Aldrin Speaks at Moon Symposium

Col. Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., second man on the moon, tantalized a crowd of almost 300 last night with pictures and descriptions of "jelly-like glass objects," lunar soil, an unedited film of the moon-surface landing of the Apollo 14 lunar module, and a taste of what it was like to be there.

Concluding his talk with an explanation and justification of the space program as a quest for knowledge, Aldrin said. "Nations must expand and look outward. We cannot be concerned only with our welfare problems. That is what nations have characteristically done in the past. That is when they crumble and fall apart, and we can't afford to do that."

Aldrin was joined by Clifford Frondel, professor of Mineralogy: Elso S. Barghoorn, professor of Botany; and Ursula B. Marvin, staff member of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and associate of the Harvard College Observatory. The meeting was sponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe chapter of Sigma Xi, a scientific fraternity.

Aldrin narrated movies of Apollo 14 and the barren surface of the moon. The film began with the lunar landing, and then showed the two astronauts deploying scientific equipment, in between wild, floating races across the surface of the moon. These antics brought a word of explanation from Aldrin, who said. "Well you don't have to wonder where the term lunatic came from."

After the film, Aldrin spoke on astronaut training-including learning how not to fall and how to function in the diminished gravity of the moon. He also gave previews of such future space ventures as a space shuttle, which would return to earth for repeated use.

Barghoorn discussed the absence of life on the moon, and showed slides of suspected organisms which had turned out to be composed of glass or other organic substances.