posted 07-06-2016 06:23 PM               

The U.S. Air Force Aeronautical Chart and Information Center (ACIC) "hired" Lowell Observatory to help them produce general Lunar Astronautical Charts (LACs) and detailed Apollo Intermediate Charts (AICs) that had airbrushed relief features. This was before the Lunar Orbiters flew.

In early 1963, NASA's Group 2 astronauts visited the area for geological training and on the night of Jan. 16 visited the observatory. Each book has the same five pictures from the event that show Neil Armstrong, Frank Borman, Pete Conrad, Jim McDivitt, Jim Lovell, Tom Stafford, Ed White and John Young studying lunar photographs and charts. Two pages of the observatory's logbook are reproduced, with all their signatures, in the large coffee table book about the Clark telescope. Also shown is a thoughtful note that Neil Armstrong wrote in someone's autograph book.

posted 07-07-2016 09:11 PM               

Shoemaker outlined Flagstaff's merits in a October 25th 1962 memorandum to the USGS:

After investigation of several possible sites in California and Arizona, the Flagstaff area in Arizona has been selected as the most advantageous area for operation of a telescope to be used for lunar mapping. Of all locations in the United States where the general astronomical seeing is adequate to obtain the high resolution information required for the lunar mapping, the Flagstaff area is the only one where sites can be found adjacent to an established community. The operational advantage of immediate and direct access to the telescope in lunar mapping has proven to be very great in the expansion of the Aeronautical Chart and Information Center which is using a 24-inch telescope at Flagstaff at the present time. The Flagstaff area has several further advantages for the Survey’s lunar geologic mapping program. Astrogeology Branch staff headquartered in Flagstaff would be in direct day-to-day contact with the field staff of ACIC working on the lunar base maps on which the geology is being plotted by the Survey. Three other major observatories are located in Flagstaff, the Lowell Observatory, the Flagstaff station of the U.S. Naval Observatory, and the Perkins Observatory. The Lowell Observatory is the only observatory in the United States founded for research on the Moon and planets and has a fine astronomical library that would be accessible to members of the Survey.

A new international planetary data center, which will be financed by NASA, is about to be established in Flagstaff under the auspices of the Lowell Observatory. An atmosphere of research already exists at Flagstaff and intercourse with the astronomers there has already proven beneficial in the development of instrumental techniques that can be used in the Survey’s program of lunar mapping.

One of the many lead articles in the Arizona Daily Sun over the next two days read as follows:

Nine enthusiastic future spacemen spent today in Flagstaff area learning about what things might be like when one of their numbers someday lands on the moon. They got a pretty good idea of what the weather might be like — minus five degrees — when they stepped off Bonanza and Frontier Airlines planes shortly after 7:30 A.M. to be greeted by a Flagstaff delegation of nearly 40 scientists, city officials, and civic dignitaries.

Then, they were whisked to the Century Hi-way House Motel, their headquarters in Flagstaff, where they changed from the light business suits they wore for their flight from Phoenix. By 9:30 AM, in a motorcade of gray-painted government vehicles, they were on their way to famed Meteor Crater, some 45 miles east of Flagstaff, where they were given a morning-long briefing on the geology of the crater by Eugene Shoemaker and Charles “Chuck” Marshall of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Astrogeology Branch.

The Arizona Daily Sun article of 17 January 1963 goes on to report the following:

Following lunch at Meteor Crater, the astronauts visited Sunset Crater, some 14 miles northeast of Flagstaff and again were given a briefing by the astrogeologists on volcanic cones and similar landforms that they might find on the Moon, comparing the volcanic cones. Later that night the astronauts gathered at the Lunar Observations Office of the Air Force’s Aeronautical Chart and Information Center at Lowell Observatory on Mars Hill to get a rundown on lunar geography and an astronomical comparison of lunar topographic features with those terrestrial features they saw in the Flagstaff area during the day. After this briefing, and starting at about midnight, the nine astronaut trainees will get in three to four hours of actual observation of the Moon, and possibly Mars, using the 24-inch refracting telescope at Lowell, the 40-inch reflecting telescope at the U.S. Naval Observatory west of Flagstaff, and the 24-inch reflector at Arizona State College.

posted 07-08-2016 07:00 AM               

Arthur Adel was a staff astronomer at Lowell.

Apparently Gene Shoemaker did not attend the observing session as I did not spot his name in the guest book. The only name from the USG that I recognized was that of Hal Masursky.

posted 07-08-2016 12:41 PM            

The note says:

Lunar Atlas plates showing features and illumination that will be visible through the telescope tonight

posted 07-09-2016 08:39 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Headshot:
Apparently Gene Shoemaker did not attend the observing session as I did not spot his name in the guest book.

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posted 06-25-2017 12:56 AM               

Dr. Shoemaker gave us essentially the same one day field exercise that he gave the Apollo astronauts. We twenty-something students thought we could keep up with Dr. Shoemaker and our 50ish geology professor, Dr. Wolfgang Elston.

Wrong! They left us ion the dust gasping for breath. Down to the bottom of the crater, spiral out of the crater, and hike almost the full circumference of the crater.