Apollo 16 Map from Lunar Module Orion

15 responses to “Apollo 16 Map from Lunar Module Orion”

1. 

   Black&Color

   Sep 11, 2010 at 5:30 am

   wow

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2. 

   Minnesota’s Ryan

   Sep 11, 2010 at 5:43 am

   Truly surreal. When does the Jurvetson Space Museum open? Thank you for sharing!

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3. 

   PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE

   Sep 11, 2010 at 10:47 am

   Dude where is my car…lunar rover !

   Remind me of listening to Buzz Aldrin and few french astronauts, talking about space navigation with modern instrumentation, in comparison to before. That and another astronaut that night, who got late because he got lost in Paris subway…well a map can be useful on the Moon AND on Earth =)

   Cultivons nos jardin oui. Car l’ automne arrive en France depuis hier =)

   

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4. 

   Dr DAD (Daniel A D’Auria MD)

   Sep 11, 2010 at 12:25 pm

   One of these days you are going to have to set up your own museum. Aren’t you running out of wall space yet? Besides, we are all going to want to come and see all that you have managed to collect. I’ll bring the champagne for the grand opening, but I’ll let PhotonQ choose the brand! Here’s to the Jurvetson Space Museum!

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5. 

   aloof lock

   Sep 11, 2010 at 4:58 pm

   Cool!

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6. 

   Erik Charlton

   Sep 11, 2010 at 5:41 pm

   Wonderful piece! Man you got a bargain on that one! (next time I bid against you =)) I love the quality of the image AND I love the long inscription. Is the little discoloration on the top due to a strip of tape? Or is it in the image. If tape…look for moon dust =)

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7. 

   jurvetson

   Sep 11, 2010 at 7:25 pm

   discoloration from what looks like tape removed long ago. With so much dust in the air post EVA, I figure there is a certain terroir infused throughout the filter papers of flight… =)

   Dr. D and rlee – yes, mainly at work, office and lobby, but I am running out of space… so to speak.

   And the big RL-10 engine is en route… 5-ft. wide at the base!

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8. 

   Dr DAD (Daniel A D’Auria MD)

   Sep 12, 2010 at 11:26 am

   "5 ft wide at the base"?? How TALL is it?? Sounds like it is going to need its own room!

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9. 

   solerena

   Sep 12, 2010 at 5:00 pm

   Noble Space Artfact:)

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10. 

    Cactus County

    Sep 13, 2010 at 5:43 pm

    Way cool!

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11. 

    jurvetson

    Jun 4, 2011 at 6:49 pm

    Dr. D – taller than me

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12. 

    jurvetson

    Jun 22, 2011 at 5:07 am

    And some cool text from the Apollo 16 transcript as they are using this map:

    074 53 37 Young: Everybody is looking out their window. And right now, we’re looking right down at Crater King, and it’s just as fantastic as it always has been.

    074 53 48 Peterson: Roger.

    074 53 49 Young: You can see those little dark – those little dark – look like volcanic black spots up – up in the north sector of it, and you can see the central peaks with a – with a varied – very white central peaks covered by lighter gray – gray-brown material that sort of looked like somebody painted it on there with a – with a – with a paintbrush.

    074 54 39 Mattingly: And, Pete, your first view at Tsiolkovsky out of my window is pretty – it’s a spectacular sight the way that – looks like a marshmallow float – a central peak floating in the top of a hot chocolate.

    074 54 55 Young: Yeah, you – it – it’s like – three guys – they’ve each got a window, and we’re staring at – at the ground. It’s really – Boy, this has got to be the neatest way to make a living anybody’s ever invented.
    …
    075 03 21 Duke: Pete, looking out at the horizon, you can really tell you’re in the highlands. The horizon is really jagged looking.

    075 03 31 Peterson: Looks like coming up on the Rockies, huh?

    075 03 34 Young: Of course, we’re start – we’re starting to come up over the flatlands now, over the Smyth Sea. I remember a landmarking track down there on Apollo 10. It’s still there. You can’t really tell by looking at it that the Smyth Sea is any – any deeper or lower than the data shows it is right in the surrounding terrain.

    075 03 59 Peterson: Roger.

    075 06 17 Young: The submerged craters in Smythii remind me a lot of a- coral atolls. They just got the ridges sticking up, you know, and the – and the bottoms of them appear to be flooded with the same material that’s in Smyth.

    075 06 40 Peterson: We’re digging out a map now, 16, to take a look at it.

    075 07 42 Young: We’re going to get a close-in picture of Humboldt here, as we come up, because we’ll probably miss it on the next round.

    075 07 49 Peterson: Roger.

    075 08 04 Young: That’s real – it’s really a fascinating crater, the way the dark mare has got in – sort of like a path around the edges, and – and there’s a fracture pattern running across it, and it has some very prominent central peaks that are very white. But it has every contrast and color on the Moon.

    075 08 31 Peterson: Roger.

    075 08 38 Young: Boy, those fracture patterns running down through it are white – appear to be white, layered fracture patterns. They look like somebody’s drawn them on there with a piece of chalk.
    …
    075 13 15 Young: Houston, out my window is fine now. We got Petavius with it’s central dome of – a whitish cap – dome, and it’s a fairly subdued crater, and the lineations running into it – the rilles or whatever they are – are just like it’s drawn on the map here.

    075 13 44 Young: Some of those central domes are exceptionally dark, and they have exceptionally dark material running down a white surface. You can see that.

    075 16 03 Mattingly: With the binoculars, we passed over Langrenus, and you can see blocks on the tops of the central peak, and some features that probably are there that I just haven’t noticed before in that central feature. You can see an awful lot of – looks like a – the demarcation where the central feature – looks like a crack in it – has a whole ring of craters that kind of dots that boundary. And then, you see some more of those little craters up along near the top of the central lineament also. And you just don’t see those kind of things stand out at you without the binoculars.
    …
    Public Affairs Officer This is Apollo Control at 75:20. Apollo 16 Commander John Young becomes the first human to go into lunar orbit twice, having flown on Apollo 10 which is a precursor to the landing missions. [The] Apollo 10 mission descended to within about eight miles of the lunar surface and the, that is the Lunar Module did.

    075 23 26 Duke: Houston, we’re coming up on Theophilus now. Central peak’s in the shadows, and the – As we approach the terminator, looking out towards the horizon, it really looks rugged.
    …
    075 28 05 Mattingly (onboard): I’ll take care of all that. Okay, there’s Taylor, Taylor A [garble] Zöllner – then we have to have [garble] Descartes. That is Descartes, right there. See the – [garble]?

    075 28 27 Young (onboard): Where?

    075 28 28 Mattingly (onboard): Right down – Here, let me – get to this window; I’ll show you. Right there? The crater Descartes.
    …
    075 28 05 Mattingly (onboard): I’ll take care of all that. Okay, there’s Taylor, Taylor A [garble] Zöllner – then we have to have [garble] Descartes. That is Descartes, right there. See the – [garble]?

    075 28 27 Young (onboard): Where?

    075 28 28 Mattingly (onboard): Right down – Here, let me – get to this window; I’ll show you. Right there? The crater Descartes.
    …
    076 50 00 Duke (onboard): You want to get a picture of earthrise?

    076 50 03 Young (onboard): Well, probably not. There’s probably only been ten million pictures already took of it. But if you’re looking for PR, like the Sea of Moscow or some other thing [garble].

    076 50 19 Mattingly (onboard): What’d you take it at, 1/250, f/11 – f/87 John?

    076 50 25 Young (onboard): I put it 1/250 at f/11. f/8 was probably a better choice.
    …
    079 34 19 Mattingly: Roger. We got the – it’s right on the horizon. Still haven’t picked up the target yet. Looks like it’s tracking just about right. I have Theophilus going out of the field of view now.

    079 36 09 Hartsfield: Ken, you’re coming up on about 30 seconds to TCA.

    079 36 22 Duke: He has the target, Houston.

    079 36 26 Hartsfield: Roger.

    079 38 54 Mattingly: Big old hill down the stream from – Where you are going [garble]?

    079 39 02 Young: Guess who is sneaking in marks on Gator Crater right now?

    079 39 07 Hartsfield: I wonder who.

    Public Affairs Officer: Gator crater is about 700 yards across one of the craters at the Descartes landing site. Ken Mattingly obviously taking a landmark sightings on that crater at the present time, and as Apollo 16 passes directly over the landing site.

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13. 

    jurvetson

    Jun 22, 2011 at 5:18 am

    and then, a reference to the Maclaurin craters on this map segment:

    Public Affairs Officer: This is Apollo Control. The landmark tracking Ken Mattingly is referring to is a procedure used on board the spacecraft to determine their orbit. It’s also a procedure that will be used by Mattingly from lunar orbit to track the spacecraft on the surface of the Moon, hopefully, and allow scientist on the ground to compute a precise location for the landing site for the touchdown part of the Lunar Module. We now show Apollo 16 at an altitude of 13.8 nautical miles [25.6 kilometres], continuing to drop down towards Pericynthion. And the preliminary tracking data, the flight dynamics officer reported, shows an orbit of 59 by 10.7 [nautical miles 109 by 19.8 kilometres]. We expect that that orbit will be refined somewhat as we get additional tracking that’s based on the first look of the tracking data, but is very close to the desired orbit of 58.5 by 10.3 nautical miles [108.3 by 19.1 kilometres].

    079 23 11 Hartsfield: 16, Omni Delta.

    079 26 17 Duke: Hank, out to the – my side, out Window 5, there was one crater here that you could see in one section of it, it looked like some outcrop two-thirds the way up the crater wall, and some big blocks had rolled down the – into the crater floor, and you could see the boulder tracks all the way down.

    079 26 37 Hartsfield: Roger; copy. Can you locate that one?

    079 26 42 Duke: Wait a minute. No, I’m pretty lost right now. Let me see if I can figure it out.

    079 27 11 Hartsfield: Ken, while you’re maneuvering there, we’d like to ask what value did you put in your EMS, and what did you get on your EMS check?

    079 28 28 Duke: Houston, 16. That crater I had, I think was in a series around Maclaurin, maybe a little bit further west than that.

    079 28 41 Hartsfield: Roger; copy.

    079 29 40 Duke: Hank, coming across the mare here, it reminds you of [garble] static system cals at Edwards.

    079 29 49 Hartsfield: Roger. You’re really down low, screaming across, huh?

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14. 

    jurvetson

    Jun 22, 2011 at 5:28 am

    and continued references to the giant Theophilus crater (which stuck out at me on the Apollo 14 simulator ring of maps
    

    by Mattingly in the CM just after Orion landed:

    101 42 32 Mattingly (CM comm): Yeah, I was noticing that. Everywhere I looked, I saw that. In the craters, in the highlands, in the – just the whole surface of the Moon is covered that way. I was about to decide it was an optical illusion, but the last time I came across Theophilus down low, it turned out that those lineations follow the depressions that touch the craters that are along the rim. Where – where there was a crater on the rim, you see these – these little lineations curve around it. They take the same pattern, like there is really a whole bunch of – of fractures there.

    101 43 14 Duke (LM comm): Yeah.

    101 43 19 Mattingly (CM comm): But you’re right. They’re everywhere. I haven’t seen any place, except there’s a couple of places around Descartes that looked to me like they didn’t have it.
    …
    104 52 13 Mattingly: What I did happen to notice as I came across Theophilus on one of those passes was that you see this in the walls of Theophilus – that’s on the interior – and in the places where there are craters around the outside or some kind of – looks like some fracture or something of that nature that goes across Theophilus or into it. You see what looks like a reflection in that these patterns – if you had a crater on the rim – these patterns would sorta show up like you would expect from a shock pattern. They would be radial and concentric to that crater. And these little lines seem to take that kind of a twist and then the fact that some of them go along with topographic highs. I’ll see if I can get some photos. I didn’t take any photos on this stuff because I didn’t have a chance, but I looked out and saw some of these things, and they’re just everywhere.

    104 53 50 Hartsfield: That sounds like a real interesting observation there, Ken.
    …
    120 10 10 Mattingly: Okay. Let me come back to that in just a second. I’m passing over Madler now; and, if you remember, we talked about that funny – bright ray pattern – how it seemed to have a funny shape that it – it took off in one direction and then it made a straight line in the other. Well, there’s a textural difference in the ground that’s underneath that bright material. It’s a – It looks like it’s – more like highlands – kind of overlay that’s on top of a regular mare material. And it does, in fact, go along those – that line of demarcation that we see, and it seems to overlay the – the mare-type, and it’s – it doesn’t go very far to the south and it doesn’t go very far to the west. It’s right along that line where you see it. And then there’s a little wrinkle – a little cluster of craters and ridges that goes along with the – line of – that goes between Madler and that bright-rayed crater with an excluded zone to the south of them – or that’s to the southeast. I just remembered that question, and – I wanted to pop that in. There’s also a crater directly south of Theophilus that has a – a dark halo around it, and maybe we’ll get a better look at it later. He’s about one crater diameter south of Theophilus, and it’s about the size of the little crater in the northern end of Theophilus. And when I say dark, it’s really just sort of a – of a little darker brown than the rest of the material. And it’s in the middle of an area that’s kind of wrinkled. Then there’s another little crater just to the north and east of that that has three – a cluster of three craters around his northern rim. And he, too, has a dark halo, and his dark halo is about one and a half crater diameters, and the larger one to the south is about one and a half crater diameters.
    …
    128 04 43 Mattingly: I’m looking at the – down at the central peak at Theophilus. And it has all of that same crosshatched appearance on the shadowed side that we saw on Silver Spur and Hadley.
    …
    147 23 19 Mattingly: Then – a striation that shows up that’s like all the rest of these lineaments we’ve been seeing all over the Moon. And I think I remember saying something as I passed Theophilus on one of our early revs right after we got here that it looked like these – these patterns that we see that are all over the surface – on the sides of every hill and every out – every vertical surface – they all seem to follow the contours of any local topography. If there’s a – like in Theophilus, I first noticed it here on the crater rim – There were some other little craters up along the side, and those little craters that were up along the side left impressions down inside the – on these – these striations that run around the – the rest of the – of the Moon, or the rest of the crater interior. And that happened everywhere you looked.

    147 25 50 Hartsfield: Could they be fractures or something like that?

    147 25 57 Mattingly: Well. That was what I was wondering: if these are shock reflections or something like that. And I guess that still is a reasonable hypothesis, except these things are all over the surface, everywhere you look – in places where you really wouldn’t expect to see shocks; but, you know, maybe they’re there after all.

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15. 

    jurvetson

    Jun 14, 2021 at 12:20 am

    and a beautiful view from the Apollo 16 LM looking at the CM that will take them home coming up over the horizon… looks like the maps

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