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To a Rocky Moon: A Geologist's History of Lunar Exploration

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Don Wilhelms was a member of the Apollo Scientific Team and the US Geological Survey. In this book he describes his role, along with his geologist colleagues, during the Apollo explorations of the Moon. In addition, he presents a brief history of the theories associated with the origin of the moon and its craters, the people and problems involved in the section of the Apollo landing sites, a discussion of the geological results obtained from each of the Apollo landing sites, and finally a summary of the findings from the Apollo missions and the development of a theory to explain the formation of the moon.

The book opens with several chapters that describe the early telescopic observations of the moon and the competing theories explaining the moon origins. Specifically, there was the cold formation/capture theory and the hot formation/formed with Earth theory. After this thorough explanation of the development of these theories, the author covers the early robotic exploration of the moon conducted by the Ranger, Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter probes. From these missions, it was determined that the majority of the Moon's craters were probably created by meteoroid impact. Within these sections, the author also describes the landing site selection process.

Except for the concluding section and appendices, the remainder of the book (approximately 50%) covers in detail, the geological exploration conducted by the astronauts at each landing site and the results obtained. Since the early flights to the moon, Apollos 11, 12 and 14, were shorts stay, the book emphasizes the extensive geological exploration conducted by the Apollos 15, 16 and 17 missions. These missions included an electrically powered car, which greatly extended the areas of the moon that the astronauts could explore. These final missions were also supported in real time by a scientific support room staffed with many highly skilled geologists that helped to direct the astronauts during sample collection.

I found this book to be highly enjoyable and its covers an aspect of the Apollo program that is usually not covered in great detail. That is, the people behind the scenes who helped make this project the great success that it was. On the flip side, some readers may find the book a bit too technical, especially with all the geological terms and the small amount of the supporting diagrams and figures.

With the recently aired HBO series "From the Earth to the Moon", interest in the Apollo program has intensified. The series was inspired and based, in part on Andy Chaikin's excellent "A Man on the Moon". Don Wilhelms, a retired USGS planetary geologist, has written a complementary history of Apollo from the viewpoint of the scientist. He gives wonderful background to how our lunar ideas have evolved, and how Apollo cemented our view of the moon. He presents great sketches of the important characters such as Gene Shoemaker. He presents the science warts and all. His discussion of the science of the various missions nicely complements Chaikin's historical accounts. He is honest in his appraisal of the scientific talents of the various astronauts.

If you are interested in lunar science or Apollo, this book is an excellent choice.

This lengthy and detailed account of lunar exploration and science strikes a balance between personal memoir and history. As history it provides a detailed and contextual account of lunar geology during the 1960s and 1970s, and a less detailed but informative account for the rest of the century. As memoir it provides an engaging story of the scientific exploration of the Moon as seen by one of the field's more important behind-the-scenes scientists who worked on Apollo.

This is certainly the most detailed personal account of lunar science during the Apollo program, and should be read in tandem with Donald A. Beattie's "Taking Science to the Moon: Lunar Experiments and the Apollo Program" (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).

I must confess that I came to this book not out of a previously existing interest in geology or solar system science, but rather from a fascination with the Apollo program with its engineering and medical challenges. However, this led to wondering what ultimately was discovered on the moon. I then read this fine book and found it very interesting. At the time it was published, there was almost no material available in popular form on the scientific findings of Apollo and the other unmanned spaceflights to the moon so this was a pioneering work. In recent years, other books have appeared that also deal with the lunar discoveries, most notably Paul Spudis' "The Once and Future Moon" and David M Harland's "Exploring the Moon". I would have appreciated this book more if I had first read one or both of these other books because Wilhelms assumes the reader has some background in geology which was not the case with me. Once the reader gets up to speed on the basic geology which is provided in those other books, one can appreciate more the historical perspective that the author gives on how our current understanding of the Moon's past and present have developed over the last couple hundred years. In addition to the science, Wilhelms gives colorful descriptions of the major figures in lunar science including Nobel Prize Winner Harold Urey, Ralph Baldwin, Gene Shoemaker, Hal Masursky, "Mr Moondust" Thomas Gold, as well as the various astronauts who were recruited (sometimes unwillingly) into the lunar science fraternity. I believe that in order to understand any branch of science, it is important to see the evolution of ideas leading to our current knowledge and this book is an excellent source of information on the development of lunar science for the scientifically educated layman.

Whew!...You almost need to take a geology class before tackling this. Wilhems goes into great detail describing the moon from a geologists standpoint, so be prepared for that, but, the things that I took from this is that he also describes the early history of the un-manned program of lunar exploration (Ranger and Surveyor programs) in excellent detail as well as the geology history of the manned program, training and all. Obviously, the later (Apollo 15 through 17) missions are covered in more detail than the early ones, but there is something here for everyone interested in the Apollo program...just be prepared to be inundated with geology-speak.

This is a good book and you'll find no better account about the geology of the Moon. My only bone to pick with the author is as follows: on the subject of tektites--those odd-shaped, natural glass stones which show evidence of having entered the Earth's atmosphere at angles which have their starting points on the Moon's surface--Wilhelms displays his conservative bias in favor of the safe diagnosis which chants that tektites are fancy forms of impactites and crater glass. The author fails to report that micro-tektites were indeed discovered on the Moon in several Apollo samples as well as in a sample from the Russian Luna 16 sample return mission! And for at least one Apollo sample, the tektitic material is IDENTICAL to Earth's tektites; had this rock been found in Antarctica, say, according to retired NASA scientist J.A. O'Keefe, it would have been identified as a tektite! The ghostly mantra of old Harold Urey--that tektites are terrestrial--keeps rearing its head on this topic. When you begin to look at impact structures and tektites, you begin to realize that tektites are not there because of the craters, but vice versa. So, the debate about tektites and their origins is far from settled as Wilhelms, et al, would lead us to believe.!