The two struck up what Whitaker deemed a "lively correspondence," in which Whitaker-bearing no academic degrees-politely but confidently explained to Kuiper-a leading astronomer-how the atlas might be improved. Out of all the attendees at the conference, Whitaker was the only person to write Kuiper and express interest. At one session, Kuiper announced he was seeking feedback for a project to create a photographic lunar altas.
Whitaker began updating it in his spare time, and in 1955, he met Gerard Kuiper at an IAU conference in Dublin, Ireland. "The moon was just a dead lump of rock that everyone knows about."Īt the time, the International Astronomical Union's official moon map, published in 1935, was hand-drawn. "'That darn moon puts a light up in the sky at night so we can’t take long exposure pictures of our faint galaxies'-This was the general thought at the time," he said. He was happy to learn the technique, he told me, because, "Whooo-they use spectroscopy stars, don't they?"Īfter the war, he landed a job at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, where he found he there was ample telescope time available on nights when the moon was up. The project, coincidentally enough, was called PLUTO: PipeLines Under The Ocean.Īt Seimens, Whitaker checked the quality of pipeline samples using spectroscopy. He found a job with Seimens, where he worked on a secret project to pump fuel across the English Channel to Allied forces in France. He had hoped to attend the University of London, but during World War II, many universities were relocated to the countryside for protection, and Whitaker stayed close to home to help support his ailing mother. Whitaker simply recalled his mentality as, "Okay, same old thing, let's do it again."īorn in London in 1922, he was interested in astronomy from an early age. After the sixth Ranger spacecraft attempt failed in 1964, NASA geared up for yet another try.
Whitaker also had the grit and determination necessary to get through some of America's early space program setbacks. Can you help us at all?' So we said, 'Oh-ho-ho!'" "A delegation of three or four from came out and said, 'Hey, NASA wants us to help map the moon. The Air Force, in turn, asked Kuiper for help, and Whitaker recalled the lunar lab's interest in the opportunity-and the funding it might provide-like this: The casual, humble way in which he spoke about past events was heartwarming most of Desert Moon's laugh lines come from Whitaker.įor instance, in 1960, when Kuiper's fledgling Lunar and Planetary Lab was already at the forefront of lunar research, NASA asked the Air Force for an atlas with a coordinate grid that could be used to select potential astronaut landing sites. Whitaker was a kind, charming man with a disarming sense of British humor, and he seemed to be universally beloved by his colleagues.
MOON ATLAS KUPIER SERIES
Later, he participated in NASA robotic spacecraft missions that were sent to the moon ahead of the Apollo astronauts, including Ranger, a series of crash-landing probes that returned the first up-close pictures of the surface. Whitaker was a key part of that story.Īfter a fateful encounter with Kuiper in 1955, Whitaker helped create the Photographic Lunar Atlas, which was at the time the most comprehensive lunar image set ever published. I had the privilege of getting to know Whitaker while creating Desert Moon, a 30-minute documentary about the history of astronomer Gerard Kuiper, the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and the dawn of planetary science.
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