SI RFACE EXPERIMENTS

Scientists had always been vocal that Apollo crews must place high-quality scientific instruments on the lunar surface. After all, many in the scientific community saw manned spaceflight as a sink for funds that ought to go to unmanned craft. If man on the Moon was being shoved down their throats, then at least something useful ought to come from it. Arrangements were made to develop a system of instruments that would work off a common pow’er source and radio system. It was known as the Apollo lunar surface experiments package (ALSHP) and would be deployed on the surface with sufficient radioactively-sourced pow’er to last years. Across 1965 and 1966. principal investigators were recruited by NASA to design the instruments which Bendix would develop and supply. Early plans assumed that the first landing would to have tw’o moomvalks; one to deploy the ALSEP and the other for a geological traverse. However, as the planning for the initial landings continued, it became clear that an ALSEP would not be ready in time for the first crew. There would be a single short moonwalk which w’ould combine the history and ceremony of the moment with a small amount of sample gathering and photography. ALSEP would have to wait for subsequent missions.