Before astronauts went to the moon, they went to Oregon’s Moon Country

0:01 Since prehistoric times, humans have gazed upon and contemplated the moon.

0:08 For millennia, we've used it to keep time.

0:11 It's the basis for several calendars,

0:14 and it's long been a source of artistic inspiration.

0:17 From cave paintings to Starry Night to probably hundreds of popular songs,

0:23 Blue Moon, Harvest Moon,

0:26 Fly Me to the Moon, When the Moon Hits Your Eye Like a Big Pizza Pie, and so on.

0:33 Obviously, the moon is not actually like a big pizza pie,

0:37 nor is it made of cheese, and it doesn't have a man inside of it.

0:42 Scientific research and space exploration have taught us a lot about it,

0:47 but there's still plenty we don't know.

0:49 There is a mystery associated with the moon.

0:53 That's my colleague Cammy Horton from Oregon Experience.

0:57 She's put a lot of thought into the moon.

0:59 I grew up in a rural area where there

1:01 wasn't a lot of light pollution and you really could

1:04 see the night sky and as a child that just

1:07 gives you a sense of wonder to see the stars,

1:09 the moon, all of that and to wonder what

1:12 is out there and to just question those things.

1:15 We didn't even know if the moon was a solid

1:18 surface or if it was a deep powder surface.

1:20 We didn't know if the rock fields were sharp or dull.

1:24 We just we had no idea.

1:25 When we sent astronauts up there, it wasn't clear what they were going to find.

1:29 We knew that there had to be volcanic rocks.

1:32 One thing was clear.

1:34 If we were going to send people up there,

1:37 we better figure some of this stuff out,

1:39 or at least prepare for the possibilities, ideally here on Earth.

1:44 And where in the world did NASA go for that?

1:48 They headed to Oregon.

1:53 From the Gerbo Boille Studio, I'm Jen Chavez and this is The Evergreen,

1:57 a podcast from OPB about the place you call home.

2:01 From 1964 to 1971, dozens of Apollo astronauts came to central Oregon to train

2:09 on land that some scientists thought might

2:13 be similar to the surface of the moon.

2:16 As a child, I did spend time in the Bend

2:18 area and I remember it being called Moon Country.

2:22 Oregon experience producer Cammy Horton made

2:24 a whole documentary about Oregon's moon country.

2:28 And now that the Aremis 2 mission has sent humans back to the moon,

2:32 we're reflecting on how Oregon is a part of the moon's story.

2:37 And the moon is a part of Oregon's.

2:43 Let's start things off with a few basic moon facts.

2:48 The moon is less than a third of the size of Earth.

2:51 It's thought to have formed around 4 and a half billion years ago.

2:57 Where did it come from?

2:58 Well, the prevailing theory today is that

3:01 the moon was actually at one point a part of the Earth and we were bombarded

3:07 maybe by a Marsized protolanet called Thea

3:12 and the moon actually broke away and became the moon.

3:17 These days it's on average almost a quarter million miles away from here

3:23 and it is now drifting ever further away from us.

3:28 really slowly, like an inch and a half per year.

3:32 Oh my god, that's a trip.

3:33 This is all based on our understanding today.

3:37 Back in the 1950s, the moon was still much more mysterious.

3:42 The most detailed views we had came from telescopes

3:46 until the Soviet Union launched the first satellite,

3:50 Sputnik, in the late 50s, followed by a series of other successful missions.

3:55 Now, Soviet science has rocketed to the moon.

3:59 These are the first actual photographs of its hidden face,

4:04 and American satellites from the Vanguard to the Pioneer

4:07 have given us priceless information as well.

4:10 But the new contest is the race to put a man into space.

4:14 Soviet cosminaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person

4:18 to journey into space and orbit the Earth in 1961.

4:23 If this was a space race, the United States was behind.

4:28 So, a new goal was set.

4:30 I believe that this nation should commit

4:32 itself to achieving the goal before this decade

4:36 is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.

4:41 Throughout the 60s, the US invested billions and employed hundreds

4:46 of thousands of people dedicated to a successful moon landing.

4:51 But how would that work exactly?

4:55 We didn't know what the surface of the moon was going to be like?

4:58 Um, there were all kinds of speculations.

5:00 There were fears that it would just be like a really

5:02 soft pummus and and maybe we wouldn't be able to land.

5:05 Maybe something would sink into the surface.

5:08 Jack Higenbotham is the former director

5:11 of the Oregon NASA Space Grant Consortium.

5:15 We had to spend some time sending unmanned probes there.

5:18 the specifically the surveyor landing craft to make sure that if

5:22 we sent a man there that they wouldn't sink into the morass.

5:27 Three, two, one, impact.

5:30 Impact has occurred at 132550 Zulu.

5:34 Impact has occurred.

5:35 Trail blazed.

5:36 Bridge head achieved.

5:39 Now NASA could send more instrumented probes

5:41 out from Earth and down to the moon.

5:44 Okay, so we could theoretically land on the moon without sinking,

5:50 but it was still unclear what the moon's surface was made up of.

5:54 They did expect to find volcanic rock there.

5:58 They didn't necessarily know what kind of volcanic rocks,

6:01 and so they had to prepare for all

6:03 kinds of different types of scenarios because they didn't

6:06 want astronauts getting up there and hurting themselves

6:09 or or damaging equipment and and it not being safe.

6:13 Plus, once astronauts did get there,

6:16 it was important that we should get samples of that material to to determine,

6:20 you know, what's it made of.

6:23 This is where central Oregon comes in.

6:26 Personnel from the manned spacecraft center are getting a preview

6:30 of another world in this area of central Oregon.

6:34 Central Oregon is probably one of the few places on Earth where

6:37 you can within a few hours see virtually every type of volcanic feature.

6:44 Shawn Dilva is a professor of geology and geoysics at Oregon State University.

6:50 The places they focused on were uh hole in the ground, bought rock, lava,

6:55 but Newbury and those four places really cover the spectrum

7:01 of uh volcanic features that they might encounter uh on the moon.

7:06 The Pacific Northwest sits on the ring of fire,

7:10 meaning we've got tons of volcanoes.

7:13 Mount Hood, Mount St.

7:14 Helens, Mount Reineer, all volcanoes.

7:18 Some moon lava may consist of material that is smooth and glassy.

7:23 A classic example exists in a black obsidian

7:26 flow located on the inward slopes of Newberry crater.

7:30 Newberry just south of Bend is an active

7:32 volcano that stretches almost 1,200 square miles

7:37 and it was only one of the plentiful

7:39 volcanic features central Oregon had to offer.

7:43 Scientists from the National Aeronautics

7:45 and Space Administration consider Oregon Moon

7:48 Country an ideal area for testing

7:51 the astronaut's maneuverability on lava surfaces.

7:55 The first NASA tests in Oregon were done in 1964 in fine

8:00 pummus fields near Gilchrest and rugged obsidian flows at McKenzie Pass.

8:05 It's in the middle of the summer and the temperatures are,

8:09 you know, soaring over 100° F.

8:13 That's writer, historian, and former NASA history fellow Ingred Ourt.

8:19 And if you're overheating just thinking about it,

8:22 imagine wearing a space suit and 50 lb oxygen pack.

8:27 But it was important to give them a test run during training,

8:30 as astronaut Walter Cunningham soon found out.

8:33 There's a story about, you know, someone falling and ripping his glove.

8:37 And obviously that wouldn't work on the moon.

8:41 Better to have a wardrobe malfunction that NASA

8:44 could learn from on Earth than on the moon.

8:47 Just really trying to figure out if this was something

8:50 that they would be able to do in a hostile environment where,

8:53 you know, it could be deadly.

8:55 And if this really was what the moon would be like,

8:59 astronauts needed to know how to identify and select samples.

9:05 Sure, they were trained as pilots, but when it came to geology, not so much.

9:11 With the training program that I put together,

9:13 we ended up having about four or five days of field experience every month.

9:17 Of the astronauts to walk on the moon,

9:20 Harrison Jack Schmidt was the only professional scientist.

9:24 He had a doctorate in geology.

9:26 He helped train other astronauts at sites all over the world.

9:31 The main thing was to expose them to as many

9:33 different say geological experiences as we possibly could.

9:37 Get them out in the field.

9:38 Don't let them sit in the classroom and to then put

9:41 that into a context of an actual simulated mission where they had the equipment,

9:46 they had simulated backpacks,

9:48 the cameras just to get all those routine procedures to be routine.

9:53 Apollo astronauts ended up getting the equivalent

9:56 of a master's degree in geology.

9:59 Crucial if they wanted to bring quality samples back from the moon.

10:04 All the while, scientists continued to debate

10:07 what exactly they'd find up there and why.

10:11 For instance, there were different schools of thought

10:14 about what caused the craters on the moon's surface, volcanoes or meteors.

10:20 I think that over 95% of the major

10:23 lunar surface features are volcanic in origin.

10:26 This is geologist Jack Green.

10:28 I've come to this conclusion by the study

10:30 of calderas and other volcanic features on the Earth.

10:33 He studied Crater Lake and other spots in Oregon.

10:37 One of them was Derek Cave, a 30ft tall lava tube in Lake County.

10:43 It was used during the Cold War as a fallout shelter,

10:46 which I just think is fascinating.

10:48 And so scientists looked at that and thought, well,

10:51 if this is something that would work as a fallout shelter,

10:53 then maybe a cave like this, um, you know,

10:56 big lava tube cave would exist on the moon.

11:00 Why is that important?

11:01 Part of the reason is because there were lava tubes on the moon.

11:04 Well, maybe those lava tubes would be

11:07 big enough to house the first lunar colonies.

11:10 In the '60s, this was of big interest to people.

11:14 The US government had drawn up plans for it,

11:17 but they wouldn't work without water.

11:20 Well, Green thought maybe water could be extracted from volcanic rock.

11:27 Jack Green had actually put together a project called

11:30 Project Moonshine to determine whether water could be extracted

11:34 from uh rocks in central Oregon and then presumably would

11:38 be able to be extracted from rocks on the moon.

11:41 Unlike Green though, most other scientists thought the moon's

11:45 craters were formed by a meteoric impact.

11:48 Like Eugene Shoemaker, who lived in Oregon as a kid.

11:52 There's no doubt there's been vcanism on the moon.

11:54 And in fact, most of the rocks on the moon are probably volcanic in origin.

12:00 But we have to distinguish between the rocks

12:02 and the craters that have been formed on them.

12:05 Most of the craters have been formed after the rocks were already in place.

12:10 Doing geology on the moon was his idea.

12:14 He was actually set to become an astronaut himself,

12:18 but was disqualified because of a medical condition.

12:21 But he thought it was important to send some scientists up there.

12:26 And he pushed for astronauts to get geological training,

12:29 making him instrumental to the training

12:32 that brought Apollo astronauts to central Oregon.

12:35 Well, I remember that there was a lot

12:38 of excitement in the community and people thought, "Hey, this is great."

12:41 Paul Reynolds was the mayor of Bend in 1964 and 1965.

12:47 Yes, all of this was a pretty huge deal

12:51 in a small Oregon town of about 12,000 people.

12:56 Remember when Bend was that small?

12:58 These astronauts were really kind of heroes in their day.

13:01 these were the people that were going to take America up into space.

13:06 And so I think they felt really a lot

13:08 of excitement and pride that they were a part of that.

13:11 When astronauts began arriving in 1964,

13:15 even Oregon Governor Mark Hatfield came to greet them.

13:19 Group after group of Apollo astronauts came to train on local lava fields.

13:25 I do remember that they were very excited about going out to Lavabute and man

13:29 this looks like what it's going to look like up there on the moon.

13:33 Apparently the folks at NASA weren't the only

13:36 ones who were intrigued by that possibility.

13:38 One person who was excited about this was Gene Rodenberry,

13:41 the creator of Star Trek himself.

13:44 You know, I found this clipping in the the clipping

13:46 section and it was a fullcolor article circled with the idea

13:50 that perhaps um the Star Trek crew could start shooting in central

13:55 Oregon and get that same alien lunar surface close at home.

13:59 That never did pan out.

14:01 But Star Trek aside, the possibility of new space related industry

14:06 in the region boosted the local economy.

14:09 Construction began on the Laval Lands visitor center.

14:13 Local businesses formed a lunar-based research group,

14:17 and the University of Oregon established both

14:20 the Pine Mountain Observatory and the Center for Volcanology.

14:25 The University of Oregon is one

14:27 of the many places where geologists and scientists

14:30 are studying types of volcanic lava that may exist on the moon or planets.

14:36 In 1965, UFO helped put on a lunar geological field conference in Bend,

14:43 attracting scientists from around the world.

14:46 Basically, an amazing international gathering

14:50 of planetary geologists and vulcanologists who

14:53 come as far away as Japan and even the Soviet Union.

14:58 And that was a pretty big thing.

14:59 It was like the world came to bend.

15:02 In those days, Mary Develin was working

15:05 a summer job at the visitors center at Lav,

15:09 one of the places astronauts visited.

15:11 Like everyone else, I was pretty excited

15:13 at the thought that we'd send someone into space.

15:16 I was pretty amazed that they'd come to Bend as part of their training.

15:23 Locals welcomed the astronauts with open arms.

15:27 They stayed in people's homes, you know.

15:29 So for the people here, they really did feel like they were a part of this.

15:34 Everyone coming together, we're going to get to the moon.

15:37 I mean, we took care of them.

15:39 And of course, the wondering, you know,

15:40 is it one of these guys that's going to go to the moon?

15:44 Coming up after a break, we'll find out.

15:51 Thanks for listening to The Evergreen,

15:53 our podcast from OPB about the place you call home.

15:57 This spring, NASA astronauts ventured out toward the moon

16:01 for the first time in over 50 years.

16:04 I know the Aremis 2 mission had the moon on my mind.

16:08 What about you?

16:09 Did you watch the launch or landing live?

16:12 See the images they took online?

16:15 What do you think we should be doing in space?

16:17 Email us or send us a voicemail at the evergreenb.org.

16:24 And now back to the show.

16:30 By the late 1960s, dozens of NASA astronauts had

16:34 trained on the lava fields of Oregon's moon country.

16:39 Years of hard work and investment were building towards something big.

16:44 Then in 1969, it culminated in these historic moments.

16:51 uh Tranquility base here.

16:54 The angle has landed.

16:57 Roger Tranquility, we copy you on the ground.

16:59 You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue.

17:01 We're breathing again.

17:02 Thanks a lot.

17:04 8 years after JFK set a goal for American

17:07 astronauts to land on the moon, they pulled it off.

17:12 And we're getting a picture on the TV.

17:15 Okay, Neil, we can see you coming down the ladder now.

17:18 On July 20th, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin

17:23 became the first two humans to walk on the moon.

17:27 That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

17:38 More than 600 million people tuned in to watch the events on television,

17:43 including many Oregonians.

17:46 Oh, wasn't that wonderful?

17:48 I couldn't believe it was actually happening.

17:51 And um the fact that we could go and walk

17:54 on the moon and come back live to tell about it.

17:59 Really, really cool.

18:01 And the thought goes through your mind, hey,

18:04 you know, these people trained here in our area.

18:06 You can't help but feel a little bit of pride.

18:09 I felt a real connection to it, of course,

18:12 because of having talked to real life astronauts.

18:16 Over the next 3 years, there'd be five more moon landings.

18:20 Most of the 12 astronauts who have walked on the moon trained in Oregon,

18:26 and their geological field training definitely came in handy.

18:30 They really did know what they were doing

18:33 and what they were looking for when they got there.

18:35 So they brought several samples back on each of these missions

18:39 and those samples are still being used to this day.

18:44 Researchers at Oregon State University and the University of Oregon were among

18:49 a select group who received moon rocks from the first moon landing.

18:54 From 1969 through 1972,

18:57 astronauts brought back over 800 pounds of lunar samples.

19:02 This is rock 12,64, a volcanic rock picked up

19:05 by the Apollo 12 astronauts in the ocean of storms.

19:09 An important discovery about the moon was made

19:12 by an OSU professor of nuclear chemistry, Dr.

19:15 Roman Schmidt.

19:17 And what he discovered and what he then reported out to the international

19:21 community was that the moon was almost identical to the chemistry of the Earth.

19:27 There was very little difference.

19:29 That was one of the big things we learned from Apollo moon samples.

19:33 It backed up the theory that the moon was formed when a massive

19:37 object bombarded the Earth and sent a moon-sized chunk of it flying.

19:42 The age of the samples suggests that all happened around

19:47 60 million years after the solar system began to form.

19:51 The samples also showed that the moon was once covered in an ocean

19:55 of magma and that its craters were formed by meteoric impact.

20:00 Turns out Eugene Shoemaker was right.

20:03 From a scientific perspective,

20:05 it really changed our understanding of how the solar system and the universe

20:11 and even how the origin and evolution of life on Earth took place.

20:17 A find by geologist turned astronaut Harrison Jack Schmidt

20:21 on the final Apollo moon landing in 72 paid off in particular.

20:27 There is orange soil.

20:29 Well, don't move it till I see it.

20:32 It's all over.

20:35 Orange.

20:37 Fantastic.

20:38 Sports fans.

20:40 The bright colors showed that it was volcanic ash.

20:44 And guess what?

20:45 36 years later, testing of those same orang-ish samples detected water in them.

20:53 You know, to me, that's just that's amazing.

20:54 That was important because the the idea of if we're

20:57 going to have people on the moon for whatever reason,

20:59 as a base or or who knows what,

21:02 there's got to be water and that might be a way to extract it.

21:08 So, in a way, Jack Green was also right.

21:12 He was on to something with Project Moonshine after all.

21:15 In the past decade, more evidence has been found of water on the moon,

21:20 including its sunlit areas,

21:22 suggesting it's distributed across the lunar surface.

21:26 And it's a gift that keeps on giving.

21:28 The researchers continue to go back to these samples.

21:31 I hope that I demonstrated the value

21:33 of having experienced field geologists on the moon.

21:37 I don't think the lunar sample collection from Apollo will ever be out of date.

21:41 The role Oregon played in training astronauts to collect samples like

21:46 these makes it a part of NASA's legacy of moon exploration.

21:52 In one way at least, the connection is rather literal.

21:56 The astronauts took a piece of Oregon lava rock and left it on the moon.

22:02 That story has to do with Bendy Floyd Watson.

22:06 Grandpa Floyd was the building inspector here in Dashuites County.

22:12 This is Watson's grandson, Rick Miller.

22:15 He said in the mid60s,

22:17 the Bend Golf Club threw a welcoming party for the astronauts.

22:22 They had all the city officials all paired up with different astronauts

22:25 and uh my grandfather got James Irwin and so they hit it off.

22:30 Years later, Jim Irwin was chosen to go to the moon with Apollo 15.

22:37 Watson was ready.

22:39 He goes out to Devil's Lake and uh gets a piece of rock and then brings it home

22:44 and chips off a little uh chunk and puts it in a letter and mails it to Jimwin.

22:50 And and pretty much what the letter says uh is,

22:53 I am sending you a small sliver of Central Oregon lava that I

22:57 hope you will be able to deliver to the moon for me.

22:59 I have five grandchildren who will be eternally grateful to you.

23:03 A couple months after the mission was over,

23:06 he got a letter from Jim Irwin along with a picture and the letter said,

23:12 "I did carry your sliver of lava to the moon and left it there

23:15 and there was a photo with it and it said Oregon lava on the moon.

23:20 Uh, sincerely Jim Irwin." And so, yes,

23:24 there is there is literally a piece of Oregon on the moon.

23:30 When Artemis 2 flew around the moon and back,

23:35 I had a reaction that maybe some of you can relate to.

23:39 It felt a little bit like being a kid and realizing how much

23:44 there is out there to learn about that's bigger than you, than everyone.

23:50 You know, I am a journalist by trade and I read a lot of bad news every day.

23:59 But whatever terrible thing might be happening in the world at any given moment,

24:04 and oh, there's plenty,

24:07 we're still getting out there and learning about the universe.

24:11 It kind of puts things here on Earth into perspective.

24:15 I think it gave me one thing to feel good about, at least for a little while.

24:22 You know, I'm not one for hyperbole,

24:24 but it's the only thing I could come up with.

24:26 Uh, just seeing Tao, there's mountains to the north,

24:29 you can see Capernicus, Reineer, Gama, it's just everything from the training,

24:34 but in three dimension and absolutely unbelievable.

24:37 This is incredible.

24:40 Kathy Moonjoy.

24:42 It is a moment of hope, I think.

24:45 Um that it just opens the door to possibility

24:49 and wonder and and thinking we what could

24:52 we do and and what don't we know that we might discover and how far can it go?

24:58 And there's just um so many possibilities there

25:01 and I think that that is really exciting and hopeful.

25:06 You can watch Cammy Horton's documentary for Oregon

25:09 experience about NASA's training in central Oregon,

25:13 Oregon's moon country at opb.org or find a link in our show notes.

25:20 Thank you for listening to the Evergreen,

25:22 our podcast from OPB about the place you call home.

25:27 I produced this episode and our technical director is Steven Cray.

25:31 Leila Isbel mixed and mastered the episode.

25:35 The OPB podcast team also includes Mia Estrada,

25:39 Julie Sabatier, and Sage Van Wing.

25:42 Cammy Horton did the majority of the interviews you heard,

25:45 which were filmed and recorded by Dan Evans,

25:48 Stephanie Gordon, Todd Sonfleath, and Brandon Swanson.

25:53 The interview with astronaut Harrison Jack Schmidt

25:56 was conducted and made available by NASA,

26:00 and I interviewed Rick Miller back in 2019.

26:04 While making this episode and revisiting our interview,

26:08 I was saddened to learn that Rick Miller died in 2023.

26:12 He was one of the first people I ever interviewed as an OPB host.

26:18 And I was delighted to find out that he

26:20 was a community radio host just like I once was.

26:24 He hosted the local music show Stage on Kpov in Bend.

26:30 In our short conversation, I found him to be a warm and generous person,

26:36 and I am so grateful to him and his whole family

26:40 for the gift of their story about Oregon lava on the moon.

26:46 Much of the archival footage you heard in this episode

26:50 was made available by NASA via the public domain.

26:54 You also heard news and archival clips from the National Archive and the John F.

26:59 Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

27:03 The music in this episode comes from Audio Network.

27:07 And hey, if you ever have a question for us,

27:10 especially if it's about the moon, my new favorite topic, please reach out.

27:16 Just email us at the evergreenb.org.

27:21 I'm Jen Chavez.

27:23 Catch you later.