SOME MYSTERIES SOLVED, SOME QUESTIONS RAISED

EVEN before the Apollo 11 astronauts were flown to Houston, a cargo nearly as precious was rushed to the Manned Spacecraft Center. Transported separately so that the whole shipment could not be lost in a single accident, two boxes containing some 60 lbs. of lunar soil and rocks were flown off the U.S.S. Hornet in two helicopters and taken to Johnston Island. From there, they were airlifted aboard two planes directly to Houston, then trucked to the Lunar Receiving Lab (LRL). The space agency gave the rocks such VIP treatment that NASA Administrator Thomas Paine, Robert Gilruth, director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, and Apollo Spacecraft Manager George Low were all on hand to welcome them.

At week's end, the first box was opened by a technician working with surgical care as his gloved hands reached into a sealed vacuum chamber, where the lunar package had been placed. While four NASA geologists looked on, he slowly drew off any gases that might have been given off by the rocks, opened the box, then removed a piece of foil that had been used to trap solar particles and two lunar core samples. Finally, he opened the plastic bag containing the rocks themselves. The scientific observers said that the 15 or so rocks --the largest was 7 in. long, 5 in. wide and 1 1/2 in. thick--seemed to be covered by a fine, graphite-like powder. Their color was gray, tinged with a touch of cocoa. "This is the beginning of the study of lunar rocks on earth," said Robin Brett, one of the geologists. "To all scientists this is a very, very exciting time."

Such a cursory examination, of course, could not answer fundamental questions about the age, origin and composition of the moon. Those problems would have to wait for the painstaking studies that will be conducted at the LRL and by 142 "principal investigators" in the U.S. and abroad.

Long before the rocks arrived, scientists started to debate the scientific results of the lunar voyage. M.I.T. Geophysicist Frank Press wagered a case of champagne on his conviction that the moon actually has quakes. Certain that the moon specimens will show some evidence that there was once water on the moon, Dr. Persa Bell, director of NASA's Lunar Receiving Lab, bet a skeptical colleague a bottle of Scotch.

Moonquakes and Meteors

The dispute over moonquakes began when the seismometer left behind by the astronauts suddenly began acting up. The squiggly lines transmitted from the moon, Press concluded, resembled the tracing of the surface waves of a moderate-sized quake on earth. Other geologists, including U.C.L.A.'s George Kennedy, who took up Press's champagne challenge, had different ideas. The shock, they said, might have been caused by a meteorite. Another possible cause: the moon's natural "groaning" under the tug of the earth's gravity.

Behind the argument is an important issue. A quake would suggest that the moon, like the earth, has a molten interior and earthlike stratifications. These common characteristics, moreover, would strongly suggest that the earth and the moon have similar evolutionary histories. Apollo's seismometer may not have much more time to supply answers. Near week's end, as the two-week lunar day approached its hottest point (240DEG F.) the small instrument package seemed to be heating up and verging on a breakdown.

A second Apollo experiment also ran into difficulty. Astronomers at the McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis, Texas, the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, Calif., and the Haleakala Observatory on Maui, Hawaii, were unable to locate the lunar reflector, an arrangement of 100 prisms that they hoped would reflect laser beams from earth. The beams were to be used as a precision measuring tool that would yield, among other things, the exact distance between earth and moon, proof of whether there is really any drift between continents and accurate figures on the earth's wobble. The major reason for the trouble was apparently that earth monitors were not immediately able to plot the site of Tranquillity Base accurately enough for the laser beams to hit their lunar mark.

Despite such minor hitches, scientists were in unanimous agreement on the value of the expedition. The landing site, especially, pleased geologists. "It is a very much rockier surface than we might have expected," said NASA Geology Consultant Eugene Shoemaker, who thinks that it afforded a far wider sampling of the lunar surface than would have been found at a smoother landing site. Boulders ejected from craters as far away as 600 miles might well be in the area, he added. Another unexpected dividend, said NASA Geologist Ted Foss, was that many of the rocks may have come from the large crater over which Neil Armstrong flew Eagle just before it touched down. "The crater is probably 50 feet deep or so, and that's just like having samples from a hole that deep," said Foss. "The scientific return will be double or triple because of this."

The NASA geologists gave high grades to both Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin for their descriptions of the lunar rocks, many of which seemed to be basaltic, or of volcanic origin. Though Aldrin originally used the word wet to describe the lunar soil that he extracted with a core sampler, it was later explained that he had meant simply that the material tended to cling together because of the lunar vacuum.

The moon walk itself raised almost as many questions as it answered. "They had more mobility and they were able to move faster with greater ease than some of us expected," said Gilruth. "They only used about half to a third of the oxygen and water that we might have expected them to use." But why did Aldrin have so much trouble penetrating the lunar surface beyond a few inches with his core sampler? Why was he able to plant the stand for the solar wind experiment only a few feet away with such ease? Why did the blast from the LM's engine fail to carve out even a small crater?

Fears Dispelled

Beyond those problems, there are many others that have been troubling scientists ever since they began pondering the moon. Michigan Astrophysicist Ralph Baldwin, whose The Face of the Moon was used as a training text by the astronauts, thinks that their descriptions indicate that the Sea of Tranquillity and other maria, or seas, may have been formed as recently as 300 million years ago. The rocks may hold the secret. More important, some of the rocks should indicate whether the moon itself is only a few hundred million years old or, like the earth, 4.5 billion years old. "There will be a definite answer," says Astronomer Gerard Kuiper of the University of Arizona, since the collection includes not only surface samples but also "rocks obviously thrown to the surface from greater depths by the impact of meteorites."

One problem has already been resolved. Given the proper life-support equipment, man can live and work on the moon. The experience of the astronauts seems to rebut the argument of such astronomers as Cornell's Tom Gold that earth visitors would sink deep into thick lunar dust, or would be coated by clinging layers of dust. It also dispels the fears of scientific Cassandras that men would not be able to withstand the bombardment of meteorites and cosmic rays. Dangers, to be sure, will be faced in future explorations of the moon. Yet NASA officials are so pleased by the lunar perambulations of Armstrong and Aldrin that they are already thinking of doubling the distance and duration of future moon walks.

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