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In 1910, the great polar explorer Roald Amundsen arrived in Antarctica far better prepared than anyone ever had been before. He had experienced conditions at the edge of the continent once previously, when sailing as first mate on an 1897 Belgian expedition that was poorly organized and — like so many prior expeditions to both the Arctic and Antarctic — nearly ended in tragedy. Determined to make his mark in the annals of polar exploration and to avoid the mistakes of the Belgian expedition, Amundsen spent the next decade learning how to live and work in polar conditions and how to put together an expedition that could achieve a well-defined goal. He spent time in the Arctic learning about such practical issues as suitable clothing and how to handle sled dogs from the peoples who live there. Although he was well prepared when he returned in 1910, Amundsen spent his first southern summer establishing depots for the following year's attempt at the pole and, in the process, evaluating his plans, his equipment, the members of his team, and himself. He also had with him a small library containing the available accounts of previous polar expeditions and read these repeatedly to reduce the chance that he had overlooked or misunderstood some important piece of information. As a consequence of this intense preparation, Amundsen made the trip to and from the Pole look easy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Moon's early history was one of unimaginable violence. Ripped from the Earth during a collision with a Mars-size planet 4.5 billion years ago, its childhood was not a pleasant one. After the molten mass began to cool, the surface began to chill to form a solid crust. Constant bombardment by meteors and the turbulent mixing with molten rock rising from the interior combined to create a remarkably complex, but steadily evolving early crust, which is now exposed in the lunar highlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The well-known early selenologist G.K. Gilbert strongly proposed in his 1892 landmark paper "The Moon's Face," that impact processes were the primary source of lunar craters. Using the 67-centimeter telescope at the Naval Observatory in Washington D.C. for 18 days, he had gathered evidence for the most visible craters' origins, including the widespread "rays" of ejecta that can be seen today with even a good backyard telescope. He also gathered evidence to contrast the lunar craters with large volcanic craters on Earth. (Ironically, Gilbert also concluded that Meteor Crater, now a popular tourist locale in Arizona, was formed by a volcanic eruption rather than impact.) Many decades later, on the other side of the debate, California geologist Jack Green promoted the idea that most of the large lunar craters were volcanic and similar to large volcanic collapse craters (calderas) on Earth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the decade before the Apollo expeditions, there had been an increased interest in Astrogeology (the study of the surfaces of other planets). Technically, geology is the study of the Earth, but the addition of astro was accepted, mostly because the entire Astrogeology Branch of the USGS was created to map the surface of the Moon. After the Apollo missions, the term planetology became the most common usage for the study of all planets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The driest, bleakest desert on Earth is a lush paradise when compared with the surface of the Moon. There is virtually no atmosphere, no water, and no sign of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to historian Mitchell Sharpe, the notion of a wheeled, electric-powered lunar exploration vehicle made its first literary appearance at the virtual dawn of the Automotive Age. In 1901, almost as soon as it became plausible to think about driving on the Moon, a Polish writer by the name of Jerzy Zulawski described an early ancestor of the Lunar Rover. Like all those who would follow in his footsteps, Zulawski realized that combustion engines wouldn't be practical on the airless Moon and, instead, chose to power his vehicle with an electric motor. And like most later concepts of lunar rovers, Zulawski's was a big vehicle with an enclosed cabin. His, he said, could carry a crew of five and a year's worth of supplies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

G. K. Gilbert, a well-known American geologist, suggested in 1893 that among the last major events in the Moon's history was one that formed the 1500-kilometer-(930-mile)-diameter Imbrium impact crater and its extensive ejecta blanket. This impact debris layer is considered a major boundary (a geologic "timeline") used to subdivide the history of the lunar surface and therefore was particularly interesting to the scientists of the Apollo Program. The widespread debris layer was named the Fra Mauro Formation after a region north of Fra Mauro crater, where the deposit appears to protrude above the surrounding mare lava flows. [Fra Mauro was a 15th century Italian monk, who was a renowned mapmaker of his time.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On April 20, 1967, more than 2 years before Apollo 11, the unmanned spacecraft Surveyor III landed in a crater on the plains of Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms). The craft had a stormy landing, bouncing twice because the descent rockets had not shut off. Unlike Surveyor II, which crashed into the lunar surface and was never heard from again, the robust Surveyor III had a short — but productive — life digging a trench, conducting soil mechanics tests, and sending more than 6,000 photographs back to Earth. The mission proved without a doubt that the lunar surface was firm and that the astronauts would not disappear into "quicksand," thus clearing the way for the landing of the first Apollo lunar module. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Apollo 11's lunar landing was undoubtedly one of the most memorable events of the 20th Century. The Apollo Program, created to send a man to the Moon, was the culmination of a promise made by President John Kennedy during the heat of the Cold War, but ultimately, it became the most important scientific expedition of the century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]