In a post below, I quoted from an interview with Charlie Duke. The interview also has this comment by Charlie Duke on judging distances on the Moon:

"Was it difficult to judge distances?

It was. A real problem on the Moon was judging distances. It's like being in the high desert, western United States. You look at a mountain range, or you look at a series of rocks or features and they appear a lot closer than they are. And it's the same as on the Moon. Big objects far away look very similar to smaller objects close in. The reason is you have no objects to judge - there's no trees, no telephone poles, no people, no cars, all of these relative sizes that we know help us to judge distances. But up there you're looking at House Rock it's just a rock out there, and you don't know if it's House Rock or Table Rock, you know? A small object close in looks very similar to a big object far away. If you listen to that transcript, John tries to talk us out of going down there. 'It's a long way away.' I tried to talk him out of it. 'Oh come on, let's just go'. He was right."

URL: http://www.cix.co.uk/~sjbradshaw/bax...x_duke_iv.html

<a name="20020707.4.5"> page 20020707.4.5 aka 4.5 billion
On 2002-07-07 17:54, Maskelyne wrote: To: 6 AHAU 14 TZEC

like i said to myself somewhere else
I did watch NOVA's "to the moon" and in hind sight
I think I understand why they Chose Geology
and not Astronomy..No atmospheric Errrosion'$
Anyway what was my point in posting here
About looking down ?" {that loneSOME road}
rather than looking up and doing some real
time live made for Nightly evening ..
celistial Nav.. ofh never mind..
Crystal's Uh hU! and 4.5 billion years old
to the second. Some tail(s) my guess.. Myself thinking the mass4moon
was Placed into Orbit this Gal.orb When Goldball split into E&W the Americas from the rest? When was it again? 110 million years +/-

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HUb' on 2002-07-07 20:35 ]</font>

A personal experience: I was with a group who went out camping in the desert, just north of Ocotillo Wells, Arizona. The land is harsh and very sharp. You can find fossilized sea-shells everywhere.

At first, I couldn't "see." It was extremely difficult for me to make out the terrain. The angles, the surfaces, the textures were just too alien.

By noon, after five hours of learning, my eyes and brain had figured out the scene. I could estimate distances, and work out angles.

By evening, I was comfortable enough to go out and make my way around by dead reckoning. I could recognize landmarks, and I'd figured out directions.

Have you ever taken a city-raised kid into the piny woods? The kid can't make out anything he sees...for a time. Then it all clicks, and he's as good as at home. (And ditto for a country kid on his first visit to the big city.)

One more thought: go out and buy a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle, and start working on it. Work on it for three or four hours. Then stop, and go and do something else. You will see these queer jigsaw shapes dancing in front of your eyes. Your eyes and brain have accomodated to that "terrain."

Silas

I've noticed a similar effect when I've been playing too much of a computer game. The animations just get entrenched in my mind, and for a few minutes after playing, I get the feeling that I'm looking at one of the little units moving right in front of my eyes, but I don't actually visualize it. It's like a nonsensical pattern drawn out of normal eye data.