[net.religion] moondust & creationism

lew@ihuxr.UUCP (Lew Mammel, Jr.) (10/23/83)

I have done a little research on the moondust issue, which was raised
by the creationist speaker whose talk Allen England recently summarized.
The thing that got me started was that the speaker ( a Dr. Brown ) stated
that the LM foot pads were designed with the expectation of a deep dust
layer being present at the landing site. This didn't make sense to me
for two reasons: First, several Surveyor spacecraft had already made soft
landings and examined the surface. Second, the whole lunar EVA had been
planned on the basis of being able to walk on the surface, so obviously
a deep dust layer was not EXPECTED, even if the possibility was not totally
dismissed.

In his talk, Dr. Brown recalled Neil Armstrong's descent down the LM ladder.
In a humorous aside, Dr. Brown allowed as how Neil Armstrong's "first words"
were actually composed by committee. He stated that, being a former military
man, he knew how these things were. Well, Neil Armstrong stated publically
that the words were his own, and that in fact he hadn't decided finally on
them until a few hours before he spoke them. Having made a liar out of
Neil Armstrong, Dr. Brown asked how many recalled Armstrong's expression
of surprise at not sinking in as he stepped off the foot pad. 

Of course, Armstrong did carefully report the exact nature of the surface
as he found it. But Dr. Brown was asking us to construe this final confirmation
of the surface structure as a revelation which swept away any possibility
of the moon's billion year antiquity.

Anyway, I recalled that there was quite a flap over the possibility of
being swallowed up by deep dust, so I looked it up. In "Appointment on the
Moon", by Richard S. Lewis (published 1968 !), I found that the concern
over miles thick dust originated with Thomas Gold in 1955. This is contrary
to Dr. Brown's implication that the concern was a result of satellite
measurements of micro-meteorite accumulations. Anyway, as I had thought,
these fears were laid to rest by the Surveyor landings. The Ranger
photos had been inconclusive, even though Gold's camp was in the minority
in seeing them as supporting the "deep dust" theory.

Another point is that Gold's theory depended on dust being transported
into the basins from the highlands. Dr. Brown made some mention of this
but counted it as secondary to the accumulation of micrometeorites in situ,
which cause he implied was generally accepted by the majority of lunar
scientists as implying a deep dust layer.

My whole point here is that Dr. Brown was severely distorting the historical
facts concerning the "deep dust" theory and its relation to the Apollo
program. Some issues I haven't touched on are, the relationship of satellite
data and Pettersson's 1960 SciAm article on the meteoritic accumulation
issue, the discrepancys between Dr. Brown's assertions and the book
"Scientific Creationism", which was offered for use in the California
Public Schools, and finally what the accepted facts actually are concerning
meteoritic accumulation and the Lunar and Terrestrial surfaces.

I have comments on these and will probably post them later. Please note
how creationists (as represented by Dr. Brown and the book I mentioned)
can create an incredibly complex tangle with a few oversimplifications
and distortions. I shouldn't complain about being goaded into the Sunday
research required to straighten things out, since I always feel like
I should know more about these things than I do. However, it worries me
that most people don't take the time to understand and are left with the
vague feeling that the creationists just might be right after all.

	Let us pause...

		Lew Mammel, Jr. ihuxr!lew