UMD physicists Doug Currie & Carroll Alley with McDonald Observatory Dir. Harlan Smith and NASA Scientists-Astronauts (1969) (IMAGE)
Caption
Pictured (L-R) in 1969 are University of Maryland (UMD) physicist Doug Currie, Director of the University of Texas (UT) McDonald Observatory Harlan J. Smith, NASA Scientist-Astronaut Philip Chapman, UMD Professor of Physics Carroll Alley and NASA Scientist-Astronaut Don L. Lind discussing the use of the McDonald Lunar Laser Ranging Observatory (MLLRO) to send short laser pulses to the first Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) Retroreflector left on the lunar surface by the Apollo 11 astronauts. The MLLRO program was developed and initially operated by Professor Currie (then associate professor) with the support of the Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Texas. UMD's Professor Alley was the Principle Investigator of the project to place LLRs on the moon to address lunar physics, gravitation, General Relativity and Earth physics. The LLR Retroreflectors were designed and developed by a team that in addition to UMD physicists Alley and Currie, included scientists from universities and federal institutions that included Princeton University, NASA Goddard Space Craft Center, the National Bureau of Standards, Wesleyan University and the University of California. NASA's Scientist-Astronaut program trained Ph.D. scientists & engineers as astronauts.
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Doug Currie, University of Maryland
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