BuffaloBob -
This may have to be in two parts. And I did a lot of typing so hope you take the time to read.
In packing up things up here at the house getting ready to move, this weekend I came across a manila envelope addressed to my father from JPL which included the enclosed letter (which I 've retyped verbatim) and other material about the Surveyor I. My Dad worked for JPL as a test pilot for awhile which was the reason he received this letter I retyped below along with other JPL employees.
JPL
4800 Oak Crove Drive
Pasadena, California 91103
July 6, 1966
Dear Fellow JPL Employee:
It is with a great deal of pleasure that we make available as a small token of appreciation this set of photographs selected from the more than 10,000 taken by Surveyor I after it had landed safely on the lunar surface.
This historic accomplishment is a tribute to mankind in general and particularly to those many people who directly or indirectly have contributed to this result. Certainly everyone at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory falls within the latter category. Also, of course, do the people at Hughes Aircraft Company, Lewis Research Center, General Dynamics/Convair, and many other organizations and locations.
Surveyor I remains on the lunar surface - a quite unique feature compared to the rest of the lunar landscape. Someday men exploring the face of the moon will seek it out and wil recognize it as both an early pioneer in the exploration of the moon and as a monument to the society anbd the people who created it.
Very truly yours,
R.J. Parks
Surveyor Project Manager
Also enclosed were five 8" x 10" separate black and white glossy photos of the lunar surface taken by Surveyor I, six sheets (of 12 -- don't know what happened to the rest of them) of a glossy publication about the Surveyor I from the "Office of Public Information" and a 39-page book from NASA entitled -- "SURVEYOR I - A Preliminary Report" (NASA SP-126 ). I had never seen these photos or letter before and didn't know my Dad even had them.
Naturally, I thought of you when I saw the five black and white glossies enclosed as they showed a number of odd shaped formations on the lunar surface. I figured if these photos showed what looked like oddities on the lunar surface, maybe your "smokestack" photo wasn't such a stretch after all. Not to say it was actually "smoke" shown in your video, but who knows where that picture came from or exactly what it was. If these Surveyor I black and white photos showed very weird formations, well....
Some day if there is any way for you to get a P.O. Box (for your own privacy) I would be willing to send xerox copies of all of it to you. I won't put my return address as I want to keep my own privacy too. But I am quite busy right now so don't know when I could get around to it for the time being. In the meantime, you might be able to get a hold of the NASA Surveyor I publication (SP-126) just to read if you are interested. Still, you would not have the copies of the individual 8x10s sent to my Dad unless I mailed them to you. Perhaps once my moving is squared away and I've had a chance to finally catch my breath, I'll buy a scanner and can upload them here for everyone to see. Whatever.
Had it not been for all the "smokestack on the moon" threads I would probably not have given this material a second glance when I came across it here at the house. So glad to have been informed enough via reading all those threads to have stopped and really taken a good look through everything in the manila envelope -- something I probably might not have done.
Okay, have things to do around here.
