with stops in florida, louisiana, tennessee and south carolina. >> making 24 stops in the last 12 months, the c-span cities tour explores the history and literary life of selected american cities. next, a stop on our visit to flagstaff, arizona. this as our goal? they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? ago, fly the atlantic? why does rice play texas? we choose to go to the moon. we choose to go to the moon. [applause] >> we choose to go to the moon and do the other things, not because they are easy, because

they are hard. because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win -- and the others, too. [applause] early 1960's, president john kennedy said we want to galvanize our country to do something very bold, and it was the space race. we wanted to do something bold to beat the russians. let's beat the russians by sending humans to the moon and returning us safely before the end of the 1960's. as the country is starting to think about going to the moon, one of the questions we had was, how do you know where you are going? if you travel to a foreign country, you take a map with you to figure out where you are going.

if you cover to -- travel to a foreign world, you better have a map to you don't hit the side of a mountain or run into a crater or something like that. so it was a critical part of preparing to go to the moon. we are inside the historic clark 24 inch refracting telescope dome of lowell observatory. the observatory was established in 1894, before arizona with -- was even a state. when lowell came out here, he had grown up back east and came from a wealthy family, got interested in astronomy, and realized if he was going to build an observatory back east, it was not ideal anymore because in the 1890's, you had the proliferation of electric lights that were shining on the skies and making it more difficult to see stars and planets and such. so what he decided to do was go to the american southwest. he sent an assistant out here, andrew douglas, he tested sites around the territory, and they

chose flagstaff. flagstaff had very dark skies, elevation,a high 7000 feet. the higher the elevation, the less air you have to look through. air is like a swimming pool. when you look through a swimming pool, everything is kind of fuzzy because the water is bending that light -- air does the same thing. so the more air you look through the more distorted stars are going to look through. there are higher elevations, the dark skies, great location. you drive around flagstaff and you look up on mars hill, where lowell observatory is located, you see the dome of the telescope standing 40 feet tall, like a birthday cake on the hill. hisll decided to set observatory up here in 1894, and had this telescope built, a 24 inch diameter, 32 foot long refracting telescope. that means it uses lenses instead of mirrors to collect the light.

he built this in 1896 and it was used in mexico for about one year, then brought back here in 1897 and has been here ever since. this is really a classic instrument, classic part of scientific history, american history, cultural history, and the first evidence of the expanding nature of the universe was collected using instruments on this telescope. pluto, although it was not discovered with this telescope, it was important in that search and study after they discovered it as well. there has been a lot of great research. over the last several decades, it's not used for research anymore, but we use it for educational purposes. the last major research done with this was mapping the moon, and that was a unique thing that was done with this. it really captures our imagination, especially as we are approaching the 50th anniversary of the first manned mission to the moon.

apollo eight flew to the moon in december 1968, and neil armstrong and buzz aldrin took the first steps on the moon in 1969, july. all those astronauts and everyone who walked on the moon, everyone who traveled to the moon, trained here in flagstaff. they learned geology, tested instruments, learned about reading maps. that was something that was important and done here at the observatory with this telescope. the critical things lowell was involved with was preparing to go to the moon. otherwell was involved in ways. in 1962, the second group of astronauts were named. you had the mercury seven that flew up and did the mercury flight, just showing we could get up into space. alan shepard was the first american in space and rode for

15 minutes, came back down. in 1962, this second group came along. when they came on, gene , hemaker here in flagstaff talked to nasa and some other scientists and said, if we are going to plan to send people to the moon, we should do more than just plan the flight and come back. we should do science. what better way to learn about the origins of our planet and who we are than by studying another body in the solar system, similar to ours. kind of our partner, as it were. in january 1963, the next nine astronauts, the second group that included neil armstrong, jim lovell, frank gorman, and others, they came out here on a very cold day, flew into flagstaff airport -- they flew planes in case one crashed, not all the astronauts would have perished.

that was the thinking then. they flew in and these guys were rock stars. they were met by the mayor, they were met by cheering fans wanting autographs, but then they went to a meteor crater. if you are going to go to the moon and do geology around this pockmarked, cratered area of the moon, why not study and prepare for that in the best preserved impact crater there is, which is meteor crater, right down the road from where we are at lowell observatory. they went to meteor crater to see what an actual impact crater looks like, and then they went to lowell observatory to study the mapping and see how these features are depicted on maps. they will have to be able to read these maps and relate what they are seeing on the maps to the real features. at night, after dinner, the group broke up into three. each group went with some folks -- some of them stayed here at lowell observatory with this telescope, some went to northern arizona university and their telescope, and others went to the naval observatory's flagstaff station, located about four miles from here.

in those three groups using three different telescopes, the astronauts each looked through the telescopes to see the moon and where they would be going. in one day, they could see what an actual impact crater looks like, how impact craters are depicted on the map, and what the moon's impact craters actually look like. so the upshot is that that first trip was very successful. nasa realized the value of training the astronauts to do geology and all the future groups of astronauts that went to the moon came here to flagstaff to train. we are now out in the field, several miles from downtown flagstaff, not far from the crater, which erupted tens of thousands of years ago. the entire field is cinders from that explosion. when astronauts were training out here, they went to sunset

crater, media crater, the grand canyon and other places. but nasa wanted another place to train, something that was even more accurate for the lunar surface in terms of the craters. in 1968, the usgs, based on an image of the moon, created this crater field. they looked at this image from lunar orbiter and dug holes with depths, at different filled them with explosives to create different sized craters, and it was 400-plus craters that were made out here. they set the charges, blew it up, and it was a cataclysmic explosion of cinders blew up in the air. they took some aerial photos and realized it was really effective. it really did look like the craters on the moon in terms of not the exact geology, but the orientation of the craters and the layout and everything.

from 1968 through the end of 1972, really, the astronauts came here for training. for the earlier missions before they had the rovers, they came out here again to practice carrying their tool carriers, and describe the rocks and survey the landscape. later missions, when they developed the rovers for the last three missions, they brought those out here and practiced driving them. today, this area is protected. it has a fence around it. this is national forest service land. there is a second field that they created that is a mile away, in an open recreation area. a lot of the craters have been worn down. this one is still in nice shape 50 years after it was created, and we can see this nice crater, and you can see kind of a bit of a rim going around it from when it originally exploded. like i said, this is the largest one, and we are on the northwest corner of the field, and a lot

of other craters around here that we can see. it is kind of a neat thing, that anybody can come out here and see. our observatory was founded by an amateur, not a professional astronomer. he was a guy interested in doing astronomy and he put his money where his mouth was. the man who discovered pluto was an amateur astronomer. he grew up on a farm and at nighttime in kansas, what is there to do? he looked at the sky viewed -- the sky. he built his own telescope. at 24 years old, he discovered a planet. no other astronomers had found it, he did. so even though astronomers make great discoveries and inspire us, astronomy is not just the realm of professional astronomers, it is all of us. if you have an interest in it, you can do a lot with it. and just look up, and be excited about it.

us as the c-span cities tour takes american history on the road. we continue our travels with visits to cities in wyoming, ohio, michigan, south dakota, and many more. you can watch videos from any of our stops by going to our website. next, the u.s. capital historical society hosts an event celebrating the 1/16 congress, which started their two-year term in january. participants include nancy pelosi