Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Chapter 1 The Importance of the Moon
- Chapter 2 First Steps
- Chapter 3 Moon/Mars
- Chapter 4 An International Flotilla
- Chapter 5 The Moon Rises from the Ashes
- Chapter 6 Moons Past
- Chapter 7 The Pull of the Far Side
- Chapter 8 Water in a Land of False Seas
- Chapter 9 Inconstant Moon
- Chapter 10 Moonlighting
- Chapter 11 Lunar Living Room
- Chapter 12 Lunar Power
- Chapter 13 Stepping Stone
- Chapter 14 Return to Earth
- Glossary
- Appendix A Von Braun et al. Space and Lunar Exploration Issues
- Appendix B Topics in Transient Phenomena on the Moon
- Index
- References
Chapter 11 - Lunar Living Room
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Chapter 1 The Importance of the Moon
- Chapter 2 First Steps
- Chapter 3 Moon/Mars
- Chapter 4 An International Flotilla
- Chapter 5 The Moon Rises from the Ashes
- Chapter 6 Moons Past
- Chapter 7 The Pull of the Far Side
- Chapter 8 Water in a Land of False Seas
- Chapter 9 Inconstant Moon
- Chapter 10 Moonlighting
- Chapter 11 Lunar Living Room
- Chapter 12 Lunar Power
- Chapter 13 Stepping Stone
- Chapter 14 Return to Earth
- Glossary
- Appendix A Von Braun et al. Space and Lunar Exploration Issues
- Appendix B Topics in Transient Phenomena on the Moon
- Index
- References
Summary
lunarian n.: An inhabitant of the Moon, as distinguished from Lunatic, one whom the Moon inhabits. The Lunarians have been described by Lucian, Locke and other observers, but without much agreement. For example, Bragellos avers their anatomical identity with Man, but Professor Newcomb says they are more like the hill tribes of Vermont.
– Ambrose Bierce, 1911, The Devil’s Dictionary: A Cynical View of the WorldDespite Ambrose Bierce’s sardonic treatment, the real Professor Simon Newcomb did not think much of possible lunarians. Newcomb was Bierce’s elder contemporary, a foremost American astronomer (founding president of the American Astronomical Society) and noted author on lunar motion. In 1870 he visited Europe and found a theory running rampant allowing for possibly habitable conditions on the Far Side of the Moon. He effectively crushed it.
In 1824 Franz von Paula Gruithuisen published observations of what he saw as buildings, streets, and other structures of a massive city in jumbled terrain north of crater Schröter (Figure 11.1). Despite his campaign to show other scientists these structures, few were convinced. Gruithuisen wrote more about the Moon; he is credited with first realizing that lunar craters formed largely via impacts with other objects orbiting the Sun, more than a century before Eugene Shoemaker showed it.
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- Information
- The New MoonWater, Exploration, and Future Habitation, pp. 331 - 367Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014