Tom Lund - Early Exploration of the Moon: Ranger to Apollo, Luna to Lunniy Korabl

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Cover design: Jim Wilkie. Image credit: NASA

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The machines known as spacecraft that enabled early exploration of the moon were ingenious and reflected the best efforts of talented people working with the technology of the day. Those moon-bound spacecraft, designed in the 1960s, were remarkable for their performance, efficiency, and ruggedness. It is instructive to examine these machines and see just how capable they were and how best performance was wrung out of the technology available.

This book covers early lunar exploration efforts by the United States and by the Soviet Union. Russia was the major entity of the Soviet Union at the time, and the development of spacecraft was a Russian endeavor. Early exploration of the moon by the United States involved the Ranger, Lunar Orbiter, Surveyor, and Apollo spacecraft. The exploration advanced from taking photographs as the Ranger hurdled to impact the moon to the impressive manned lunar landing and exploration missions of Apollo. Russian spacecraft that explored the moon included lunar impactors, lunar flyby spacecraft, lunar landers, lunar orbiters, lunar sample return spacecraft, and the capable Lunokhod lunar rovers. The first five of those spacecraft were simply given the name Luna followed by a number. Russian hardware for a manned lunar landing did not rise to the task.

The author had significant responsibility for landing radars for both the Surveyor and Apollo programs. As a result, he had keen interest in all of the space programs during those pioneering years. Writing this book provided opportunity to relive some of those heady times and a chance to use material from his files.

The early space programs took place at a time when there were impressive aeronautical programs in the United States. The SR-71 Blackbird was cruising at Mach 3.2 at 80,000 feet with its crew of two for over 3,000 miles without breaking a sweat, and the X-15 was rocketing along at Mach 6.7 and reaching altitudes of 354,000 feet. The challenges of the difficult Apollo program did not seem insurmountable in that era.

The pinnacle of lunar exploration was the mission of Apollo 17 that saw the exploration of the moon by a trained geologist, Harrison Schmitt. Schmitt and Gene Cernan, commander of the mission, traveled 21 miles around the surface of the moon in a dune buggy-type vehicle, stopping frequently to explore. A striking photograph of Dr. Schmitt examining a large boulder on the surface of the moon is shown below (Fig. ).

Fig. 1

Geologist Harrison Schmitt examining a boulder on the lunar surface (NASA photograph)

Early US hardware built for lunar exploration was dimensioned in English units. The author stuck with that treatment of units for US hardware in this book. An exception is the US Lunar Orbiter that used metric units, and that convention was retained. Russian hardware was dimensioned in metric units, and that convention was retained as well.