Smashing success: The time NASA figured out our Moon is cratered all the way down | Moon Monday #280

The Apollo 14 Lunar Module, with its 7° tilt apparent in the picture. The onboard astronauts looked out the module’s window often to ensure it was not tipping over. Image: NASA / David HarlandFor NASA to safely land 12 astronauts on the Moon with the Apollo missions, a lot had to go right. But before it could even attempt Apollo, the agency needed to know what our Moon is like up close. Worrying about the basic nature of the lunar surface and soil may sound mundane now but it was a big unknown back then. For instance, you do not want to land astronauts on the Moon only to have the lander’s legs or even the low-hanging engine sink and potentially get stuck in soil. To ensure that astronauts could safely land on the Moon, NASA had to first map the terrain at various regions of interest at local scales, know the frequency of hazardous rocks and boulders within, and determine the physical nature of the lunar soil.The trouble was that back then a key way to capture images of our Moon was…