Darwin was also a founding member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, a discussion group of pioneering industrialists and natural philosophers.

Category: Members of the Lunar Society

Another means for the spread of innovation was by the network of informal philosophical societies, like the Lunar Society of Birmingham, in which members met to discuss ' natural philosophy ' ( i. e. science ) and often its application to manufacturing.

He was a member of the Royal Society of Arts, and an associate of some of the members of the Lunar Society.

Category: Associates of the Lunar Society

He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought-after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons.

He was an active member of the Lunar Society often held at Erasmus Darwin House and is remembered on the Moonstones in Birmingham.

Category: Members of the Lunar Society

Soho House in Handsworth, West Midlands | Handsworth, Birmingham, a regular venue for meetings of the Lunar Society

The Lunar Society of Birmingham was a dinner club and informal learned society of prominent figures in the Midlands Enlightenment, including industrialists, natural philosophers and intellectuals, who met regularly between 1765 and 1813 in Birmingham, England.

At first called the Lunar Circle, " Lunar Society " became the formal name by 1775.

Matthew BoultonThe Lunar Society evolved through various degrees of organisation over a period of up to fifty years, but was only ever an informal group.

Historians therefore disagree on what qualifies as membership of the Lunar Society, who can be considered to have been members, and even when the society can be said to have existed.

Despite this uncertainty, fourteen individuals have been identified as having verifiably attended Lunar Society meetings regularly over a long period during its most productive eras: these are Matthew Boulton, Erasmus Darwin, Thomas Day, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Samuel Galton, Jr., James Keir, Joseph Priestley, William Small, Jonathan Stokes, James Watt, Josiah Wedgwood, John Whitehurst and William Withering.

This lack of a defined membership has led some historians to criticise a Lunar Society " legend ", leading people to " confuse it and its efforts with the general growth of intellectual and economic activities in the provinces of eighteenth century Britain ".

Erasmus Darwin in 1770The origins of the Lunar Society lie in a pattern of friendships that emerged in the late 1750s.

By 1768 the core group of nine individuals who would form the nucleus of the Lunar Society had come together with Small at their heart.

The botanist and physician Jonathan Stokes, who had known William Withering as a child, moved to Stourbridge and started attending Lunar Society meetings from 1783.

Most significantly, Erasmus Darwin moved to Derby in 1781, but although he complained of being " cut off from the milk of science ", he continued to attend Lunar Society meetings at least until 1788.

Regular meetings are recorded into the nineteenth century-eight in 1800, five or six before August 1801 and at least one in 1802, while as late as 1809 Leonard Horner was describing " the remnant of the Lunar Society " as being " very interesting ".

In more recent times a new Lunar Society was formed in Birmingham, England, by a group led by Dame Rachel Waterhouse.

In Italy, the Lunar Society Italia was formed to communicate science and astronomy.

* 1966 – Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.

Six minutes after the successful burn of the S-IVB, the Command / Service Module, containing the crew, separated from the rocket and traveled for before turning around and retrieving the Lunar Module from inside the expended rocket stage.

Following transposition and docking, the crew noticed the exterior surface of the Lunar Module was giving off particles from a spot where the LM's skin appeared torn or shredded ; at one point, Charlie Duke estimated they were seeing about five to ten particles per second.

" The pair's first task of the moonwalk was to unload the Lunar Roving Vehicle ( LRV ), along with other equipment, from the Lunar Module.

Young drove the rover to a point about east of the Lunar Module, known as the ' VIP site ', so its television camera, controlled remotely by mission control, could observe Apollo 16's liftoff from the Moon.

The crew's next task, after jettisoning the Lunar Module ascent stage, was to release a sub-satellite into lunar orbit from the CSM's Scientific Instrument Bay.

In 2009 and again in 2011, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographed the landing site from increasingly low orbits.

* Traces of Catastrophe book from Lunar and Planetary Institute-comprehensive reference on impact crater science

The visuals were drastically simplified, being closer to early shooters like Wolfenstein 3D ; also, it consists solely of Lunar Apocalypse, the second from the original game's three " episodes ", which was heavily modified to suit the engine.

Previous to the 1960 change, the ' Improved Lunar Ephemeris ' had already been made available in terms of ephemeris time for the years 1952-1959 ( computed by W J Eckert from Brown's theory with modifications recommended by Clemence ( 1948 )).

* 1967 – Lunar Orbiter program: Lunar Orbiter 3 lifts off from Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 13 on its mission to identify possible landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo spacecraft.

Its two major components, the Saturn Workshop and the Apollo Telescope Mount, began their development as separate projects ( the SWS was kludged from the S-IVB stage of the Saturn 1B and Saturn V launch vehicles, the ATM was kludged from an early design for the descent stage of the Apollo Lunar Module ).

William WitheringIf William Small's arrival in 1765 had been the catalyst to the development of the Lunar Circle as a cohesive group, his death – probably from malaria – in 1775 was to mark another change in its structure.

Shortly after his arrival Lunar meetings moved from Sunday afternoons to Mondays to accommodate Priestley's duties as a clergyman, while the society's dependence on Matthew Boulton was lessened by holding meetings at other members ' houses in addition to Soho House.

Samuel Galton, Jr., unusual as a Quaker who was also a gun-manufacturer, appears in the letters of other Lunar members as attending meetings from July 1781, and his daughter Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck was to provide one of the few first-hand accounts of the Lunar Society's activities.

At the University of Birmingham, a ' Lunar Society ' meets every Thursday between 6-8pm to debate and discuss all manner of topics in the Guild bar, from current events to historical precedents.

* The Lunar Men who shaped the future ( from the Birmingham Stories website )

1765: The Lunar Society begins life as a dinner club and informal learned society of prominent figures in the Midlands Enlightenment, including industrialists, natural philosophers and intellectuals, who meet regularly until 1813 in Birmingham.

Soho House, Matthew Boulton's home ( from 1766 until he died in 1809 ) in Handsworth, Birmingham, England, is now a museum ( opened in 1995 ), celebrating his life, his partnership with James Watt and his membership of the Lunar Society of Birmingham.