73-059 COSPAR papers

NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas 77058

FOR RELEASE: May 21, 1973

Terry White 713/483-5111

RELEASE NO: 73-59

COSPAR PAPERS

Three papers, ranging from scientific analysis of rock samples from the Moon to remote sensing of coastal land and water use on Earth, will be delivered by three Johnson Space Center scientists at the annual meeting of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) May 23 to June 6 in Konstanz, West Germany.

Dr. Friedrich Horz of the JSC Planetary and Earth Sciences Division will present a paper titled "Lunar Rocks as Micrometeoroid Detectors" in which he describes a method for estimating micrometeorite impact frequency and density by statistical analysis of microscopic craters on rock samples returned from the Moon. The information gained from the analysis will help in understanding the evolution of lunar soil materials. Co-authors with Horz on the paper are J. B. Hartung of the Max Planck Institut for Kernphysik, Heidelberg, West Germany; D. E. Brownlee, University of Washington, Seattle; and D. E. Gault of NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California.

A second paper delivered by Horz and Dr. David S. Strangway, also with the JSC Planetary and Earth Sciences Division, is titled "Long-Term Surface Exposure Experiment." The authors were responsible for the careful documentation of selected pieces of hardware left on the Moon by the Apollo 17 mission. The documentation will serve as a baseline standard for investigations of space environment effects such as micrometeoroid impacts and cosmic rays on the hardware if the Apollo 17 landing site is ever visited again, and the objects returned to Earth.

Robert O. Piland, director of the NASA Earth Resources Laboratory at Bay St. Louis, Mississippi will present a paper titled "Remote Sensing Techniques for Support of Coastal Zone Resource Management." Piland's paper describes how multispectral scanning and photography from high-altitude aircraft can be used for analyzing vegetation in inaccessible coastal marshes and waterways as a tool for fisheries, wildlife and recreational planning and management. Piland points out that unless careful planning is exercised, marshes which serve as breeding grounds for marine life and a habitat for wildlife can be destroyed or damaged as commercial development expands into these areas.

Piland asserts that a solution to the problem of optimum land use lies in the rapid, low-cost method of preparing 1:24,000-scale land-use maps derived from high-altitude imagery which classify various types of vegetation patterns in areas inaccessible by any type of survey.

Horz, Strangway and Piland will deliver their papers at the COSPAR Sixteenth Plenary Meeting.

-end- May 21, 1973