Page:A Study of Lunar Research Flights.pdf/11

 radiological contamination, only the last of which is unique to the nuclear weapon. While the present efforts have been designed to explore scientific aspects of lunar experimentation, including detonation of a nuclear weapon among other possibilities, we nevertheless have felt some obligation to consider the obstacles listed above and at least a beginning has been made in an evaluation of some aspects of the contamination problems.

A central theme, which runs through many of the projected experimental situations, envisions placing of a maximum of three identical instrument packages at arbitrary locations on the visible face of the moon prior to any possible nuclear detonation. These instrument packages would be equipped to make a variety of measurements treated in the following chapters, and, as such, only certain operations would require a nuclear detonation. The instrument packages, in general, would accumulate very valuable information on the way to the moon, while emplaced on the moon before any detonation, as well as during and after a possible nuclear detonation. The location of the instrument packages need not be pre-determined but is presumed to be known by virtue of suitable markers,

Clearly, the landing of three complex instrumentation packages on the lunar surface with “state of the art" techniques, either today or in the near future, must be considered a maximum effort. It is presumed obvious to the reader that many valuable measurements could be performed with only one instrument package, and for certain of the observations to be treated in the present work, only terrestrial observations are required. In no case have we attempted to detail the design of a suitable instrument package 3