Oregon’s Moon Country

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MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, September 4th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a landscape that seems truly out of this world.

Central Oregon’s lava fields stretch for miles. Barren rock left behind by ancient volcanic eruptions, with active volcanoes watched today. At first glance, it’s easy to mistake the scene for the surface of the moon.

BROWN: And that’s why NASA is using those fields to prepare for its next giant leap. Here’s WORLD’s Mary Muncy.

MARY MUNCY: Astronaut Walter Cunningham could barely see through his foggy facemask. As he tripped over jagged black rock, his glove tore open. Perhaps not life or death here, but he was training for a mission where it would be. The lesson: if he couldn’t survive Oregon lava fields, he wouldn’t survive on the moon.

OREGON PUBLIC BROADCASTING: Scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration consider Oregon “Moon Country” an ideal area for testing the astronauts maneuverability on lava surfaces.

In 1964, scientists weren’t exactly sure what the moon was made of, but they suspected lots of volcanic rock and ash and before sending probes, they didn’t know whether they’d land on solid ground or sink into dust. NASA searched for a terrestrial training location that might approximate the lunar surface. They settled on central Oregon.

KGW NEWS: Attune your eyes to variations in the surface of the lava.

In this archival video, scientists and astronauts are on top of a volcano.

KGW NEWS: When you’re seven miles up and just about ready to tilt the nose of that thing down and land, why you’ll be looking for some soft, easy country to land on.

Closer to the surface they practiced picking up rocks with their big gloves.

VANESSA IVEY: You need to know how to use this equipment, right?

Vanessa Ivey is the museum manager for the Deschutes County History Society.

IVEY: You don't want to get up to the moon, and this is the first time you're experimenting with it.

34 astronauts, including the Apollo 11 crew, trained on the lava fields.

IVEY: It's one thing to sit in a classroom and learn about the geology of an area and learn about the geology of what you might find. It's another thing to be in person, looking at these rocks, touching these rocks, seeing what they feel like.

It was hot, and sometimes frustrating. But five years later it all paid off...

ABC: Very very fine grain as you get close to it. It’s almost like a powder down there. It’s very fine… that’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

After returning to Earth, the astronauts told a newspaper that the moon’s surface really was similar to the Oregon lava fields, so NASA still uses them as a testing ground today.

If you look at pictures of the lava flows from the 1960s to now, it’s hard to spot any differences. But there are signs that life is slowly taking root.

SANDY PERLMUTTER: It's not exactly, you know, healthy soil to grow—nutrient-rich or anything.

Tourists Sandy and Neil Perlmutter are walking through a lava field near Bend. Towering pieces of black rock flank the trail.

It’s practically silent—no birds, or rustling trees—but here and there, a few bushes and saplings push through cracks.

PERLMUTTER: I just like the resilience of all these plants that are growing up and, you know, nothingness, you know.

NEIL: And even that a few animals can survive in this environment. That's pretty amazing, too.

The Newberry National Volcanic Monument visitor center is at the bottom of the lava flow. Bob Burpee is a ranger there.

BOB BURPEE: Either a bird or the wind had dropped seed and then there was enough moisture and enough nutriment for that tree, as an example, to grow right out of the lava flow.

Usually there’s not enough soil for anything to survive, but as plants grow and die, and more soil is blown in, it creates more space for life, even though the process is very, very slow. And the lava flow created other things.

BURPEE: It created the two water falls. It created a class three white water. People can, you know, run the white water. Created the little lava island. It created the great meadow and sun ruler. So it creates a lot of things, but it covers up, you know, a lot. It does provide for animal life, some animal life. But other than that, it's pretty I mean, it's dead, you know, it's not alive.

Meanwhile, scientists are watching the Pacific Northwest for the next eruption.

WEISS-RACINE: More than likely, all of them are going to erupt eventually.

Volcanologist Holly Weiss-Racine studies the Cascades. There are 13 active volcanoes there.

WEISS-RACINE: It's just a matter of which one and when, and we have to be monitoring them in order to to know and have that heads up.

This summer, Racine and her colleagues watched the biggest earthquake swarm they’d ever seen on Mount Rainier.

WEISS-RACINE: There were about 1300 earthquakes that we had enough data to locate, and there were over 10,000 very tiny earthquakes that were. Too small to be located.

She says the swarm was probably due to hot water moving under the volcano. If it had been magma, the quakes would have been stronger and more alarming.

WEISS-RACINE: We would see weeks to months of strong indication that the volcano was waking up before an eruption occurred, and we're not seeing any of that.

The volcano has since calmed down. Racine says the Cascades are high risk because they’re close to civilization.

BILL HOESCH: I think God is sovereign when it comes to volcanoes.

Bill Hoesch directs the Mount St. Helens Creation Center.

He says recovery varies. Sometimes a lava field can look brand new after centuries, another may be green within decades.

HOESCH: In places, and around the Pacific Rim, you live with that potential. That's just the way it is. People build up, and later on, it gets knocked down.

And besides, another eruption could mean more testing ground for crews heading back to the moon and potentially on to Mars.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

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