Meet the astronauts
Commander: Alan Shepard
At 47, former navy pilot Alan Shepard was the oldest Apollo astronaut. He was the first American in space during his Freedom 7 mission on 5 May 1961. He served as Chief of the Astronaut Office from 1963-1969, before joining the Apollo programme. He left NASA in 1974 to pursue philanthropic ventures. He died on 21 July 1998.
Lunar Module Pilot: Edgar Mitchell
Mitchell was originally a navy pilot, joining NASA in 1966. After leaving in 1972, he continued to pursue his interest in the paranormal, including setting up the Institute for Noetic Sciences to investigate the metaphysical power of the human mind, and made several statements about UFOs before his death on 4 February 2016.
Command Module Pilot: Stuart Roosa
Roosa began his career as a ‘smokejumper’ – rapid response firefighters who parachute into wildfires – before joining the Air Force. He was selected as an astronaut in 1966, but Apollo 14 was his only spaceflight. He later worked on the Space Shuttle programme until retiring from NASA in 1976. He died on 12 December 1994.
Thankfully, this coarse manoeuvre didn’t damage Antares and the lander touched down successfully on the lunar surface on 5 February. The crew immediately prepared for their first extra vehicular activity (EVA), only to discover a fault in the communications system, requiring another delay. Had they come this far only to fail at the last moment? Fortunately, the problem was quickly fixed and just five and a half hours after landing on the Moon, Shepard and Mitchell were ready to head out.
For their initial sojourn, the astronauts didn’t stray far from Antares, instead using the time to offload their equipment and set up experiments around the lander. While many of these were the same suites of seismometers and detectors from previous missions, one novel experiment involved detonating dozens of ‘thumper’ charges, the vibrations of which were picked up by instruments left on previous landings.
Moon trek
The second EVA the next day, however, was much more demanding. The moonwalkers had to live up to the ‘walk’ part of their name and trek towards crater Cone around 1km away. It was the longest journey of the programme so far and to help cart their equipment around, the crew used a wagon officially named the Modular Equipment Transporter, but known to the astronauts as the ‘rickshaw’.
The pair soon found navigating the lunar surface was far harder than either had anticipated. With no atmosphere to diffuse the light, it was difficult to judge distances, while landmarks that were obvious on maps became unrecognisable on the surface.
“You can sure be deceived by slopes here,” said Mitchell while on the surface. “The Sun angle is very deceiving.”