Remembering John C. Houbolt and LADEE, Pioneers of Lunar Exploration

The world lost two pioneers of lunar exploration in April.

The LADEE – Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer – after several successful months orbiting the Moon, LADEE crashed into the far side of the Moon April 18^th. It is said that, because its orbital speed was about 3,600 miles per hour, it most likely vaporized on impact. Its primary mission was to gather information as to the structure and composition of the Moon’s very thin atmosphere, and whether lunar dust is being raised above its surface.

This craft was especially close to some of us, as NASA gave us the opportunity to observe it very soon after its launch from Wallops Island September 7^th. Its trajectory across the Eastern Seaboard had many of us able to not only watch it pass, but also to witness the first stage cutoff and second stage ignition. Although its mission was only to last 100 days, it was given an extension of approximately an extra lunar day, resulting in its surviving the darkness and prolonged cold of the mid-April lunar eclipse.

Also, on April 15^th, one of the major names in the original Apollo missions died at 95. John C. Houbolt was an engineer whose work was considered vital to the U.S. space program, to the point that he was largely credited with convincing NASA to focus on having a module land on the Moon instead of a rocket setting down directly from Earth. He firmly believed that an orbital element, plus a lander mechanism, could be the only option to meet the challenge President John Kennedy had made of a Moon landing before the end of the ‘60s. He even went over the heads of many NASA managers, writing to the administrator to plead his case. He won, giving us the glory of the Apollo mission that many of us recall to this day as a proud time in the history of U.S. science.

The Moon is smaller because of the works of a man and a machine, both laid to rest within days of each other.