Abstract
In October 1959, the Soviet Luna-3 space probe made a successful flyby of the Moon, and photographed its far side. A “new Moon” was revealed, that had never been seen from the ground. Feeling like the ancient explorers, the Soviet Academicians decided to give names to a number of features appearing on the Luna-3 photographs. This created a tension with the IAU, which had fixed a centuries-old tradition for naming lunar features in 1935, and thus expected to be consulted. Nevertheless, it was difficult not to recognize the importance of the Luna-3 achievement, and the first names on the far side of the Moon were approved at the IAU General Assembly in Berkeley in 1961.
The Kennedy 1961 declaration for “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth” before 1970 started a peaceful, yet fierce competition between the two “superpowers”, soon to be called “the Moon race”. Increasingly fine details of the lunar surface were expected to be revealed, calling for a greater need for names, and the IAU created in 1964 an ad hoc “Working Group on Lunar Nomenclature”, which included Soviet and American astronomers. The problem was the deadline set by Kennedy, which made some key decisions urgent, even overriding the established IAU procedures.
Seen from the outside, the Working Group was successful: in 1970, a list of over 500 crater names of the far side was approved at the Brighton General Assembly; in 1973, a Resolution re-defining the criteria for lunar nomenclature for the whole Moon was approved at the Sydney General Assembly. However, behind the scenes, and as told in this chapter on the basis of IAU archives, bitter conflicts arose, which brought the Working Group on the verge of breakdown. It appears that NASA played a decisive role for its recovery. With the Moon race over, the Working Group was then disbanded, to give way to a new, global Working Group on “Planetary System Nomenclature” (WGPSN), including the Moon, which is still very active today.
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Notes
- 1.
Burchett and Purdy (1961), p. 60.
- 2.
The full title was: “Collated List of Lunar Formations Named or Lettered in the Maps of Neison, Schmidt, and Mädler Compiled and Annotated for the Committee,” by Mary A. Blagg, Samuel Arthur Saunder (1913) (Blagg & Saunder, 1913).
- 3.
Somewhat surprisingly in retrospect, the Blagg & Müller publication of 1935 was not subject to a Resolution in Paris recommending its use: the only Resolution alluding to it was a Resolution submitted by Commission 17 and voted at the previous General Assembly (Cambridge, USA, 1932), recommending “that the list of lunar formations and the list of revisions of the Collated List of Miss Blagg be printed, and that a sum of 5000 gold francs be allocated for this work.” (Transactions IAU vol. IV, https://www.iau.org/static/resolutions/IAU1932_French.pdf).
- 4.
Returning to 1919 basics, in 1964 Commission 17 was reorganized to gather all of lunar science under the name “The Moon,” while Commission 16 continued to be in charge of “Planets and Satellites,” except the Moon.
- 5.
This Committee is a “search committee” looking for possible names to be proposed as members of future Executive Committees.
- 6.
By an irony of nature, this feature, seen lighter than its surroundings on Luna-3 photographs, was later found to correspond only to a flat terrain which appeared to be darker, so this “political” name was quietly dropped. See below, Sect. 13.5.
- 7.
Transactions IAU, vol. XI B (https://www.iau.org/static/resolutions/IAU1961_French.pdf).
- 8.
In italics in the original (roman) text.
- 9.
This is called the “Mädler” nomenclature system (Beer & Mädler, 1837), to which we shall return at length below. It was the one used by Blagg & Müller.
- 10.
On the conflict with the United Nations about “Extraterrestrial Names” in the period 1971-1982, see Chap. 16 by TM in this volume.
- 11.
- 12.
- 13.
https://www.history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_18-16_Apollo_Program_Budget_Appropriations.htm; for the USSR, see the CIA document, released on Sep. 29, 2006: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP66B00403R000400080002-6.pdf.
- 14.
- 15.
- 16.
- 17.
Luna-12, also launched in 1966, had a TV camera, but only 4 photographs were published.
- 18.
An expression used by C. de Jager, who was IAU General Secretary in the years 1970–1973: letter of Sep. 15, 1972 to D. Menzel, IAU archives; see Chap. 16.
- 19.
See Chap. 16 for discussion on alternate nomenclature systems proposed by the UN Working Group on Extraterrestrial names.
- 20.
For more details, see Menzel’s Obituary by Goldberg and Aller (1991).
- 21.
- 22.
Transactions IAU Vol. XIII B, pp. 341–374.
- 23.
- 24.
Unless otherwise mentioned, in what follows all the letters or excerpts between quotes are from the IAU archives. For this particular topic (the Moon), these archives were carefully maintained by Dollfus himself at the Paris Observatory and later transferred to the nearby IAU Secretariat at the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris (“the Dollfus Files”). As far as one can judge, they are essentially complete for the periods corresponding to his mandates as President of Commission 16, then Vice-President and President of Commission 17, i.e., covering without interruption the period 1958-1973 !. They thus provide a unique testimony of the backstage of the work of these Commissions during that critical period.
- 25.
Gagarin was killed in a jet fighter accident on March 17, 1968, i.e., only a few months before the Apollo-8 flight.
- 26.
Found in the IAU archives.
- 27.
- 28.
For some reason, the official letter kept in the IAU archives does not mention the exact date.
- 29.
Here Paine quotes the names of the Apollo-8, -10, and -11 astronauts.
- 30.
This is here the committee of American astronomers in charge of the relations with the IAU. Each country has a similar committee, which is renewed every triennium.
- 31.
Perhaps surprisingly, Paine does not mention Gagarin, but it may be because Gagarin’s death did not happen while he was a cosmonaut on duty (see Note 25), contrary to Komarov.
- 32.
Letter of D. Menzel to Commission 17 in December 1969, commented in Chap. 16; see also below. It may also be simply because Mikhailov had reached an old age (he was 81 at the time).
- 33.
Luna-15 crashed in Mare Crisium (the Sea of Crises!), about 500 km NE of the Apollo-11 landing site (http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/profile.cfm?MCode=Luna_15).
- 34.
Actually, 1969 was a very bad year for the Soviet lunar program: out of 10 spacecrafts planned, eight were lost due to launch or Earth orbit failures, and Luna-15 crashed on the Moon. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lunar_probes#1968-1970). Only the Zond-7 circumlunar flyby of Aug. 11 that year was successful.
- 35.
Issue dated Monday, December 1, 1969. Article by Harry Schwartz, entitled: “President Nixon’s Opportunity to Bridge the ‘Lunar Gap’”.
- 36.
A perhaps optimistic statement, even though Nixon was starting to withdraw 150,000 troops from the maximum of 450,000 that were present in Vietnam that year.
- 37.
The important exception was China, which until 1971 when the “People’s Republic of China” was admitted to the UN, was officially the “Republic of China” of 1912, reduced to the island of Taiwan after 1949. But four Chinese names, presumably suggested by Taiwanese astronomers, were added to the one given after the 1959 Luna-3 flyby, Tsu Chung-Chi; see above, Sect. 13.1 and Fig. 13.2.
- 38.
Her biography can be found at https://baas.aas.org/pub/barbara-bell-1922-2017/release/1?collectionSlug=6ixhl5lq.
- 39.
The final list of 513 names was published separately after the Brighton GA in 1970 (Menzel et al., 1971). It includes names of science-fiction writers such as Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–1655), next to the Gagarin crater, and H.G. Wells. Jules Verne had already been assigned a crater after Luna-3 (Fig. 13.3). Recall that Menzel was a science-fiction writer himself…
- 40.
The first woman in space. Her flight had started on June 16, 1963, and lasted 70 hours and 43 minutes. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentina_Tereshkova).
- 41.
Op. cit. (Note 39).
- 42.
The two other WGs were: WG2 “Shape and Motion of the Moon” and WG3 “Geology and geophysics of the Moon.”
- 43.
COSPAR (the “Committee on Space Research”) had been established by ICSU in 1958 in London, following the launch of Sputnik-1.
- 44.
Barbara Bell, already mentioned, who worked with D. Menzel at Harvard College Observatory, had obtained a PhD (Harvard, 1951); Welsh-born Barbara Middlehurst had earned a masters degree (Cambridge, UK, 1947), and at the time worked with G. Kuiper in Tuscon. Both appear to have never married.
- 45.
Transactions Vol. XV B (1974), p.203. IUCM, which was active until 1976, comprised scientists from geophysics (IUGG), geology (IUGS), radio science (URSI), and COSPAR.
- 46.
Op. cit. (Note 27).
- 47.
1922–2016. Author of the reference book “Mapping and Naming the Moon” (Whitaker, 1999).
- 48.
A detailed account of this episode, which lasted ten years and led to a major crisis between the IAU and the UN, is given in Chap. 16. However, it will play an important role here and be mentioned several times.
- 49.
For a detailed history of lunar mapping and nomenclature, see Whitaker (1999).
- 50.
Actually, the far side list did already include the Luna-3 names of non-scientists, approved in 1961 (see Note 39).
- 51.
This scale corresponds to regional road maps (1 cm for 2.5 km), like the British OS maps, the French Michelin Road Atlas, etc. These maps are usually identified by some geographical name, in addition to the cartographer’s reference number.
- 52.
See the Lunar Chart Series: https://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/mapcatalog/LAC/.
- 53.
The copy kept in the IAU archives mention March “5,” but this must be a typo, since that date preceded the Houston meeting. It could not be on the 15th either, since Dollfus mentions a letter from Kuiper received on March 17. Since no month has 35 days, the true date must be March 25.
- 54.
Unfortunately, Menzel did not record the attendees, but the minutes were sent to Levin, Masursky, Dollfus, Anders (WG), de Jager, Strömgren (IAU), Dyer, Goldberg (NAS), Heeschen, Hinners (USNC), Col. Strickland and G. Kuiper.
- 55.
All the Resolutions of the 1973 General Assembly in Sydney can be found in: https://www.iau.org/static/resolutions/IAU1973_French.pdf (actually in both French and English). The Commission 17 Nomenclature Resolution, as well as other Resolutions on Moon research, can also be found, with more details, in its report (Transactions Vol. XV B, 1974, pp. 109–115).
- 56.
Ironically, with the “unauthorized” first naming of features on the far side of the Moon following the successful Luna-3 flyby, the Soviets were the ones who had invented the first steps in that direction.
- 57.
- 58.
- 59.
Strictly speaking they are not quite comparable: the car-sized Lunokhod-2 weighed 840 kg, whereas the Yutu series have a length of 1.5 m and weigh 140 kg, a bit less than the Martian rovers.
- 60.
See the IAU Press Release: https://www.iau.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iau1901/.
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Acknowledgments
It is a pleasure to acknowledge the assistance of Mme Ginette Rude, Archivist at the IAU Secretariat in Paris until 2016, who directed my attention to the Dollfus Files and triggered my interest in this episode of the history of the IAU. I am also deeply indebted to Ms. Ariane Dollfus-Babinet for interesting correspondence about her father Audouin Dollfus, and for permission to show one of the pictures she sent me of his balloon flights (see Fig. 13.7).
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Montmerle, T. (2022). From Luna-3 to Apollo: The IAU and the “New Moon”. In: Montmerle, T., Fauque, D. (eds) Astronomers as Diplomats. Historical & Cultural Astronomy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98625-4_13
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