Engineer special study of the surface of the moon - Lunar Rays by HACKMAN, Robert & MASON, Arnold - 1960

Washington, D.C.: Army Map Service, Corps of Engineers, 1960. 1st Edition. No Binding. Very Good. 1st Edition. No Binding. 1 folding map, 1440 x 975 mm, image size 1275 x 940 mm. Light yellowing of paper, some paper thinness on old folds, but generally in a very good condition. ---- VERY RARE FIRST EDITION. The Army Corps of Engineers published the first edition of Arnold Mason and Robert Hackman's four-sheet Engineer Special Study of the Surface of the Moon map set in July 1960. The USGS published a second edition with "minor revisions" in 1961. "Even after the creation of NASA, the Army and USAF studied lunar surface bases ... The USAF also began lunar mapping using Earth-based telescopes. The first attempt to map lunar features for scientific and engineering purposes did not, however, originate within the Defense Department. It was begun instead by Arnold Mason of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Military Geology Branch in Washington, DC. ... Early in 1959 - soon after Luna 1 - Mason proposed to carry out an analysis of the moon's terrains to determine their suitability for spacecraft landings, travel on foot and by rover, and base construction ... he enlisted Robert Hackman and Annabel Brown Olson of the USGS Photogeology Branch in his project ... At first, they had available only meager USGS funds. Soon after Luna 2 and Luna 3, however, the Army Corps of Engineers funded their study ... They based their analysis on photographic plates from large telescopes on Earth, which under the best viewing conditions could (they estimated) reveal features on the moon no smaller than about a mile across. In fact, features 10 miles wide were barely discernible in most of the photographic images they used. Their work soon drew in as consultants lunar experts Gerard Kuiper (McDonald Observatory), Eugene Shoemaker (USGS Menlo Park), and Robert Dietz (Naval Electronics Laboratory). All three supported the impact hypothesis, which stated that most of the moon's craters are asteroid impact scars; not, as some believed, volcanic calderas. At the time, planetary astronomer Kuiper was hard at work on a USAF-funded lunar photographic atlas; Mason and Hackman would use it near the end of their study. Shoemaker, meanwhile, was busy refining a prototype lunar geologic map of the region containing the large, relatively young crater Copernicus; Hackman would later assist him with identification of lineaments in the Copernicus region. In this sheet 2 of the "Engineer Special Study," titled "Lunar Rays," Mason and Hackman plotted the source craters and extent of the moon's most prominent ray systems ... They correctly identified the light-hued rays as ejecta blasted out from young asteroid impact craters." (Online Source: USGS Astrogeologic Science Center, 1961: USGS Astrogeology's First Published Map).