Exploring the Moon; the Apollo expeditions

Harland: Exploring the moon : the Apollo expeditions (1999, 2008)

(glossary entry)

A book without additional notes from the reader, is a dead book.
Danny Caes

Description

David M. Harland's Exploring the Moon: the Apollo expeditions is an interesting guide for those who want to know more about the six manned lunar landings and explorations of the lunar surface (by foot and by four-wheeled Lunar Roving Vehicle). Many surface photographs and assembled panoramic views were included in both editions of the book (1999, 2008). A must for the explorer of Apollo's lunar surface photography! - DannyCaes Jun 25, 2008
 
 

• Harland, David M. 1999. Exploring the moon: the Apollo expeditions. London: Springer.
• Harland, David M. 2008. Exploring the moon: the Apollo expeditions. Springer-Praxis books in space exploration. New York: Springer.

30 pages of color Hasselblad photographs

The 2008 edition contains a series of 30 color photographs at the central section of the book. It would have been handy if there was some sort of numbering system on these pages.
 
 

Al Shepard and Ed Mitchell without protection?

One could ask questions about the peculiar way both astronauts of Apollo 14 investigated the lunar rocks which they collected at Fra Mauro.
  Page 93 of David Harland's 2008 edition shows a photograph of both Shepard and Mitchell in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory, without protecting clothes! Wasn't there the risk of contamination? (earthly bacteria on the rocks).
  See also:
 ap14-71-H-338 (photograph printed in the 2008 edition, page 93).
 ap14-71-H-339
  (another photograph of Shepard's, Mitchell's, and Roosa's unprotected rock investigations is seen on page 147 in the National Geographic of July 1971; the Apollo 14 article The Climb Up Cone Crater, by Alice J. Hall).
 
 

Splendid overview of Rima Hadley and the region north of it, all the way up to Theaetetus

Page 113 of the 2008 edition shows a magnificent print of Fairchild-camera photograph AS15-M-1537 (a small version of this photograph is seen on page 168 of the 1999 edition). For us moon-observers page 113 is a handy tool during lunar observations at public observatories or backyard gatherings, to show the visitors the landing site of Apollo 15 and the locations of the individually nicknamed mountains surrounding Apollo 15's plain.
 - DannyCaes Jul 21, 2016
 
 

Looks like there was a recognizable symbol on the east-side of LM Falcon's Ascent Stage

It could be coincidence, or imagination... anyway, there was (or there could have been) a recognizable symbol on the back-side (the sunward east-side) of the Ascent Stage (the upper part) of Apollo 15's LM Falcon.
  Two small pieces of tape was all you need to start a wave of speculations. See page 158 in the 2008 edition. Was this perhaps an extra of Jim Irwin? (a personal touch?). Note: the Ascent Stage of Apollo 15's LM impacted on the moon shortly after stations-keeping and docking with CSM Endeavour, which means there's nothing left of it... (of that Ascent Stage).
  See the Flickr scan of the Color-Hasselblad of which a B-and-W version was printed on page 158:
 AS15-87-11839 (close up of the "back side" of LM Falcon).
 - DannyCaes Jul 17, 2016
 
 

Gnomon with pendulum

David Harland mentioned some sort of pendulum in the gnomon of Apollo 15 (this pendulum was something to use as an indicator of the local vertical at the photographed site), see photograph on page 120 of the 2008 edition. Was there also a pendulum in the gnomons of Apollo 12 and Apollo 14?
  The function of the gnomon's pendulum is very well seen in the TV-pictures of the astronaut activities, made by the camera on the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV).
  See the Flickr scan of the B-and-W Hasselblad on page 120:
 AS15-85-11417
 
 

Apollo 16's gnomon without pendulum

Somewhere around 146:12:25 GET into the mission of Apollo 16, at Station 6, the gnomon's pendulum broke off, of the gnomon's tripod. Photograph AS16-117-18825 (page 261 of the 2008 edition) shows the gnomon's tripod minus its pendulum in front of CDR John Young.
  See the Flickr scan of that wonderful color Hasselblad:
 AS16-117-18825
 
 

The forbidden rock under the Lunar Roving Vehicle

Page 133 of the 2008 edition shows Apollo 15's superb B-and-W Hasselblad of CDR David Scott seated on the Lunar Roving Vehicle (AS15-85-11471). Immediately in front of one of the LRV's rear wheels, one could see some sort of irregular white spot which is somewhat "n" shaped. This is a common lunar rock. Several well-known and less-known spaceflight books and magazines also included this photograph, without that rock. It was, say, removed from the photograph because it looked suspicious! (many thought, and still think, it's just a disturbing white spot that "shouldn't be there"...).
  See the Flickr scan of that B-and-W Hasselblad on page 133:
 AS15-85-11471
 - DannyCaes Jul 23, 2016
 
 

The photograph of J. B. Irwin on the moon

There's always something unexpected to discover...
  It's something which is not mentioned in both the 1999 and 2008 editions of David Harland's Exploring the Moon, but worthwile to mention it here.
  From Eric M. Jones's online APOLLO LUNAR SURFACE JOURNAL:
 

• In his book To Rule the Night, Jim Irwin wrote: "There were a number of things we left on the Moon purposely. I left some medallions, flat pieces of silver with the fingerprints of Mary and our children. And as a result of a letter that I got two months before launch, I also left a small portrait of J. B. Irwin. A young lady sent me a picture of her father, J. B. Irwin, saying that he had talked about his desire to go to the Moon all his life. He died a seventy-five, before the first manned landing. I thought it would be a gracious gesture to take J. B.'s picture and leave it on the Moon."
• Jim took five pictures, AS15-88-11867 to 11871, of what are undoubtedly the various items he left on the Moon. Frames 11870 and 11871 form a stereopair. On 15 July 2005, Mike Gentry and Susan Erskine at NASA Johnson provided high-resolution scans from original film of the two frames. The images are slightly out-of-focus and while preparing to make an anaglyph, Andy Chaikin applied the Photoshop Sharp Unmask function to the images and noticed that the object at the lower left, which Jim had turned over after taking 11869, is a black-and-white picture of "an elderly man, balding, with shirt and tie". This is undoubtedly J. B. Irwin.

See Andy Chaikin's Sharp Unmask version of J. B. Irwin's photograph in frame 11870.
See also the Flickr scan of Hasselblad frame AS15-88-11870
P.S.
I always thought there was only one photograph on the moon: the one from Charles Duke with his wife and two sons, at the landing site of Apollo 16.
- DannyCaes Jul 28, 2016

Color-corrected print of Hasselblad frame AS16-117-18852 (John Young by the Rover)

David Harland's Exploring the Moon (2008) is perhaps the only book which shows a color-corrected print of Apollo 16's AS16-117-18852. The original of this photograph shows a disturbing orange colored "glow" all over the black sky above CDR John Young, and also in the dark parts of Young's LEVA-suit. David Harland created a normal orange-less version for his book.
  See the Flickr scan of that photograph:
 AS17-117-18852
 
 

Strange phenomenon at Apollo 17's Station 9 (see Hasselblad frames AS17-143-21836/ 21837/ 21838)

I detected a peculiar "shift" at one of the rocks in Apollo 17's frame AS17-143-21837 (which was printed on page 337 of the 2008 edition). Compared with the online scans of that photograph, one of the rocks "below" CDR Gene Cernan seems to have two different locations! This "shift" is perhaps the result of the digital stitching of this frame with the following one to the right (frame 21838), by David Harland (his creation of a small PAN). I have to find a way to compare both the printed version of this stitched image with the original scanned Hasselblads by looking with one eye at the print and the other toward my laptop-screen.
  See the Flickr scans of the three Hasselblad frames from D.Harland's PAN:
 AS17-143-21836 (leftward section).
 AS17-143-21837 (central section).
 AS17-143-21838 (rightward section).
 - DannyCaes Jul 13, 2016
 
 

An additional note

The alphabetic indexes of both the 1999 and 2008 editions should be compared and investigated to detect certain topics not mentioned in the recent edition of 2008. On the other hand, certain topics of the 2008 edition seem to be absent in the 1999 edition.
  Anyway, it has always been my childhood's dream to have an Apollobook such as David Harland's Exploring the Moon! Thanks David!
 - DannyCaes Jul 10, 2016
 
 

Alphabetic list of people mentioned in the 1999 edition

Buzz Aldrin, Joe Allen, Bill Anders, Neil Armstrong, Al Bean, Floyd Bennett, Alan Binder, Chesley Bonestell, Frank Borman, Eugene Boudette, Gerry Carr, Mike Carr, Gene Cernan, Roger Chaffee, Ed Chao, Arthur Clarke, Mike Collins, Pete Conrad, Gordon Cooper, Charlie Duke, Farouk el-Baz, Dick Eggleton, Dwight Eisenhower, Don Elston, Tony England, Ron Evans, Bill Feldman, Ed Fendell, Gordon Fullerton, Yuri Gagarin, Galileo Galilei, Paul Gast, Ed Gibson, John Gilvarry, John Glenn, Alex Goetz, Tommy Gold, Dick Gordon, Jack Green, Gus Grissom, Robert Hackman, Fred Haise, Bill Hartmann, Jim Head, Johannes Hevelius, Keith Howard, Jim Irwin, Odette James, Lyndon Johnson, Eric Jones, John Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev, Gene Kranz, Gerard Kuiper, Marcus Langseth, Gary Latham, Alexei Leonov, Robert Lin, Jim Lovell, George Low, Hal Masursky, Ken Mattingly, Bruce McCandless, Jack McCauley, Jim McDivitt, George McGill, Dan Milton, Ed Mitchell, Patrick Moore, Bill Muehlberger, Richard Nixon, Verne Oberbeck, Tom Paine, Bob Parker, Rocco Petrone, Bill Quaide, Ronald Reagan, Stu Roosa, Gerry Schaber, Wally Schirra, Jack Schmitt, Rusty Schweickart, Dave Scott, Al Shepard, Gene Shoemaker, Lee Silver, Deke Slayton, Larry Soderblom, Paul Spudis, Tom Stafford, Gordon Swann, Jack Swigert, Anthony Turkevich, George Ulrich, Harold Urey, Fred Vine, Wernher von Braun, Alfred Wegener, Ed White, Don Wilhelms, John Wood, R.W. Wood, Al Worden, John Young.

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