Lowell Observatory

Victoria Girgis/Lowell Observatory



Melissa Sevigny



The expansion plans of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff include opening a new open-deck observatory, a movable-roof facility featuring six telescopes for use both by researchers and the public.

Karen Malis-Clark

This week we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing, and its unique connection to Northern Arizona…. If you were born before 1969, chances are you remember exactly where you were when announcement came that “the Eagle has landed.” Flagstaff resident Karen Malis Clark does. She was thirteen years old at the time and her father was literally a rocket scientist. He built an escape rocket for the Apollo astronauts to use if something went wrong during launch. In the last segment of our series this week, Karen Malis-Clark shares a bittersweet memory about her father and that time in history.

U.S. Geological Survey

This week we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, and its unique connection to Northern Arizona. Every astronaut who walked on the moon first came to Flagstaff to train. That’s partly because it was home to the U.S. Geological Survey’s Branch of Astrogeology, founded by geologist Gene Shoemaker. Shoemaker’s secretary, Jody Swann, remembers what it was like to work there during the heyday of Apollo…and mapmaker Ray Jordan recalls the Surveyor missions, unmanned spacecraft that went to the moon just before Apollo. They’re today’s voices in our weeklong series.