Where's Snoopy?

"Snoopy" then lunar module from the Apollo 10 mission has not been seen for over 40 years. A dress rehearsal for a Moon landing brought astronauts Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan within 8.4 nautical miles (15.6 km) from the lunar surface. After returning it's crew back to "Charlie Brown", the Apollo 10 Command Module, the ascent stage of "Snoopy" was launched into heliocentric orbit making it the sole intact lunar module ascent stage remaining out of the Lunar Modules sent into space. The Apollo 5, 9 and 13 LM ascent stages burned up in Earth's atmosphere, the Apollo 11,12,14,15, 16 and 16 LM ascent stages crashed onto the Moon.

Maybe some day, Snoopy will be found again. It's orbit around they Sun occasionally brings it back into the vicinity of the Earth-Moon system (perhaps every 11-12 years), but it will be very difficult to spot. At least one of the much larger Saturn S-IVb third stages from the Apollo Lunar missions may have paid us a visit in 2002 (Apollo 12 - J002E3).

Looking for A.L.I.C.E.

During Apollo 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17, the Saturn S-IVB stages of these five missions impacted on the moon, to create artificial "moonquakes" which were measured by equipment left on the Moon in earlier missions.

Illustration from Popular Science (March, 1970)

Now that the LRO has returned images of the Apollo Lunar landing sites, I'm interested in seeing some detailed images of the S-IVb impact sites. Depending on a number of variables, I would estimate that the craters are probably 30-50 meters wide and 8 meters deep with a debris field many times larger. While researching this post, I did in fact learn that a few of the impact sites have been photographed before. For example, this image of the Apollo 14 S-IVb impact site was taken during the Apollo 16 mission:

I have not found a name for these experiments, so I have come up with my own: Apollo Lunar Impact Crater Experiment (ALICE). Also named in honor of Alice Kramden from The Honeymooners.

Bang, zoom - to the moon, Alice! to the moon!

Gulf OIl's Cardboard Lunar Lander

Gulf Oil stations gave these away as a promotional item. As Apollo 11 approached the Moon, many kids and their parents were attempting to assemble the darn things. I wasn't easy - there were a lot of parts to punch out, folded and tabs to be inserted into slots. I think it took me hours to assemble. But when it was done, it was beautiful.

I can't remember what happened to it, but a few years ago I picked up an original on ebay. I decided to keep it in it's unassembled form, but the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 inspired me to search out a replica.

Via Google's Lunar X Prize, you can download a printable Lunar Lander model!

40 Years

Civilization is a race between education and catastrophe. —H. G. WELLS