To the Moon Art 🚀
51 years ago today, Apollo 14 came to a successful close. This is the Apollo 14 plate from the lunar module simulator (LMS) showing the landing target site for the mission. The LM simulator showed images of the moon in the windows generated by a camera flying over this detailed surface. It may be the only surviving plate from the Apollo program. Yes, this is how they faked the moon landing for 19 months before doing it.
From Lunar Legacies: “The plate is made of modeling paste over contoured fiberglass and contains an exact high-relief replica of the lunar surface at the Apollo 14 landing site, the surface over which the simulator camera panned over to simulate a lunar surface approach and landing. Using various lighting and filtering techniques, this plate was made to look like the actual landing site with the expected lighting conditions and view for the astronauts looking out the LM simulator windows. The plate shows the landmark craters Doublet and Triplet used by the Apollo 14 crew to determine their landing target. There are various small nicks and scuffs, mostly from the camera ramming the plate after a power blip in the LMS, and the plate weighs about 10-12 pounds. This plate was one of several used in the Simulator for training, and is very possibly the only one salvaged after the Apollo program.”
I wonder if the plaster simulator plates affected the astronaut’s expectations. Here’s what some said when first seeing the moon in 3D 🙂
• Apollo 10 Tom Stafford: “O shit John! It looks like a big plaster-of-paris cast.” and later “Shit, baby; we have arrived. It’s a big grey plaster-of-paris thing.”
• Apollo 11 Mike Collins: “Yes the moon is there, boy, in all of its splendor. It’s a plaster-of-paris grey to me.”
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