highlands another type of
material is the lunar soil created
apparently as rocks had been pulverized
by bombardment one core tube sample from
the Apollo 12 landing site showed the
soil was stratified or layered with
lighter and darker bands of material
they even seem that one layer might have
a mixture of volcanic ash under the
microscope it can be seen that the soil
consists of tiny fragments of rocks
particles of glass and bits of
meteorites even the soil shows evidence
of bombardment some of the individual
grains have been so pitted in fact that
they look almost like tiny replicas of
the moon itself
in examining the lunar soils and
breakfast scientists have found an
abundance of products of the solar wind
the streams of particles flung off the
Sun they have found in fact that if an
ounce of lunar soil is heated to about
1,800 degrees Fahrenheit at an
atmospheric pressure equal to that at
sea level about 12 cubic inches of gas
will be produced primarily hydrogen
helium directly from the Sun it is
possible using the moon materials to go
back and trace the behavior of the Sun
almost back to the beginning of the
solar system the interesting part about
the solar wind is that it represents the
actual stuff of the Sun as if you had in
your hands you're able to dip into the
Sun and reach out and take this material
and bring it back to your laboratory the
lunar materials have also been closely
searched for any trace of life or even
for any materials with organic contents
it has been a search which the
scientists have so far found to be
fruitless
scientists have found the results more
interesting however when earth organisms
have been exposed to lunar materials of
the variety of biological systems that
we tested with the lunar material the
plants were most unique in their
response for example the five jars of
liverworts you see illustrated on the
top gave much increased growth in the
presence of lunar material this effect
was noted for ferns a number of tissue
cultures such as tobacco and corn and
certain higher plant species such as
lettuce now the exact reasons for this
beneficial response are unknown at the
present however it is likely that some
trace mineral or perhaps even a physical
property of the lunar material is
interacting with the minerals we furnish
to give a more desirable medium for
plant growth this is a very exciting
discovery and one that was totally
unexpected in the tests conducted in the
lunar receiving laboratory the flood of
information derived lunar materials
alone or required decades to interpret
fully in the meantime however still more
information is flowing in from the
scientific instruments set up by the
astronauts scientists receive one of
their biggest surprises when the Apollo
12 seismometer told the story of how the
moon vibrated when it was struck by the
astronauts abandoned lunar module it is
as though one had struck a belt in the
belfry of the church a single blow and
found that the reverberation from it
continued for 30 minutes thus it will
seem to indicate that the energy of the
impact scattered greatly on one hand but
had a prolonged duration on the other
such a combination of characteristics
simply does not occur on earth
subsequently signals of a similar nature
will receive from other impacts both
natural and man-made
after analyzing signals recorded over
several months scientists also
discovered evidence of moonquakes these
occurred each time the moon pass through
the point of its orbit closest to Earth
when there was maximum gravitational
attraction between the two bodies
apparently the attraction triggered the
quakes and they were possibly a volcanic
origin so far however the seismometer
detected those signals that would
indicate events originating deep within
the moon such events occur frequently
under the upshot is that the main of the
signals is far from understood from
other instruments scientists are
harvesting rich new information on the
magnetic fields of the moon and the
earth they extremely thin atmosphere of
the moon the rate at which particle
stream away from the Sun for a long time
to come scientists will be putting bits
and pieces together searching out the
answers to a long list of questions but
already certain parts of the whole
picture are beginning to take shape and
the moon is by far our more interesting
and complex body than ever anticipated
although every current theory about the
moon's origin has major flaws it does
seem probable with the major events in a
formation and evolution of the moon
occurred early in its history and that
relatively little has happened since
then one indication of this is the far
greater frequency of craters in the
highlands and in amariah which are
themselves very old and it means the
moon may hold records of events which
have long since been obliterated
four-month by erosion structurally the
moon compared with you earth is an
extremely strong and rigid body as it
would have to be to support the great
mass concentrations mass Connors so near
the surface
scientists have seen that great heating
has played a major role in shaping the
moon's face in fact the Mario basins
were filled with the lava flows they
have also seen that impact has played a
major role both on a gigantic scale and
on a microscopic scale contrary to what
many expected there has been no evidence
of water and as most expected there has
been no trace of life and there seems
little chance of finding any but as
often happens in science the
investigation so far have raised more
questions than they have provided
answers for instance what is the
interior of the moon like what is the
source of the heat that produced the
lava was it produced in some way and the
interior of the moon or was it generated
by meteoroid impacts what lies behind
the fact that it is the side of the moon
with the maurya basis that faces us on
earth
what in the tail are the relative
differences between the highlands and
the maurya and the question one always
returns to how was the moon created in
essence the scientific investigation of
the moon is one of the great
intellectual adventures of our time and
a major chapter was written at the first
conference for lunar science early in
the year nineteen seventy well we've
come an awful long way and I think we've
learned some very interesting things but
there's still an enormous amount first
to learn about the moon before we fully
understand it when we go to the
Highlands we will go to the Highlands
that they're going to be even more
interesting from this point of view of
the fundamental history of the solar
system then the parts that we have
already visited it is only through the
understanding of the interior of this
planet that we begin to start to
understand some of the processes that we
see on the surface of years in fact we
are taking a step in our understanding
of the solar system and the earth that
is comparable to the one taken by
Galileo when he first pointed the
telescope at the moon
this has been a special report brought
to you by nasa the national aeronautics
and space administration