#Apollo8: The Longest Journey (The APOLLO Missions to the Moon Book 1) by Gibson Philip

Author:Gibson, Philip [Gibson, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-06-01T16:00:00+00:00

Robert Jastrow was a leading NASA scientist, astronomer, physicist and author. He became the first chairman of NASA’s Lunar Exploration Committee and was responsible for establishing the scientific goals for the exploration of the Moon throughout the Apollo program and lunar landings. He became the founding director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in 1961 and served until retirement from NASA in 1981. After leaving NASA, he became Professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth College.

Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute

It happens that the first billion years of the Earth’s history has been completely erased by the erosion of water, weather and the biological activity of the life that has since developed.

Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute

Information about that missing billion years is the critical billion years in which life appeared on Earth according to the fossil record. We have now, for the first time, a good chance of finding out something about the early Earth by studying the surface of the Moon.

Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

Is Dr. Jastrow suggesting that we might find some life in its early form on or under the surface of the Moon? Wouldn’t that be something?!

Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute

We may find the physical and chemical conditions that existed on the early Earth around the time that life here first appeared. It’s not likely that life exists or existed on the Moon because it’s a very dry place .

Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute

However, the possibility of life on the Moon cannot be completely discounted; there may be sub-surface water of some form. There may have been water when the Moon was young – enough for the chemical evolution of life to have gotten a start.

Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute

The point is – we will find something about that missing billion years in the Earth’s history. In order to do that, however, we have to unravel a record of the Moon’s past which the orbital photographs have shown to be quite complicated.

Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute

There is an overlay of meteorite impacts and some volcanic activity perhaps. That is why we would like to know what the Moon’s formation and early history entailed.

Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

So we pose the overriding, generalized question to Dr. Jastrow to get his frank opinion of whether or not this mission will advance the scientific knowledge which the scientific community hopes to gain from this ambitious program.

Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute

Indirectly, this mission will contribute a great deal because it is a major step on the route to a lunar landing. The lunar landing will have the big scientific payoff, namely the return of samples of lunar rocks to the Earth for laboratory studies and for dating .

Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute

We may find pieces of rock on the Moon whose age turns out, when dated on the Earth, to be four or four-and-a-half billion-years old. That would make them older than any rocks we have ever found on the Earth.

Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute

We may even find, within those rocks, organic molecules which we recognize as the precursors of living molecules under a more favorable environment like ours.

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