Playing the Moon Game
Earth Observatory Science Earth Observatory Playing the Moon Game Earth Earth Observatory Image of the Day EO Explorer Topics All Topics Atmosphere Land Heat & Radiation Life on Earth Human Dimensions Natural Events Oceans Remote Sensing Technology Snow & Ice Water More Content Collections Global Maps World of Change Articles Earth Matters Blog Blue Marble: Next Generation EO Kids Mission: Biomes About About Us Subscribe 🛜 RSS Contact Us Search September 29, 2025 In preparing to visit the Moon’s surface, soon-to-be lunar explorers in NASA’s Apollo program first ventured into a variety of unfamiliar landscapes on Earth. A couple of these trips, in the summers of 1965 and 1966, took astronauts to Alaska’s remote Katmai National Park for simulations of field geology in Moon-like environments. In one exercise, which they called “playing the Moon game,” pairs of astronauts were placed at unfamiliar field ...