Monday, 30 May 2016

Leap into the lunar unknown: Fifty years since the landmark launch of Surveyor 1

Before Surveyor I landed 50 years ago, scientists weren't even sure the Moon had a surface

Space travel can still be dramatic in 2016, but it's a cakewalk compared to half a century ago. Today marks 50 years since the unmanned Surveyor I probe lifted off from Cape Canaveral, and when it landed in the Oceanus Procellarum on June 2, 1966, it was more than the first US soft landing on the Moon, it was a leap into the unknown. Launched at the height of the Space Race and the depth of the Cold War, the stakes for the first of seven Surveyor missions were incredibly high, as NASA wrestled with untried technologies and questions about the basic nature of the Moon that could make or break any hope of a manned landing.

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from Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine http://ift.tt/1TQxegV

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