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  'Kilroy was here' inscribed in the regolith

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Author Topic:   'Kilroy was here' inscribed in the regolith
moorouge
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Posts: 2465
From: U.K.
Registered: Jul 2009

posted 04-29-2020 02:21 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for moorouge   Click Here to Email moorouge     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
At the back of my mind I have a recollection that one of the moonwalkers inscribed "Kilroy was here" in the dust.

Am I mistaken or can anyone confirm that this actually was done and which astronaut it was?

Robert Pearlman
Editor

Posts: 43686
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 04-29-2020 03:10 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I think you may be remembering a poem that was read up to the Apollo 8 crew after trans-Earth injection. Specifically, this stanza:
The light on the breast of the Moon's jagged crust,
gave a luster of green cheese to the gray lunar dust.
When what to his wondering eyes should appear,
but a Burma Shave sign - saying "Kilroy was here."

Blackarrow
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Posts: 3174
From: Belfast, United Kingdom
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 04-29-2020 03:16 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Blackarrow     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I've never heard this, and I would be very surprised if it happened. We know that Gene Cernan traced his daughter's initials ("C.D.C.") on the moon, but I can't see any of the astronauts frivolously taking time to trace out an 11-letter graffito, not easy in a pressure-suit.

That's not to say it is impossible: the astronauts always had to get back to the vicinity of the LM in good time to leave a significant safety-margin, particularly on the "J" missions. Once back, there was time to play a little golf, or do a few "Olympic" jumps, or a "hammer and feather" demonstration, but all of those activities had variable degrees of scientific merit (particularly the "hammer and feather") whereas taking time to scrawl "Kilroy was here" would have been time squandered.

If it was done, I would say it was by the astronaut who said "Good luck Mr Gorsky."

Rick Mulheirn
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Posts: 4219
From: England
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 04-29-2020 06:11 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Rick Mulheirn   Click Here to Email Rick Mulheirn     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
"T.D.C" Geoffrey surely... unless Gene had another daughter.

NavyPilot
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Posts: 42
From:
Registered: Nov 2015

posted 04-29-2020 08:31 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for NavyPilot     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Apollo 8 Day 4: Final Orbit and Trans-Earth Injection: 089:59:31.

(Sorry, I just noticed it was hyperlinked above.)

Blackarrow
Member

Posts: 3174
From: Belfast, United Kingdom
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 04-29-2020 08:31 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Blackarrow     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Yes, TDC. I must have had something else on my mind...

Henry Heatherbank
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Posts: 251
From: Adelaide, South Australia
Registered: Apr 2005

posted 04-30-2020 08:17 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Henry Heatherbank     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Isn’t the TDC thing a myth? I thought Gene Cernan wished he had done that (at the huge boulder when hurriedly scooping dirt off a ledge) if he’d had more time, and Al Bean subsequently granted his wish, in one of his paintings.

oly
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Posts: 1008
From: Perth, Western Australia
Registered: Apr 2015

posted 04-30-2020 08:29 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for oly   Click Here to Email oly     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
From Gene Cernan's oral history project interview.
There have been people who want to believe in the fantasy or the conspiracy, whatever, that it was all done in Hollywood, we never really walked on the Moon. Well, if they want to have missed one of the greatest adventures in the history of mankind, that's their choice. But once my footsteps were on the surface of the Moon, nobody, but nobody, could ever take, and to this day can take those footsteps away from me. Like my daughter's initials I put into the Moon during that three days we were there. Someone said, "How long will they be there?" I said, "Forever, however long forever is." I'm not sure we, any of us, understand that.

Robert Pearlman
Editor

Posts: 43686
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 04-30-2020 08:39 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Cernan had intended to write his daughter's initials near a large boulder at Station 6, and that boulder became known as "Tracy's rock." (And yes, Bean later painted that scene.)

But having missed that opportunity, he said he made up for it later in the mission. An excerpt from his autobiography:

I drove the Rover about a mile away from the LM and parked it carefully so the television camera could photograph our takeoff the next day. As I dismounted, I took a moment to kneel and with a single finger, scratched [my daughter] Tracy's initials, "TDC," in the lunar dust, knowing those three letters would remain there undisturbed for more years than anyone could imagine.

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