The sculpting of the landscape began in July 1967, with a series of carefully timed and very precisely located explosions.

NASA/USGS

In the first round alone, this required 312.5 pounds of dynamite and 13,492 pounds of fertilizer mixed with fuel oil.

NASA/USGS

NASA/USGS

At the end of a four-day period of controlled explosions, USGS scientists had succeeded in creating a 500 square foot "simulated lunar environment" in Northern Arizona--forty-seven craters of between five and forty feet in diameter designed to duplicate at a 1:1 scale a specific location (and future Apollo 11 landing site) on the moon, in a region called the Mare Tranquillitatis.

Sadly, the craters today are very much reduced both in scale and in perceptibility.

Indeed, at a certain point nearly every dent and divot in the landscape began to seem like it might also be part of this monumental project of planetary simulation, a possible detail in the stage-set used to rehearse hopeful astronauts.

This pronounced fading of the craters is due to at least two things.

One factor, of course, is simply long-term weathering and exposure in the absence of any plans for the historic preservation of the site.

As we'll discuss in a future post in relation to another of Venue's visits -- specifically, to see the so-called "Mars Yard" at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena -- these sites of offworld simulation are intellectually thrilling but also integral parts of the U.S. national space project.

That these locations--works of scientific utility, not art--can be discarded so easily is a shame, although exactly how, and under what departmental authority, they would be preserved is a thorny question.

Of course, all questions of budget or federal jurisdiction aside, an Offworld Landscapes National Park or National Monument is an incredible thing to contemplate.

A National Park--or, why not, a UNESCO Offworld Heritage Site--that consists only and entirely of landscapes designed to simulate other planets!

In any case, the other major factor in the craters' gradual disappearance is Cinder Lake's current recreational status as a place for off-road vehicles of a much more terrestrial kind.

Indeed, for much of the two hours or so that Venue spent out on the volcanic field--where walking is very slow, at best, as you sink ankle-deep into tiny pieces of black gravel that make a sound remarkably like dipping a spoon into dry Ovaltine--distant bikes, buggies, and trucks kicked up dust clouds, giving the landscape a distinct and quite literal holiday buzz.