Welcome to our moon

Monday, July 20, 2009 - 11:58 in Astronomy & Space

Two geologists were charged with recreating the moon in Arizona using high explosives, and teaching geology to Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong. They were at mission control when the Eagle landed – monitoring Armstrong's heartbeat When Gerald Schaber and "Red" Bailey (his ginger hair now white) introduce me to the place they called home in the 60s, I feel bad I can't match their enthusiasm. We're standing at the edge of Cinder Lake, a massive volcanic field near Flagstaff, Arizona. The landscape is bleak and uninspiring. Black basalt stretches for miles. It was here the pair spent almost a decade after they found themselves at the heart of the Apollo 11 mission, employed by the US Geological Survey in Flagstaff. It was here they donned spacesuits one summer – Nasa even supplied the oxygen – and sweated so much they lost 10 pounds each. They...

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