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Snowman Sighted
Sep. 3rd, 2009 07:53 pmWhen the first pictures of the Apollo landing sites from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter were released, Apollo 12's site was left out and I was left wondering when a picture of it might turn up (even as Apollo 14 got imaged again). As it happens, the sixth site has now been spotted, and everything's showing up quite well among the cluster of small craters dubbed "the Snowman" before the landing.
Years ago, I read articles on most of the Apollo landings in my grandmother's old issues of National Geographic, but there wasn't one on Apollo 12. (For all I know, the narrow escape of Apollo 13 refocused the magazine's attention on the missions.) Perhaps, therefore, I took a particular interest in the chapter about that landing in Andrew Chaikin's "A Man on the Moon" some years later, its travails with TV cameras burning out and self-timers disappearing and its triumph of landing near the Surveyor 3 probe. (I seem to recall, though, once reading an old book on moon landings in my town library that had a picture with a caption somewhat like "this is an Apollo 12 astronaut on the moon; the footprints in the foreground were left by Apollo 11"... either I'm misremembering it, or a rather odd interpretation somehow snuck in.)
Years ago, I read articles on most of the Apollo landings in my grandmother's old issues of National Geographic, but there wasn't one on Apollo 12. (For all I know, the narrow escape of Apollo 13 refocused the magazine's attention on the missions.) Perhaps, therefore, I took a particular interest in the chapter about that landing in Andrew Chaikin's "A Man on the Moon" some years later, its travails with TV cameras burning out and self-timers disappearing and its triumph of landing near the Surveyor 3 probe. (I seem to recall, though, once reading an old book on moon landings in my town library that had a picture with a caption somewhat like "this is an Apollo 12 astronaut on the moon; the footprints in the foreground were left by Apollo 11"... either I'm misremembering it, or a rather odd interpretation somehow snuck in.)