Eugene M. Shoemaker - What Did He Really Know?

But a philosophic issue is a philosophic issue whether it is discussed by a philosopher or by a physicist.
Ernan McMullin, American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol.18, No.3, July 1981, p. 177-189

It was while the Oracle of Ottawa was on one of his very frequent book crawls that I came across a book from my distant youth entitled "Mans Conquest of Space" by William R. Shelton, published in 1974 by the National Geographic Society, The Revised Edition. It was complete with the dust jacket with a pristine interior. All the color photos as bright and glossy as I remembered them. I of course immediately scooped it up for old times sake and at a cost of a mere 99 cents I couldn't go wrong.

Back in the heady and exciting days of the Apollo Moon Program I couldn't get enough of these beautiful picture books. They were at the school library's and even the public library. The only problem of course by the time I got to read it, the cover was damn near off, and the pages were not so bright any more.

Now deep into an early retirement, my interest has turned to cosmology of all the stupid things that a grown man could possibly be interested in. Recently I was quiet surprised that you just can not find the complete very high resolution photographs that were taken by the Lunar Orbiter 5 mission of 1967. The resolution was claimed to be awesome, two meters! And there there were 683 hi res photos from the mission. I was hoping that they were declassified by now and that I could conduct my own anomaly search. The mosiacs exist but the individual hi res, I can't find them. Why do you think that is Dear Reader?

I think I found the answer while enjoying my fresh copy of Mans Conquest of Space... On page 65 there is a beauty color picture of Eugene M. Shoemaker standing at a table looking at a fresh long strip of the awesome hi res photos from the Lunar Orbiter.  And the look on his face is pure and classic WTF?? You have to see it for yourself. I tried to dig up the picture on Google images but to no avail. 

Once you see this picture you will immediately realize that perhaps those rumors of the very many weird and strange things were found on those hi res Orbiter images. Especially from Orbiter 5 which focused on the far side of the moon... are quiet possibly true after all.

E. M. Shoemaker was the first real astro geologist. He trained the astronauts what to look for, of that I found a great tribute picture of him which I have included in this post. After some intensive searching at the University of You Tube I was even lucky enough to find ancient footage of him discussing his profession. He was one of the Best and the Brightest of his time. I could go on about the very weird pictures on page 122 and 123 of the same book, I know there are linear rilles, but through the craters?