Space walker hunts for Ark's remains

- 1 August 1988

The Evening Post, 31 August 1987

ANKARA, August 28. — Former astronaut James Irwin has set up camp to resume a hitherto ill-fated hunt on Mount Ararat for the biblical Noah’s Ark, news agencies said.

Irwin said he also hoped to receive a permit to fly over parts of Ararat, Turkey’s highest peak, near the sensitive borders with Iran and the Soviet Union, Hurriyet and Anatolian news agencies reported.

Irwin, whose camp is near the town of Dogubeyazit at the foot of the 5165-

metre mountain, believes the Ark’s remains lie near the permanently snowcapped summit.

His past attempts over six years to find the Ark have been dogged by failure and bad luck. He has been badly hurt in a climbing fall, given up when comrades fell ill, upstaged by a rival Ark-hunter and kept off the peak by guerrilla activity.

Last year police sequestered him in a hotel for making an illegal flight over the mountain.

Irwin, 57, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, walked on the moon in 1971 as part of the Apollo-15 space mission. He retired from the US space programme two years later.

— NZPA-Reuter