Ewen Whitaker
Contents
Ewen Whitaker
(Lunar scientist)Lunar Work
A founding member of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, this British-born American scientist was one of the leading experts on lunar nomenclature. Formerly Director of the Lunar Section of the BAA and 1982 recipient of its Walter Goodacre Medal. He was best known for his popular 1999 history on lunar mapping, and he personally assigned all the current IAU-approved letter designations for farside craters.
Where & When
See Wikipedia entry.
Personal Information
Photo
from Whitaker, 1985 p. 24 (see also p.26)
Video
Apollo Program Veterans Revisit Moon Landing -- Whitaker is second of three interviewees
Ewen Whitaker and Surveyor 3
Thanks to Ewen Whitaker, astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean (Apollo 12) landed their Lunar Module Intrepid very near the landingsite of Surveyor 3 at the Surveyor crater which was part of the Snowman (a cluster of small craters more-or-less snowman shaped). Ewen Whitaker discovered the pinpoint spot of Surveyor 3 on Lunar Orbiter photographs. See also the page Apollo 12 Site.
Birth & Death
22 June 1922 - 11 October 2016 (aged 94).
Education
Current Contact Information/Websites
Retired. Lives in Tuscon, Arizona.
Publications
- Coauthor: Photographic Lunar Atlas (1960)
- Coauthor: Orthographic Atlas of the Moon (1960)
- Coauthor: Rectified Lunar Atlas (1963)
- Coauthor: Consolidated Lunar Atlas (1967)
- Coauthor: Atlas and Gazetteer of the Near Side of the Moon (1971)
- Coauthor: NASA Catalogue of Lunar Nomenclature (1982)
- Author: The University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory: Its founding and early years (1985, contains considerable biographical information)
- Author: Mapping and Naming the Moon (1999)
Additional Information
- Wikipedia entry
- Ewen's list of Invalid Names on NASA charts
- Photographs of Ewen Whitaker and other lunar scientists in NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, February 1969, Pages 212 and 213 (- Moon men -).
