Professor Thomas Gold, about a year before the moon landing, tests moon lander imprints with the foot of the Surveyor unmanned moon lander. Sol Goldberg/Cornell University
On July 20, 1969, at 4:17 p.m. EDT, humans made their first landing on the moon. And at 10:56 that evening, Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the lunar surface. In all that has happened since Apollo 11, it's easy to forget that Cornell researchers played some critical roles in that event just three decades ago this week.
One of the commanding lunar researchers of the era was Thomas Gold, now professor emeritus of astronomy, who was then a Cornell assistant vice president for research and director of the Center for Radiophysics and Space Research. Looking back, Gold recalls that although the moon landing was indeed a momentous event, only "a little of scientific value came out of it, and not as much as had been expected."
Gold played a role in two important aspects of Apollo 11: the design of the stereo camera carried on the lunar surface by the astronauts and the analysis of the moon dust they brought back with them. The camera, intended to record detailed, stereoscopic pictures of the lunar soil, consisted of a cylinder affixed to the end of a walking stick, with the shutter lever in the handle. Unfortunately, Gold recalls, the astronauts were so busy with the mechanics of their mission that they brought back only eight stereo pictures, some of which are now in the lobby of Cornell's Space Sciences Building.
Eastman Kodak made only a few of the cameras to Gold's design for NASA, most of which were left behind on the moon. There is still a model of the camera in the Spacecraft and Planetary Imaging Facility library in the Space Sciences Building.
The precious sample of lunar soil brought back to Earth by the Apollo 11 astronauts was dealt out in minuscule amounts to 110 scientists in the United States and abroad, Gold among them.
With the assistance of chemist Elizabeth Bilson (now administrator of the Cornell Department of Astronomy), assistant professor of astronomy Brian O'Leary, research associate Malcolm Campbell and graduate student Frank Briggs, Gold spent several months analyzing the sample. His team built a complicated apparatus to measure the soil's electrical properties and devised methods for measuring frequencies, attenuation and even particle size.
They also concluded that the powdery soil on the lunar surface is so dark because of a very thin coating of metal on each individual grain, caused by the penetration of the solar wind.
It was a certain justice for Gold to receive a sample of the moon dust because as early as 1955 he had suggested that the moon's surface was covered with a fine rock powder, a view opposed by many of his science colleagues until Apollo 11.
Reflecting on the era today, Gold feels that ultimately his experiments were secondary to the politics of the mission. "NASA had to pretend this was for scientific purposes, but really it was a maneuver to show the world we were not behind in rocketry."
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