Mark Helper,left, receives a Haughton-Mars Project patch from Pascal Lee.

Video of Mark Helper at Haughton-Mars Project

Mark Helper, a geologist at The University of Texas as Austin’s Department of Geological Sciences, recently returned from summer field work at Haughton Crater where he and his colleagues simulated a moon mission. It’s just one small part of NASA’s plan, dubbed Constellation, to return humans to the moon and eventually to Mars.

It’s been 37 years since humans last set foot on the moon. Back then, astronauts typically spent three days on the lunar surface. This time around, the plans call for people to spend several months. The extra time will allow them to carry out much more sophisticated geological research and gain experience in extended stays in space that will be invaluable for multi-year missions to Mars.

The Department of Geological Sciences has a long history of helping train astronauts for space missions. Bill Muehlberger, now an emeritus professor, trained astronauts for Apollo 15, 16 and 17. He took them on geological field trips to sites around the Western U.S. including impact craters and volcanic areas. Later, he and Pat Dickerson, a research fellow in the Department, helped train shuttle astronauts in how to interpret geological features seen from low Earth orbit.

Michael Collins, Texas archeologist

In July of that year, he was on a dig at the Tabun Cave in Israel, south of Haifa. Humans had lived at the site off and on for hundreds of thousands of years.

The director of the dig had a thing against radios and didn’t allow them at the site. He relented on July 21, however, to allow the archeologists to listen to the broadcast of Apollo 11 landing on the moon.

Collins was excavating a crudely made ax with one edge chipped off for cutting as Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon’s surface and said, “A small step for a man, a giant leap for mankind.”

It struck him, Collins said, that here in his hands and on the radio was nearly the full spectrum of human technology—an elementary stone tool to a man walking on the moon.

“It’s amazing to me that so much happened in so short a time,” Collins said.

***

Same name, different place

If the name Michael Collins seems familiar in the context of Apollo 11, it should. He was the astronaut who orbited the moon while Armstrong and Aldrin walked on it.

Michael Collins, the archeologist, tells this story:

The Aug. 11, 1969 cover of Newsweek

Apollo 11 was all over the news. One of the mechanics, who was sitting behind Collins, was reading the international edition of Newsweek, which, Collins said, was filled cover-to-cover with stories and photos about the moon mission.

Tapping Collins on the shoulder, the mechanic said, “Excuse me, sir. Have you been on any long trips lately?”

Learn about Collins’s archeological research at Can You Dig It? Archeologist works to overturn long-held theory of when people first came to the Americas.

The moon is covered with a layer of dust. NASA scientists and engineers knew that much.

But there was a hot debate about the depth of the dust.

The thin dusters thought there was a thin layer of dust that would not interfere with the landing of the Apollo lunar landing module. The thick dusters thought the dust was so deep that the lander might sink out of sight.

Not wanting to risk that humankind’s grand achievement of a lunar landing would turn into a disappearing act, NASA did what it had to do: It convened a conference of experts.

One of the experts invited was Glen Evans, a geologist from Texas. His credential what that he had done extensive analysis of the meteor crater near Odessa.

Evans was also an archeologist and a naturalist. He had worked for the Bureau of Economic Geology and had been associate director of the Texas Memorial Museum, both part of The University of Texas at Austin.

While he had a lot of experience in geology, his greatest skill was his keen sense of observation, according to Dr. Michael Collins, a researcher at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory.

Collins has known Evans since Collins was 14 years old. He tells what happened when Evans went to Washington for the NASA conference.

As the conference wore on the thin dusters could not persuade the thick dusters nor could the thick dusters persuade the thin dusters. They were stuck in the mud.

Finally, after all the experts had their say with charts and graphs and slides and such, the floor was opened for questions.

Evans, who had not been invited to make a formal presentation, got up. He asked to see a photo of a moon crater shown by an expert.

When the slide came up on the screen, Evans described what he saw.

The crater had a classic upfold lip, created when a meteor struck the surface. He noted that a piece of bedrock as big as a boxcar had broken off and rolled into the crater.

From the photo, you could see where the rock broke from the crater, the track of its roll and where it landed. The rock was almost completely visible.

Apparently, there was a collective “aha” throughout the room.

With Evans’s insight, NASA could proceed to build a lunar lander that would land on a stable surface.

Collins said he heard the story third hand. He heard it from Gene Mears, a colleague of Evans. Mears had heard it from Eugene Shoemaker, the noted astrogeologist, who was at the meeting.

He never heard it from Evans, Collins said. He said Evans is not the kind of man who tells a story like that about himself.

Evans did acknowledge the story, however. Collins wrote the introduction for a book Evans wrote, “Wildness at Risk,” and included the moon story in the introduction. Collins read the introduction to Evans, who said that nothing had to be changed.

Peter Shelus was visiting The University of Texas at Austin campus in 1971, attending an astronomy conference. More important, he was looking for a job.

He was completing a post-doc assignment at the Manned Space Center (now Johnson Space Center) in Houston and job prospects weren’t great. NASA was laying off scientists and engineers as the basic Apollo program wound down.

It was a Friday afternoon and Shelus waited for the elevator in the Castilian apartment building. But before the doors opened, Darrell Mulholland from the university approached Shelus and said, “I hear you’re looking for a job.”

Besides a slow elevator, Shelus can also thank Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin for the job he’s had for 38 years.

The retroreflector placed on the moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts.

Shelus’s job was to process the information coming from the new Lunar Laser Ranging Station at McDonald Observatory, the source of the laser beam.

Since then, four other retroreflectors have been placed on the Moon. Two by other Apollo missions 14 and 15 and two French-made mirrors carried to the surface by Soviet Union soft landers.

Now, in a matter of bittersweet timing, The University of Texas at Austin’s role in the lunar laser ranging project is ending as the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 is marked.

The National Science Foundation (NSF), which provided support for the project when NASA dropped it more than 15 years ago, has notified Shelus that the $135,000 for the McDonald Laser Ranging System (MLRS) won’t be renewed.

“We’re essentially going out of business by probably the end of the calendar year,” Shelus said.

He understands the NSF decision—for the most part.

“We know what the lunar science is, we know the MRLS is on its last legs,” he acknowledged. The system is 20 years old and has had few upgrades.

What’s more, a brand new station is coming online in New Mexico and a French installation will re-open after shutting down for refurbishing.

Still, Shelus would like to keep his project going for another two years to collect data that overlap across the three laser stations.

“I’ve been here since 1971 so I’ve been here almost the entire 40 years. It’s been a fantastic ride,” he said. “We’ve put good data on the table, we’ve kept the experiment going and there are no regrets.”

The precise measurements of the moons orbit enabled a range of science projects.

One of the biggest science accomplishments was to test the Equivalence Principal, one of the fundamental concepts in which Albert Einstein built the General Theory of Relativity.

Among specific findings, according to NASA, the laser ranging project showed that:

• the moon is spiraling away from Earth at a rate of 3.8 centimeters a year because of the Earth’s ocean tides.

• the moon probably has a liquid core.

• the universal force of gravity is very stable. Newton’s gravitational constant G has changed less than one part in 100-billion since the laser experiments began.

Just because the Moon will no longer be a target, it doesn’t mean that the Laser Ranging Station is shutting down. Shelus and Jerry Wiant, the project’s engineer, and Randy Ricklefs, the software expert, still have work to do. Ken Harned and Anthony Garcia are observers on the laser.

The station is part of a worldwide network of lasers that bounce laser beams off satellites. What’s more, it will be involved with the two moon missions, LCROSS and LRO, launched by NASA in June.

My wife and I topped off a trip to Big Bend National Park by attending a Star Party at the observatory on Nov. 8. We had a quick dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Fort Davis and drove the 17 winding miles to the observatory. We knew we were getting close when we saw two white telescope domes basking in the moonlight.

We were two of the about 230 visitors at the party that night, an unusually high number for that time of year.

The party begins with the group gathered in the dark in the outdoor amphitheater near the visitors center. The temperature was in the 40s, but if you dress appropriately (it’s about the layers), you’ll be OK.

Frank Cianciolo, senior program coordinator at the Bash Visitors Center at the observatory, started things off with a talk that touched on several celestial subjects and pointed out several heavenly bodies.

He told the story of Perseus and Andromeda and how the ancient Greeks might have employed those constellations and others to depict that tale and others that make up so much of Greek mythology.

He also pointed out the things we would look at through telescopes arrayed outside the visitors center.

They were the Moon, Jupiter, the Ring Nebula (Messier 57), the Perseus Double Cluster (NGC 869 and NGC 884) and the Pegasus Cluster (Messier 15).

The Pegasus cluster was the farthest at 33,600 light years away. That means the light that we saw left the cluster 33,600 years and six days ago (as of this posting).

Why were those chosen?

“We tend to pick those objects that are reasonably large or large enough to show some detail through the telescope,” Cianciolo said. “We also pick objects that most folks will have a reasonable chance of being able to see.”

The staff did a great job of explaining what we were looking at, how far away it was and other questions that might have strained the composure of less patient people.

The longest and slowest line was the one for viewing the moon. That people would linger longer looking at the lunar surface was completely understandable once I got my eye on it. The Moon’s features could be seen in great detail.

“With constantly changing patterns of light, the Moon is an infinitely fascinating subject,” Cianciolo said.

The observatory has offered public viewings since University of Chicago astronomers went to the Fort Davis area to scope out the best peaks for astronomy. The Star Party is one of the observatory’s many outreach efforts.

It helps that astronomy is a somewhat accessible science: All you have to do is look up.

And a Star Party at McDonald Observatory, away from the big city lights, is a great place to do it.