Ewen Whitaker

Ewen A. Whitaker is a British-born (22 June 1922) astronomer who has specialized in Lunar studies since 1951. During WW2 he was engaged in quality control—by UV spectrographic analysis—of the lead sheathing of hollow cables strung under the English Channel as part of the secret Project PLUTO (Pipe Line Under The Ocean) to supply gasoline to Allied military vehicles in France. After the war he obtained a position at the Royal Greenwich Observatory working on the UV spectra of stars, but became interested in lunar studies. As a sideline, Whitaker drew and published in 1954 the first accurate chart of the South Polar area of the Moon and served as director of the Lunar Section of the British Astronomical Association.

After meeting Dr. Gerard P. Kuiper, Director of Yerkes Observatory, Wisconsin, USA, at an International Astronomical Union meeting in Dublin in 1955, he was invited to join Kuiper's fledgling Lunar Project at Yerkes to work on producing a high-quality photographic atlas of the moon. The dawn of the Space Age with the launch of the Russian Sputnik 1 soon put the Lunar Project in NASA's limelight.