Geography 2090A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Surveyor 1, Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 7
5 Feb 2016
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Catch up to the discoveries of the ussr and pass them. First moon landing in 1969 (ussr was 1970) Only now is a return to the moon planned. Sites had to be safe: gentle slope, few small craters, not many rocks. Needed to use spacecraft to see it close up. The ranger spacecraft gave a first closeup look, and the lunar. Ranger: objective of obtaining high-resolution photographs of the lunar surface. Ranger 7, 8, and 9 (high ground pics) fulfilled the mission objective and provided more than 17,000 photographs at resolutions not previously obtained. The surveyor landers showed what some sites looked like from the surface. Surveyor 1, 3, 5, 6, and 7 successfully soft-landed on the lunar surface. A committee, the apollo site selection board, worked for several years to choose sites. The early sites were very safe, smooth and flat, the later sites more visually appealing and scientifically interesting.
