73-009 College student assisting NASA scientist with lunar photography, samples
NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas 77058
FOR RELEASE: January 22, 1973
Dennis Williams 713/483-5111
RELEASE NO: 73-09
COLLEGE STUDENT ASSISTING NASA SCIENTIST WITH LUNAR PHOTOGRAPHY, SAMPLES
Just as the weather in Houston took a turn for the worse, Dean B. Eppler, 20, a college junior from Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, arrived at the Manned Spacecraft Center to begin a two-month assignment assisting with investigations of lunar samples and photographs.
Dean arrived January 7, "and I immediately got blamed for the rotten weather -- every time it rained or got windy or snowed, they blamed me, "he laments. Houston had two inches of snow and the coldest weather in several years during Dean's first week here.
A geology student at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, Dean says he has always been interested in astrogeology, primarily because of the Apollo program. But he considers his temporary appointment to be the result of unusual good fortune.
"In the middle of last February I had this rather precocious idea and asked my department head if he knew anybody at Houston," Dean recalls. He felt he could learn more about lunar geology through direct contact with the materials and personnel available at the Manned Spacecraft Center.
As it turned out, William Romey, head of the geology department at St. Lawrence, had met NASA geology branch chief William Phinney at a scientific conference.
Dr. Phinney was looking for someone to assist Dr. Grant Heiken, a principal investigator of lunar orbital photography. Dean's interest, enthusiasm and previous experience all made him seem a logical choice.
"I fully intended to blow the better part of my life's fortune to come down here," he remembers.
Looking at detailed lunar photographs, Dean says, "appears to be a no-work kind of thing, because you just sit and stare at a photograph." But hours of analysis, he hopes, may lead him to a better understanding of crater chains.
In many places on the surface of the Moon, craters appear to line up in chains, but it is difficult to determine whether a series of craters is "a real crater chain or just a synthetic one" produced by coincidental events, Dean says.
"Some of the crater chains are pretty obviously formed by secondary impacts, "from the boulders splashed in a stream when a large meteorite struck the Moon, while other chains, Dean notes, are almost certainly volcanic in origin.
Dr. Heiken and Dean hope to put together a paper this spring on the varieties of crater chains and their origins.
In addition to viewing the photographs from Apollo 15, 16 and 17, Dean is also assisting with preliminary investigation of some of the Apollo 17 soil samples.
During his first week at the Manned Spacecraft Center, Dean spent part of his time as an observer in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory, where the Apollo 17 samples are being processed.
Dean says his undergraduate training came in handy when a discussion arose concerning some very small crystals in a lunar sample. Dean suggested an identification that some of the more experienced scientists had overlooked.
"There are certain things that I know now that the others knew as undergraduates, but they have moved further on. It's a little fresher in my mind," he explains.
Since coming to the Manned Spacecraft Center, Dean has been overwhelmed by the amount of material made available to him. Attending a small college, he found it difficult to find highly specialized journals and almost impossible to obtain detailed lunar photographs.
But now everyone hands him piles of photographs and papers. "This is stuff I've wanted to look at for years and years, "he exclaims.
During his spare time, Dean is catching up on the reading that he never has time for during the school year. He's also catching up on his correspondence.
"Since I can't pick up a phone and call anybody, I'm writing letters for the first time since I was a freshman," Dean says.
To keep in shape, Dean walks everywhere and runs about 3 miles a day: "I have a course -- I don't even know the names of the roads yet -- around by Clear Lake."
After he completes his degree, Dean expects to attend graduate school, and he may take some time to look at colleges in the Houston area, particularly the University of Houston" he says. But he adds "my work takes 100 per cent precedence" over investigating possible graduate schools.
Dean arrived January 7, and will be staying until about March 5. He is living at the Portofino Harbor House on Clear Lake, a few blocks from the Center.
Dean's brother, Duane T. Eppler, is working on a master's thesis on glacial geology at Syracuse University. His parents are Thomas W. Eppler, an office manager for A. B. Murray in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Svea Eppler, a school nurse in Berkeley Heights. They live at 99 Briarwood Drive East, Berkeley Heights, New Jersey.
- end - NASA--MSC January 19, 1973