Apollo 11 anniversary: How northern Arizona helped put men on the moon

On July 20, 1969, Ivo Lucchitta was part of a group of scientists watching the Apollo 11 astronauts' first steps on the moon from a room at the U.S. Geological Survey building in Flagstaff. They had tears in their eyes.

"We were a bunch of grown men, but we were all crying," said Lucchitta, now 82. "The emotion was so immense. All that work. All that danger. All those difficulties and it had worked. Those guys were on the moon and they were walking on it."

Lucchitta, a geologist, and the other scientists were acutely aware of what had been required to achieve that historic accomplishment. They were directly involved in training those astronauts to step onto another world.

More than 400,000 people were part of the effort to put men on the moon. Today, many space buffs focus on the hubs of activity at the NASA Mission Control Center in Houston and the rocket launch sites in Florida.

Fewer people realize northern Arizona's importance in the space program.

Why Flagstaff was a stand-in for the moon

Northern Arizona had a key combination of scientific expertise and rugged terrain needed to help prepare astronauts for what was ahead.

Astronomers used telescopes at Lowell Observatory, the U.S. Naval Observatory and Northern Arizona University to help map the surface of the moon.

From 1963 to 1972, geologists such as Lucchitta helped prepare the Apollo astronauts for scientific activities they would perform on the lunar surface. The rocky terrain of Meteor and Sunset craters were earthly substitutes for what the astronauts could expect in space.

They learned about geology and tested prototypes of tools, vehicles and even space suits here.

So what made northern Arizona such a good fit for the fledgling space program?

Lucchitta said that telescopic study of the moon revealed thousands of craters on its surface, but no one could be certain how those craters originated. Were they impact craters or volcanic craters?

"Flagstaff was one of the few places in the world where you have lots of volcanic craters you can look at and the world's best exposed meteorite impact crater, Meteor Crater," Lucchitta, now retired, said.

"In addition to that you had all these observatories like Lowell and the Naval Observatory and what have you. It was a natural. The fact that Gene and Carolyn (Shoemaker) liked Flagstaff didn't hurt either."

Who was Eugene Shoemaker?

Eugene Shoemaker was a geologist with the USGS who was involved in searching for uranium on the Colorado Plateau in the 1950s. During that time he developed an interest in the moon and was said to have wanted to go there.

When President John F. Kennedy stated the goal in 1961 of putting an American on the moon in response to Russia's advances in space, Shoemaker wanted to be involved.

But he had Addison's disease, an uncommon disorder with symptoms including extreme fatigue, low blood pressure and muscle or joint pain. That meant he wasn't a suitable candidate to become an astronaut. He remained interested in space exploration and was instrumental in developing the USGS branch of astrogeology in 1963.

Lucchitta, a friend of Shoemaker, said Shoemaker was convinced that if men were going to the moon, they should learn something from the endeavor rather than just planting a flag to say they beat the Russians there.

"(Shoemaker) was a very persuasive person," Lucchitta said. "He managed to persuade NASA and the USGS – whose business is the Earth – that maybe there was something to be said about studying the geology of the moon."

Astronomy put Flagstaff on the scientific map

The Air Force started using Flagstaff telescopes to make detailed maps of the moon in 1961, but the area's importance in the field goes back much farther than that.

Percival Lowell came to Flagstaff in 1894 to establish the observatory that bears his name after sending an assistant, Andrew Douglass, to scout locations in Arizona.

Douglass looked at sites in Tombstone, Tucson, Tempe and Prescott but chose Flagstaff for its elevation and dark skies away from the lights of the more developed cities. (Bisbee was a mining boom town in those days.)

Kevin Schindler, Lowell Observatory historian, said that paved the way for northern Arizona's role in the space program.

"When Lowell Observatory was established, it kind of set the stage for Flagstaff as a place to do science year round," Schindler said. "It wasn't just a place for scientists from the east to come visit, do some collecting or observing and then leave. Lowell established it as a center for doing science."

A LITTLE PIECE OF THE MOON:  Flagstaff lava field helped train astronauts

Mapping the moon's surface from Flagstaff

Flagstaff's excellent conditions for astronomy led to the use of telescopes not only at Lowell but also at the U.S. Naval Observatory and Northern Arizona University for moon mapping.

"One of the issues with going to the moon, I guess like traveling anywhere, is you want a map to figure out where you're going to go," Schindler said. "And going to the moon, you want to make sure the astronauts don't land in a crater or on the side of a mountain, so they needed detailed maps."

The Air Force's Aeronautical Chart and Information Center worked in Flagstaff from 1961 to 1969 making those lunar maps.

Map makers also did some of their work at telescopes at University of Arizona observatory sites near Tucson, in the southern part of the state.

Telescopes helped the astronauts learn

The mapmakers weren't the only ones using the Flagstaff telescopes.

After astronauts began training at Meteor and Sunset craters as well as the human-sculpted crater fields, they peered through the telescopes to see how what they were learning compared to the real thing.

"So in one day they could see an actual impact crater on Earth and they could see how these features and others were depicted on maps and then they could see craters and other details of the moon through telescopes," Schindler said. "NASA realized that was really valuable, and later astronauts came through here as well. All of the astronauts who went to the moon trained in northern Arizona."

As the launch drew near and the astronauts received specific assignments, their training in northern Arizona intensified.

"The guys who were going to be in the command module orbiting the moon while the others were walking, they flew in airplanes over northern Arizona to survey and see what it looked like from the air, just as they did in the moon," Schindler said.

THE WOMAN WHO MAPPED THE MOON:A Flagstaff geologist and Apollo 17

Astronauts or geologists?

The goal of the space race was to prove that Americans could beat the Russians to the moon. What did gathering rocks have to do with beating the Russians?

So the USGS scientists had to figure out how to persuade the astronauts, most of whom had been military test pilots, that performing seemingly mundane research on another world was worthwhile.

"Initially, neither NASA or the astronauts were all that keen on this," Lucchitta said. "They all had big jobs on their hands. NASA had to figure out how to get to the moon and back. The astronauts had to figure out how to fly these contraptions. They were not wild about it, but eventually everybody realized it would be a crime to not do science on the moon."

That led to a crash course in geology in some of the most fascinating places on Earth.

The astronauts studied volcanoes in Iceland, Hawaii and Bend, Oregon. They studied impact craters at Meteor Crater in Arizona, Sudbury Basin in Canada and at the Nevada Test Site, where nuclear weapons were detonated.

For many, their introduction to the field, a kind of Geology 101, was at the Grand Canyon. The astronauts hiked the canyon along with geologists who pointed out some of the features they were seeing.

Lucchitta, an expert on the Grand Canyon, said it's a place where you can see the development of life on Earth in its entirety.

"The astronauts thought, you know, this is kind of interesting after all," he said. "Quite a few of them said, after, that (the Grand Canyon) is what changed their mind."

TRAVEL GUIDE:See the Arizona places that were critical to the moon landing

Recreating the moon in Arizona

Scientists used detailed photographs, maps and tons of explosives to build replicas of the moon's surface for training purposes.

Two of the sites in the Cinder Lake Crater Field near Flagstaff are representations of the Apollo 11 landing site. A third location in the Verde Valley near Cottonwood was a representation of the Apollo 13 site.

"You'd look at the best possible photography of the landing site on the moon and measure both the orientation and the size of each crater," Lucchitta said. "Then you transfer that to your test site on Earth."

After laying out the practice landing sites, tons of explosives were used to blast through rock to create a model of the moon's surface.

"The amount of explosive required was absolutely incredible," Lucchitta said. "For example, the Verde Valley Crater field required 87,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and 1,200 pounds of TNT."

QUIZ:How much do you know about the Apollo 11 mission?

Developing tools for the job

Scientists also had to deal with the challenges of enabling the astronauts to perform the desired scientific tasks.

For the most part, they would collect rocks. But even that was difficult because the space suits were bulky and limited the wearers' dexterity. So the scientists developed tools that allowed the astronauts to pick things up when they could not bend over.

Communication was also an issue.

The astronauts were exploring another world. It was crucial that they communicated what they were seeing clearly and logically to the scientists on the ground.

So, they were taught to explain things from the general level to the more specific. This would give the earthbound scientists a frame of reference for what they were hearing and being shown.

The astronauts practiced the communication tactics they would use on the moon by describing what they were doing over the radio to scientists sitting in nearby trailers.

MOON MERCH:Celebrate moon landing with themed food, drinks and souvenirs

Meet Grover, the lunar vehicle

Mobility was yet another issue.

Anyone who has seen the grainy video of astronauts bouncing around the moon can imagine how difficult it was for them to cover much ground. If they were going to do significant scientific study of the moon's surface, they had to increase their range.

NASA contractors developed several vehicles unsuitable for the mission (too big, too heavy or too hard for astronauts in space suits to access) before the Lunar Roving Vehicle that everyone is familiar with was developed.

Lucchitta said USGS scientists built a replica of the final design to help astronauts train in Arizona. That training vehicle, known as Grover, is on display at the USGS office in Flagstaff.

"Three of our people built this damned thing for a grand total of about $1,500," Lucchitta said. "It was hand built to be able to withstand Earth gravity, which is five times that of the moon."

Grover had to be built of stronger materials than the aluminum alloy used on the lunar vehicle, which only had to carry one-fifth of the weight that it would on Earth. The Grover also had air-filled tires rather than the wire mesh tires on the lunar vehicle.

Grover also played a role in getting the astronauts to buy into the idea of doing science on the moon.

"We were very proud of (Grover) and the astronauts used that and loved it," Lucchitta said. "That was important. Getting the astronauts to love doing this kind of work was important."

Lucchitta said the astronauts did a "damned good job" as geologists. He said their tasks was made harder by lots of little things, like not being able to bend over (or even bend their knees) in the unwieldy space suits.

"Especially when you consider the circumstances," he said. "One, they were not geologists by training and two, they were working under those incredible handicaps. We learned a huge amount about the moon, frankly, on those missions."

After the Apollo 11 landing

The moon landing was an exhilarating achievement to celebrate, but the work in Flagstaff did not end on July 20, 1969.

"When the Apollo 11 people were on the (moon), we were working like hell on Apollo 12," Lucchitta said. "We were not stopping just because somebody was on the moon."

Baerbel Lucchitta, Ivo's wife, is also an accomplished geologist. She made lunar maps and worked on the Apollo missions in other capacities. She was the mapmaker for the Apollo 17 (the last moon mission) landing site.

Baerbel Lucchitta stayed involved in space exploration through the USGS Astrogeology Center after Apollo. She worked on some of the unmanned Mars missions, among other projects. Now retired, she said the information gathered by Apollo astronauts was valuable to her work.

"We were making a lot of maps of other planets, but not too many actually got field checked," she said. "Somebody actually went up there to see to what extent it's correct or not. Of course, they didn't go up there just to check it out, but from a personal point of view you sort of wonder what you got right and what you got wrong."

Northern Arizona welcomed the challenge

The competition to land on the moon grew out of the Cold War. Russia's space efforts initially exceeded those of the U.S.

"At first it was just we had to beat the Russians," Schindler said. "But when we got to the moon it was, 'Oh my God, look, our species is on another world.' We beat the Russians, but look what we accomplished. We were walking on the moon."

And northern Arizona helped meet that challenge.

"Across America and the world, people took a lot of pride in Apollo and saw it as a great achievement," Schindler said.

"But for the people who worked on it, for so many, that was the highlight of their career, working on Apollo and doing their part to get astronauts on the moon. There was a lot of pride and I think you see that represented today. It's a community-wide thing."

Reach the reporter at weldon.johnson@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8817. Or follow him on Twitter at @weldonjohnson.

Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.