Davies (crater)

Davies is a crater on Mars located at 46°N 0°E on the fringe of Acidalia Planitia near Arabia Terra. It is approximately 47 km in diameter.

Davies crater was named in honor of Merton Davies (1917-2001), a pioneer in the cartography of planetary bodies. An employee of the Rand Corporation, he assisted NASA in mapping Mars with colleagues Gérard de Vaucouleurs and Harold Masursky and defined the prime meridian of Mars as passing through the crater Airy-0. Davies crater lies on the prime meridian, appropriate because Davies was principally responsible for its delineation.

MERTON E. DAVIES: Eulogy by M. Randel Davies

“Space is intrinsically remote and impersonal. Yet the interaction of the human mind and spirit with space can be intensely personal and intimate and truly constitutes a unique aspect of the twentieth-century human experience.”

Merton E. Davies, one of the first and most enduring of the space pioneers, died in Santa Monica, California on April 17, 2001. Davies, 83, was perhaps the world’s foremost planetary photogrammetrist during a career that spanned from the earliest orbiters through voyages to the Moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury, and the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn. Together with his colleagues, Davies mapped the planets of the solar system, compiling an extensive body of work for future generations of space explorers.

Davies was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on September 13, 1917, the youngest of three children. At an early age, he moved to Palo Alto, California, and ultimately graduated from Stanford University in 1938. He briefly taught mathematics at the University of Nevada, and enrolled in an Army Air corps pilots training program where he obtained his civilian pilot's license. In 1940, he drove to Southern California to join the burgeoning aerospace industry as an engineer with Douglas Aircraft. While residing in Santa Monica, he met his lifelong companion and wife, Louise. He was an avid beachgoer and volleyball player, and since he was 6’7” tall, everyone wanted him on their side.

At the conclusion of World War II, Davies was transferred to the Research and Development [RAND] Project in Santa Monica (which became Rand Corporation), a new “think tank” organized to study missiles and satellites, and to provide the United States military with other hi-tech capabilities. Although some of his early work at Rand apparently remains top secret, he was one of the original scientists that conceived space reconnaissance and is credited with designing one of the first space cameras. He and Louise produced three children, Deidra, Albert and Randel, and built a suburban home in the Pacific Palisades in which to raise them. They spent three wonderful summers driving across the country with the family in a house trailer.

In 1958, Davies served as an expert on the U.S. delegation to the Surprise Attack Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. From 1959-62, Davies was assigned to Washington D.C. and worked at the Pentagon for Air Force Intelligence, leading a project that conducted imagery analysis of Soviet weapon systems using U-2 and the Corona satellite photographs. Davies was deeply involved in our country's top secret reconnaissance programs, assisting the director of the National Reconnaissance Office set mission priorities. While he was at the Pentagon, fighting the Cold War against the Russians, the family lived in Alexandria, Virginia, and enjoyed swimming in summer and sledding in winter.

With the advent of a civilian space program, Davies decided to make a major career change, from Cold War reconnaissance to planetary exploration. He adapted his photogrammetric techniques used for observing Earth from space, into the new field of planetary photogrammetry – the mapping of the planets of the solar system using deep space photographs. For over 30 years, Davies served on the Imaging Science Teams appointed by NASA/JPL for most of the major unmanned space missions, including the Mariner 6 and 7 Missions to Mars, the Mariner 9 Mission to Mars, the Mariner 10 Mission to Venus and Mercury, the Voyager Missions to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, the Galileo Mission to Jupiter, the Clementine Mission to the Moon, the Mars Global Surveyor Mission and the Synthetic Aperture Radar Mission to Venus.

Mert Davies published over 50 articles for leading scientific journals, and authored three books: The View from Space – Photographic Exploration of the Planets (which is quoted above and was co-authored by Bruce C. Murray, former Director of JPL); Atlas of Mercury; and RAND's Role in the Evolution of Balloon and Satellite Observation Systems and Related U.S. Space Technology. He invented the photogrammetric control point technique that provided the basic framework for all planetary surface mapping and coordinates systems. He led establishment of the published geodetic control networks of the planets Mercury, Venus and Mars, the satellites Moon, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Iapetus, Miranda, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, Triton, and the asteroids Ida and Gaspra. He received many awards, including the prestigious George W. Goddard Award for his achievements in photo reconnaissance, and was elected a Fellow by the American Geophysical Union for acknowledged eminence in geophysics. In 2000, the National Reconnaissance Office acknowledged Davies as one of its 10 Founders of national reconnaissance. He served on the International Astronomical Union's nomenclature task force that named many of the satellites of Jupiter and the craters and features of Mercury, Mars and Venus, and he frequently traveled for meetings and to deliver lectures for colleagues and students.

In 1998, he retired from Rand Corporation after 50 years, but continued to maintain his office, and to work on his latest Mars paper, until his death, which was caused by complications after surgeries for a broken hip and an intestinal problem. He is survived by his wife, Louise; their daughter, Deidra Stauff, her husband, Chris Stauff and children Tammy, Katie, Corinne and Kirk, his great-grandson Gage; his son, Albert, his wife, Sally, and children, Brendan, Meara and Colin; and his son, Randel, his wife, Deborah and children, Kim and Carolyn; also his sister, Joyce Dresia of Novato, California, and her children Sarah and David, and a loving extended family.

Davies was thoroughly dedicated to his family and his work, and while he had many other interests, none carried the same passion for him. So, while he traveled extensively, and visited many exotic and remote parts of the world, it was invariably to attend a conference, or to give a lecture, or to show some of the wonders of the world to each of his grandchildren. He and Louise shared their lives in marriage for over 55 years. Despite Merton's extraordinary achievements and commitment to work, they were the closest of companions, always finding time to share the joys and toils of life, whether on the evening couch, or a flight to Bangkok.

He wrote in distinctive green ink, and was a person with a clear sense of priorities and values, which he passed on to his children and those who knew him well. His life was blessed with a love for his work, a sense of pride that what he accomplished will serve the future of our species, and the love and respect of his close family and many dear friends. Our lives were blessed to know him.