The Moon was mapped in Manchester

In 1958, a brilliant professor was given a big grant and a mammoth task

Good morning members — today’s story is about the Moon.

A few months ago I had lunch with the journalist Nicholas Booth, a great hack who used to be a science writer for The Observer and a technology editor on The Times and now writes acclaimed books, including a recent one called The Search for Life on Mars. Given the subject material of today’s story, it’s worth noting that he also worked for NASA as a young man. He lives in Cheshire and has been a big supporter of The Mill from the beginning.

At lunch, he told me about Zdenêk Kopal — a brilliant professor at Manchester University in the 1960s who mapped the moon and whose work was instrumental in the space race. I had never heard of Kopal but was hooked by his story, and asked Nick to write us a piece.