THE MOON
WITH ecstatic verbal descriptions, Apollo 12 Astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean enabled millions of listeners on earth to share their experiences as they walked and worked on the surface of the moon. But the failure of the color TV camera brought to the moon aboard the lunar module Intrepid deprived earthbound watchers of the spectacular sights that should have accompanied the sounds. Last week, while the astronauts remained in quarantine aboard the carrier U.S.S. Hornet, the world finally got a close-up view of the Ocean of Storms. Movie and still films brought back by the astronauts were flown to Houston, decontaminated, developed and released by NASA. They were well worth waiting for.
Under a pitch-black sky, the Ocean of Storms presents an eerie face, its black shadows starkly contrasting with the blinding white reflection of early morning sunlight from the desolate, rock-strewn surface. The black-and-white monotony is broken only by the color brought to the moon by man—the golden insulating foil on Intrepid, (continued on page 41) the red and blue of the American flag, the golden reflection from the umbrella antenna—and the blues of the earth in the sky above.
Most striking of all are the closeups of Surveyor 3, which had not been seen by man since it was sent to the moon some 2½ years ago. In one shot, Astronaut Conrad is shown examining Surveyor as it stands in its crater. In the background, protruding above the crater's edge, only 600 ft. away, Intrepid and the nearby umbrella antenna gleam in the sunlight. To the dismay of scientists—who wanted to study the discoloration of Surveyor's white paint—all of the Surveyor pictures are in black and white; while photographing the little craft, the astronauts forgot to exchange their black-and-white film for color.
Clinging Dust. In one movie sequence, shot through Intrepid's window as the craft settled toward a landing, dust kicked up by the descent engine begins to obscure the lunar landscape. It finally blots out the landing site completely, vividly demonstrating why Conrad had to make an instrument landing. Another strip, shot on the trip home, shows a dazzling eclipse of the sun caused by the earth itself.
Other trophies of the Apollo 12 mission also preceded the astronauts to Houston. Some 80 Ibs. of lunar rock were delivered by midweek to eager scientists at the Lunar Receiving Laboratory (LRL). Although a thick coat of clinging dust prevented immediate detailed observation, geologists could see that several of the rocks were igneous—formed out of molten material like lava. They were also of a lighter hue than the brownish gray Apollo 11 rocks from the Sea of Tranquility—and much larger. The biggest of these "grapefruits," as Conrad had called them, weighed as much as four pounds and were about six inches long and five inches wide. Said a pleased Dan Anderson, curator of the LRL: "Scientists are oohing and aahing. The astronauts were asked to bring back some larger rocks if they 'could, and these are plenty big."