Defending spaceflight – The echoes of Apollo

Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight (Chapter 1)

The Bidirectional Reflectance of Apollo

Introduction: Accurate models of the lunar thermal and illumination environment require a realistic treatment of scattered radiation at high incidence and emission angles. It has long been appreciated that the bidirectional reflectance of lunar soil is anisotropic [1], yet most lunar thermal models still assume that scattered radiation is isotropic. We recently measured the bidirectional reflec...

The scientific legacy of Apollo

This December marks 40 years since Gene Cernan and Harrison “Jack” Schmitt of Apollo 17 left the lunar surface and returned safely to Earth. This anniversary has been given additional poignancy by the death earlier this year of Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the Moon with Apollo 11 in July 1969. The history of the Apollo project, and its geopolitical motivation within the context ...

Echoes of the Month

The Paris Morgue is no more. It is to be replaced by an entirely new type of institution. The original Morgue, which overhangs the riverside close by Notre Dame, was founded in 1864. It was devoted to the reception of the bodies of those to whom death had come by other than natural means, and the bodies of people who had met with violent ends were in manjr cases preserved there for many years u...

Echoes of the Month

A joint Board of Research for mental disease was recently formed in connection with the city and the University of Birmingham. The chairman is Sir Gilbert Barling, Bart. (Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham), and the hon. director, Sir Frederick W. Mott. The co-operation of mental hospital authorities in the Midlands is sought, and a circular has been issued explaining the scheme. T...