… distant planets will remain our traces! - we all know this song.
Those of us who are young may hope to leave our traces someday on distant planets and other celestial bodies. Those who are older have to look at other people's traces left by other people. Some look with admiration, others with envy, and some with distrust. But we know whose trail is most watched. No, no, this is not a trace of Neil Armstrong's "small step". Of course, this is the boot print of Buzz Aldrin, who inherited it on our satellite in July 1969!
In fact, there were two prints and five photos. The first photo shows the surface Buzz is just about to step on, followed by two photos of the print, and finally - Buzz's boot against the background of the second print left after the first. Photos with numbers from AS11-40-5876 to AS11-40-5880. Collage of images from the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal (ALSJ) website.
We also see footprints of the Neal everywhere, but now who can distinguish them from Buzz's? It was Buzz who captured his footprint (more precisely, even two) in the photograph, the circulation of which nowadays cannot be counted. And he did it almost exactly an hour after the Neal took his small step and a huge leap.
A boot similar to Buzz's and also on the moon. The former owner of the boot is Jack Schmitt, a geologist on the Apollo 17 expedition. Snapshot from ALSJ website.
But why Buzz? Maybe he immortalized his prints out of pride, and Neal did not take pictures of his footprint due to his inherent modesty? No, not this time. It was not just a trace, but a whole scientific experiment, planned in advance. Scientists wanted to see what the interaction of the boot and lunar soil looks like on the Moon. So that Buzz would not forget, they left him a reminder: here it is, sewn on the left glove in the to-do list.
Promotional video:
PENE / tration / -PHOTO FOOTPRINT ("photo of penetration / into the ground / footprint") - the inscription on the left glove of Buzz Aldrin (pre-flight photo from the ALSJ website).
But where did Buzz leave his mark? “Of course, on the moon,” some will say. “Of course, in the pavilion,” others would argue. We were not allowed into the pavilion, so on our first walk we will go to look for Buzz's trail on the moon. But where to look for him there, the moon is big? Of course, we will take a look at the Sea of Tranquility, where Neil and Buzz landed their lunar module "Eagle". There, on the edge of a small double crater, is the Tranquility base - as the astronauts called the landing site. But Buzz's trail is not visible from Earth through a telescope, nor is it visible from orbit: chains of traces are visible, but individual traces cannot be seen. And where to look: south of the module or north, or maybe west or east?
From orbit, one can distinguish the landing stage, instruments left by astronauts, and chains of tracks. Unfortunately, no separate tracks are visible. Photo from NASA website.
We'll have to look at what the astronauts themselves filmed. And here's luck: it turns out that the movie camera left in the cockpit of the lunar module filmed the very moment when Buzz conducted his experiment.
The movie camera is installed in the right window and looks forward and downward. Recording is speeded up, we recommend watching in slow motion. Pay attention to the left side of the frame: Buzz comes out of the shadow of the module, steps on the ground, takes pictures, steps over and over again takes pictures. He holds the camera in his hands: the astronauts could fasten it on the chest and take pictures with a fixed camera, but they could also remove it if necessary. By the way, this is one of the rare cases when the astronaut lacked pre-configured and easily switchable focusing distances (there were four of them): the minimum of them, 1.6 m, would still be too large, and the pictures would come out blurry. However, the camera allowed free focusing from a distance of 0.9 meters, and Aldrin took advantage of this.
Now we know where Buzz left his trail: right in front of the lunar module's right window, 7.5 meters northwest of its western support.
BSPE (Bootprint Soil Experiment) - the place in front of the lunar module, where Buzz left his traces. Arrows - shooting points and camera directions when Neal took the first panorama (blue arrows, Pan 1), and Buzz took the second (green arrows, Pan 2). An arrow with numbers 5876-80 shows in which direction the footprints were taken.
Let's stop at this? Of course not, we are walking on the moon, but walking is like that! Let's take a closer look … very close … We'll notice next to Buzz's leg … no, not a forgotten bottle cork or gum. We will notice two pebbles there: what else should we see on the Moon (or in the pavilion depicting the Moon)? Let's call them Buzz (after Aldrin) and Mike (after Michael Collins, who remained in orbit and faded into the shadows of his more famous comrades).
Two pebbles at Buzz's foot. Buzz has already left a trail and removed his foot. Hereinafter, collages based on images from the ALSJ website.
And if we are very careful, we will find this place and these stones in the picture taken from the module window even before Neal and Buzz decorated the untouched surface of our satellite with their footprints. A third joins the stones, we will name it after the Nile. It is poorly visible on film frames, but we have already seen it in close-up before and will see it again. And the pebble Mike will not appear in close-up.
Here are all three of them! They lie to themselves in a small hole and do not know that world fame awaits two of them. Photo number AS11-39-5771. The pebbles in the pictures from the module window were found by the ALSJ editor Eric Jones.
Now let's look again at the photo of the trail. Here it is, the trail, here they are, the Neal and Buzz pebbles, and here it is, the hole. The pebble Mike is also nearby, but he did not get into the frame - just as the real Mike did not get into the frame, in anticipation of his comrades circling alone on the Columbia spacecraft in lunar orbit.
Now you already know these stones by sight.
One print was not enough for Buzz, and he immediately made a second one, however, he did not show it to us in its entirety:
Buzz's second trail. Buzz slammed Neal into the ground, but the pebble, named after Buzz himself, was right in front of the trail and now appeared before us in all its glory.
As we will see shortly, Buzz's pebble will also not be allowed to lie, but he received his portion of fame in full.
In the footage, we see how, after completing an important mission and photographing his tracks, Buzz again hides in the shadow of the module. Where is he going, I wonder? He has no time for idleness, he follows a to-do list on a glove: he studies the view of the ground at different angles of illumination and at different depths, and then goes to take a second panorama (Armstrong made the first before him, barely left the module and got a camera).
The panorama from this point is part of the program, similar panoramas can be seen in other missions. It is called 12 o'clock by analogy with the dial, where 12 o'clock corresponds to the west and 6 o'clock to the east. In addition to 12-hour panoramas, 4- and 8-hour panoramas were also made so that the module and its surroundings could be seen from all sides.
Panorama taken by Buzz Aldrin west of the lunar module. The full-size version can be found at https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11pan1103147HR.j… on the ALSJ website.
The panorama was taken about five minutes after the experiment with a trail 7 meters southwest of the print (this can be seen in the fragment of the map above). So Buzz's footprints must be in this panorama? And then! Here they are:
What happened to the tracks next? Did the astronauts trample them down, did they cover them with sand, walking around the Moon Pavilion and throwing dust for the next hour and a half? But no! Let's return with the astronauts to the lunar module and once again look out the right window. Now before us is no longer the virgin desert of Nevada, but a completely habitable landscape: on the right is a flag, around traces, cigarette butts and cans from under the cola. Even the shade of the primer changed: a darker one appeared under the upper light layer. Will we find the same two among these tracks? We'll find it!
Those two Buzz tracks in AS11-37-5484 after the release. The pebbles Buzz and Mike (if they were) moved from their places, but Neal was safely trampled into the moon by the real Buzz.
Note that the shadow of the lunar module has noticeably shortened: earlier, the area of future prints was opposite the shadow from the upper part of the module's legs, and now the shadow from the orientation engines installed on the take-off stage turned out to be flush with the tracks. The moon moved smoothly in its orbit, and the sun slowly - much slower than on Earth - rose above the Tranquility Base, shortening the shadows. The time of departure was approaching. Our first walk is drawing to a close.
Perhaps, during the launch from the Moon, gases from the take-off stage engine not only knocked over the flag (we know for sure), but also covered the very two tracks with dust. Unfortunately, we will not be able to see this, because Buzz was a little late with turning on the movie camera, and it did not capture the moment of the start. But the author thinks that the prints did not fall asleep completely. And maybe we can still see them again if the Tranquility Base is photographed with a high enough resolution. But it would be even more interesting to see new footprints of people - on the Moon, and possibly on Mars.
Author: El Selenita