CRATERS OF THE MOON: The volcanic lava beds of Southern Idaho are a desolate stretch of some 63 extinct or dormant volcanoes, craters and cinder cones with an eerie semblance to a moonscape. It was here, on August 22 1969, that Apollo 14 astronauts Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, Joe Engle, and Eugene Cernan arrived to learn the basics of volcanic geology in preparation for trips to the moon. This autographed photo evokes the cool star power of pioneers from another era.
We leave now as we once came,
with peace and with hope for all mankind.
EUGENE CERNAN
the last words spoken on the moon at the end of the Apollo 17 mission
Read more here: http://www.nps.gov/crmo/historyculture/astronauts.htm
Many thanks to Gnotic Pasta who gave me the link and is a fantastic source on all things Idaho (other than potato farms).
madame scientist's not-so-mad musings 
Fantastic post Rajini Rao I love it …thank you 🙂
You are welcome, Kershaw Rustomji . What a photograph! How cool is this stuff 🙂
NB: This is
NOTwhere they faked the landing on the moon!I love stuff like this ..
Lol!so cool
Thanks for sharing this. I have been to Craters of the Moon, it is well worth a visit and is not a bad drive from Boise, Idaho Falls, or Pocatello.
Rock Stars of their day !!
Michael Dotres , exactly my thought, especially the two in the center! We need more rock star scientists and science pioneers like them today.
Times do change, remember when pilots were treated like celebrities?
The photo drew me in, the quote will shape my day. 🙂
Then this post has accomplished its mission, Jeff Jockisch 🙂
I can’t decide whether this pic is cooler or the pics of the various Solvay conferences, but I do know that I want to photoshop my image into all of them and hang framed copies around the house.
If you photoshopped yourself onto Gene Cernan (center), Thomas Kang , I would ask for an autographed copy for my wall 🙂
Gnotic Pasta gave me the link in a comment on yesterday’s post. His desert pictures are from somewhere here. He mentioned Bruneau Sand Dunes.
Yellowstone is one park that I did visit, Gnotic Pasta . Loved the geysers and hot springs, saw moose and bison. It was ravaged by fires though, so all that burnt forest was disturbing (even if they are supposed to be regenerating). We then went south to the Grand Tetons where we almost saw a black bear 😛
On the science nugget: which city was first powered by nuclear energy? Was it also a first for a nuclear generator?
It’s too bad that #neildegrassetyson is only a rock star among us geeks. I hope he becomes a rock star like the astronauts of yesteryear.
Hey, Gnotic Pasta did you know the first self-sustained nuclear chain reaction was conducted down the street from me? I’ll post a picture of the site sometime, with my dog of course.
On our long honeymoon in 1989, we sped in our car through Yellowstone in the dead of night, one year after the big fire, all the scraggy outlines were lit by moonlight. Well, I was actually asleep, but was woken up by my husband because he knew I wanted to see the Park. I think I said something like, wtf, yes, but not in the dark, and went back to sleep.
Gnotic Pasta I’ll take a pic of the sculpture and placard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile-1
Michelle Beissel , what a charming honeymoon story 🙂 I’m guessing your new husband had other sights in mind, but oh well 🙂
Michelle Beissel give him credit. He was only following instructions. You didn’t specify the being awake part. :~)
“Come glow in the dark in Arco Idaho!”
Well he was a man on a mission, Rajini Rao, but sadly not that one–he was totally focused on getting us from the East Coast to the West Coast as fast as possible.
LOL! Michelle Beissel ..too bad there was no concordance on the mission.
Their is doubt on moon mission of NASA , they still not disclosing original
ROFL! Michelle Beissel
Cannonball Run Outtakes
What original is it that you seek, Vinod Pandey ? Some moon rock that you will analyze in your laboratory? Or a secret handshake from Neil Armstrong? I love conspiracy theories 🙂
Roger that Rajini Rao and Gnotic Pasta
It is posts like this one Rajini Rao that keep me on google + way to long….thank you again.
Are you people still living in the 60s? Everyone knows the moon landing was faked by Kubrick! Just check out; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0344160/
(seriously everyone, check it out, awesome documentary that made a huge impact on me and it will open your eyes on a variety of topics)
Ah man, you are spoiling it! ;p
One of its main points is the power of media and famous figures and how they can sway public opinion, how easy it is for people in power to distort the truth.
Don’t worry Koen De Paus most people ignore me and my comments. No need for a spoiler alert.
Koen De Paus is it because in the picture of neil armstrong the flag was fluttering that’s why ppl say that the picture is fake as there is no atmosphere on moon or there is some thing more in the documentary…something more substantial???
http://www.theonion.com/articles/conspiracy-theorist-convinces-neil-armstrong-moon,2796/
No it’s because Stanley Kubrick admits to having faked it. Henry Kissinger, Buzz Aldrin, Donald Rumsfeld and many others admit on camera during live interviews that the whole thing was set up to win the cold war and to make the world look at America as the leading nation.
The power of images… Just watch the docu, you’ll understand 😉
Indeed I’ll watch this one…
Perhaps it’s because space is so vast that it’s… discouraging. 🙂
It’s hard to quantify the evolution of space exploration but still… We have been doing some really amazing things since those faked moonlandings! 😉 They are just not that high profile and many people stopped caring. Something might change that though… 86 days till curiosity’s touchdown and HD footage of Mars! 😀
Ion Engines, laser propelled solar sails, we have the technology! But lost our sense of adventure 🙂 Fusion engines and even anti matter engines are physically possible so one day we’ll conquer deep space… We have to! Whether we ll send out biofactories that can produce humans on site, use cryonic freezers to ship us over there, send smart robots or become robots, only time will tell, but if we do nothing, our story will end together with that of our sun which is kinda sad considering the universe would still have MUCH more time on its clock.
To be honest I would be surprised if we have that much. Conservative estimates point to the sun becoming 10% more luminous and thus creating hell on earth in as little as a billion years which is nothing on the timescale of the universe, especially if you consider that life has been around for 4.5 billions which would mean that these are our final hours.
very true; on a related note > http://twitter.com/#!/neiltyson/status/200741615365660673
The man has a point! Then again, there seems to be nothing we can do, apart from landing an actual meatbag, that would make the news. 😦
Dunno if it’s this bad everywhere but in Belgium science almost never makes the news. Nobody here knows about curiosity, nobody knows about planetary resources, nobody knows about the dwindling budgets and next gen space telescopes like the JWST being in danger because of it. Nor do we get any other science news for that matter 😦 We get 10 minute long main items about footballers throwing a party after their victory in first class…
I don’t want to live on this planet anymore
😉
Koen De Paus I just saw the reviews of Dark Side of the Moon, and now I really want to see it. One of my colleagues from a few years back sent me a link to the original blog post that this Discovery article is based on, but it now links to a video for sale:
http://news.discovery.com/space/faked-moon-landings-and-kubricks-the-shining.html
I wish the article were still available online; it was a strangely compelling read, and we had lots of fun talking about it.
Gnotic Pasta It took me a while to figure out what you meant by NdgT. At first, I thought there was a science popularizer that used a stage name, like Ice-T or 2Pac.
It doesn’t take much of a stretch of imagination to guess just how incorrigible the group is.
You can always tell the culprits; they’re always acting too casual, but with shifty eyes.
It turns out that my dad was the guy who took the photo of these guys when he was a young intern right out of college:
http://goo.gl/66365
How cool can a group of guys be? Want to go back and read The Right Stuff again. Thanks for a great reminder of that incredible time.