Dr. Eric M. Jones

Founder of The Apollo Lunar Surface Journal

Di and Eric Jones chat with Apollo 16 Lunar Module Pilot Charlie Duke in Canberra in May 2018. Photo via Mike Dinn.

Apollo enthusiasts and space historians alike will agree that The Apollo Lunar Surface Journal (ALSJ) is, by far, the most comprehensive and authoritative resource to document the lunar surface activities of the Apollo astronauts from 1969 to 1972.

The ALSJ is the brainchild of Dr. Eric Jones, who conceived the idea in the late 1980s.

Established in the early days of the public Internet, the ALSJ generated much excitement among Apollo enthusiasts, and Dr. Jones attracted a large group of volunteer contributors, though it must be said that the Journal is very much the fruit of Eric’s hard labours.

Over time, the ALSJ birthed a number of companion websites, such as The Apollo Image Gallery, The Apollo Flight Journals, and, more recently, Apollo in Real Time.

So who is Eric Jones?

In response to a request from Journal contributor Frank O’Brien, Eric shares this brief biography –

“I was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina, in 1944 and grew up in the New York suburb of Wantagh, Long Island. I received a B.S. in Astronomy from Caltech in 1966, a Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Wisconsin in 1969, and, for the next thirty years, worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on a variety of defense-related programs. My main area of expertise was in finite-difference simulations of things like atmospheric fireballs, supernova-remnant evolution, and seismic wave propagation. I worked on the dispersal of ejecta from the Cretaceous-Tertiary impact and served on a National Research Council committee which investigated the question of so-called Nuclear Winter.

In 1983, anthropologist Ben Finney and I organized a meeting called Interstellar Migration and the Human Experience and edited a proceedings of the same title which was published by the University of California. In 1984, I participated in a series of meetings on the feasibility of an early return to the Moon and the development of a lunar science base. Combining my interests in history, anthropology, and space, I began a study of terrestrial analogs to lunar settlement and, in 1986-87, took a year-long sabbatical to read economic history at the University of Melbourne and then the University of Alaska-Anchorage. By the end of the year I concluded that first half century of European settlement in Australia (1788 - 1835) is a pertinent analog because of the high cost of transport from Europe and the reliance of the private sector on import capacity provided by the prison colony. In the lunar case, a science base would play much the same economic role.

In 1988, I visited Houston to learn something about what was involved in getting work done on the Moon. I began reading the Air-to-Ground transcripts and quickly realized that nothing had been done with this amazing resource. During my earlier readings I had become a great fan of a New Zealand historian named J. C. Beaglehole, who had spent most of his long career studying the European exploration of the Pacific and, in particular, producing the definitive editions of Captain Cook’s Journals. It was not hard to imagine the Air-to-Ground transcripts forming the basis of an Apollo Journal.

At this time, Jack Schmitt was an occasional visitor to the Laboratory and, on one of his visits, I got an hour of his time to talk about the difficulty of working in the gloves and other issues. We also talked about my Journal idea and, in April 1989, we spent three days together going through part of Apollo 17 EVA-2. We had a lot of fun and decided that the Journal was worth doing. Jack wrote a letter of introduction to the other astronauts… and the rest is history.”

 

How did the ALSJ come together – and to be published on the Internet?

It has been a long term effort.

Back in January 2004 Eric wrote, (1)

“The size of the Journal is much like the thickness of the White Cliffs of Dover, which was built up out of shells of (mostly) small sea critters over millions of years. I’ve been assembling the Journal since 1989, working a few hours most days for fifteen years, with tons of input from a great team of volunteers.”

I asked him (also in January 2004) if the Journal began life as a hypertext document. He replied,

“The original idea was to publish the Journal as a four-volume set of books, each of about 800 pages. Spent a lot of time in 1994 trying to interest the major academic houses and got within a gnat’s eyelash of having Oxford do it, but they all decided in the end that the market for such a work was too small for it to be economically viable.

The Web was just starting to hit its stride about the time that Oxford decided on a No Go and friends and Los Alamos convinced me – a decidedly inexperienced techie – that it would be viable on the web. I released portions of Apollo 17 in mid-1995 on a Los Alamos server.”

The decision to publish on the Internet meant that Eric could hyperlink audio and video files, images and reference documents, to the Journal text, making it immensely more useful – and led to the NASA History Office hosting the ever-growing ALSJ.

Eric shares some of the ALSJ story in The Prologue, and in Journal Preparation and Structure. They are both well worth taking the time to read.

Eric’s ability to inspire and include a large team of contributors has been been a major key to the success of the journal.

In more recent times, he has handed the running of the ALSJ to Ken Glover in Ottawa, Canada. Eric remains Editor Emeritus.

Ken Glover with Eric at ALSJ Control in 2004. Photo by Angele Glover, via the ALSJ.

Eric and his Australian-born wife Di live in Albury on the NSW / Victoria border.

Eric and Di Jones, courtesy of the ALSJ.

Eric and Di have joined in a number of Apollo anniversary celebrations in Canberra over the years.

At an Apollo reunion in Canberra in March 2006, Eric stands with Stan Lebar, Manager of the Westinghouse Apollo Lunar Television Camera Program. He is holding the production Slow Scan Apollo TV camera (identical to the one used on Apollo 11) brought to Canberra by Stan for the event. Stuart Wattison is looking on. Screen capture from this video of the event.

Eric sits with Honeysuckle Creek Video Tech Ed von Renouard who had travelled from London for the same reunion.

In October 2005, at the IMAX Theatre in Sydney, Eric spoke about the challenges of working on the Moon as the introduction to a preview screening of the film Magnificent Desolation. My daughter, Anne, had offered to print a t-shirt for Eric, and the wording he requested shows his wonderful sense of humour. Eric wore it under his shirt, and, at the end of his presentation, unbuttoned his shirt to display the text, “Apollo was done in a TV studio … Yeah, right!” Later, the above photo of Anne and Eric, taken just after the event, was picked up by a German author and used on the cover of his “Apollo was a hoax” book. Some people just don’t get jokes. – Colin M.

Eric with Flight Director Gerry Griffin (left) and Astronaut Charlie Duke in Canberra, May 2018.

NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal

On 3rd May 2023, Eric was the recipient of the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal in recognition of his enormous contribution to Apollo history.

While Eric was unable to be at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the presentation, many around the world continue to be profoundly grateful for his work and will be glad to know of this award.

Click for a PDF file of the NASA document outlining the justification for Eric’s award. Or see below for a formatted version of the text.

Eric’s medal. Photo with thanks to Eric and Di Jones.

– Colin Mackellar.

References:

1. e-mail from Eric to Colin Mackellar, 21 January 2004.