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Retired UMass Amherst Professor Had 'Ringside Seat' For Apollo 11's Moon Mission

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, lunar module pilot, stands on the surface of the moon near the leg of the lunar module, Eagle, during the Apollo 11 moonwalk. Astronaut Neil Armstrong, mission commander, took this photograph with a 70mm lunar surface camera.
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NASA

The success of the Apollo 11 moon landing 50 years ago Saturday was the result of years of advance planning and some seat-of-the-pants decision-making.

 A participant in the planning, and decision-making, was Don Wise, an emeritus professor of geosciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.   An expert on how the moon was formed, Wise, in 1969, was deputy director and chief scientist on the Manned Apollo Landing team at NASA.

One of his key responsibilities was to give advice to the astronauts about safe landing spots on the moon.

WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill spoke this week with Wise.

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.
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