Man's Triumphant Return

SLOWLY, deliberately, the white-clad figure emerged from the spindly spacecraft and stepped into the glaring sunlight. In every direction stretched the barren hills and" ridges of a forbidding landscape that has remained virtually unchanged since the moon was created. Alan Shepard could hardly describe what he saw. "It certainly is a stark place here at Fra Mauro," he said. Then, as his image flickered onto millions of TV screens back on earth, the 47-year-old Navy captain took the last two steps down the ladder of Antares, the lunar lander. Finally his heavy boots scuffed the soft, grayish-brown dust of the moon's ancient highlands. "It's been a long way," said Shepard, the first and oldest American ever to journey into space. "But we're here."

Four Americans had already trod on lunar soil, and the TV picture--the ghostly figure on the ladder, the sharp contrast between the black sky and the sun-drenched land--was strikingly familiar. Yet, for millions of viewers around the world, seeing a fellow man walking on the distant moon was still a wondrous experience. It was a dramatic reminder of what man, at his technological best, can achieve.

Moments later, Shepard's crewmate, Edgar Mitchell, followed him down the ladder. Twice the 40-year-old Navy commander hopped off the bottom steps. The relaxed grip of lunar gravity left him as exhilarated as a child in a playground. "Mobility is very great under this 'crushing' one-sixth-G load," Mitchell told Mission Control back home in Houston. Then, with slow, effortless strides, Shepard and Mitchell teamed up for the most ambitious program of lunar exploration ever undertaken. For nearly ten hours, the fifth and sixth human visitors to the moon crisscrossed their Fra Mauro landing site, set up a $25 million package of scientific instruments, collected 108 lbs. of rocks and soil, and ventured more than half a mile from their ship up the 400-ft.-high walls of a crater.

Recalcitrant Probe. From the very start of the nine-day voyage, the mission was plagued by a succession of nagging glitches that repeatedly tested the patience, skill and ingenuity of both the astronauts and the technicians on the ground. Barely three hours after the rain-delayed launch, the mission was in serious trouble. After cutting Kitty Hawk loose, turning it about in space, and trying to extract the lunar module Antares from the nose of the third-stage S-4B rocket, Command Ship Pilot Stu Roosa encountered a mysterious docking problem. Five times he edged his spacecraft toward the lunar module, but Kitty Hawk's docking probe stubbornly refused to catch inside the funnelshaped receptacle atop Antares. Inexplicably, the probe's three spring-loaded latches, which worked flawlessly on previous missions, refused to grab.

In Houston, engineers feverishly tried to solve the problem by experimenting with a duplicate of the troublesome docking mechanism. As minutes dragged by without any noticeable progress, the technical drama seemed faintly reminiscent of the struggle to patch up Apollo 13 for its limping return to earth last April. This time the astronauts themselves were not in any danger--they could orbit the moon in Kitty Hawk and return safely--but it was clear that without a functioning docking apparatus, Antares was virtually useless, and there could be no lunar landing.

Exasperated, Mission Control radioed one more suggestion. Roosa was told to close in slowly on the LM, then fire his small control rockets, or thrusters, to give the command ship a sudden forward jolt. Simultaneously, he was to retract the recalcitrant probe. That way, he could eliminate the nonworking piece of equipment from the operation; the astronauts would rely instead on the two mated collars on each ship to make a so-called "hard" dock. Not only did the two collars lock, but the balky latches also sprang loose and caught.

Once the docking crisis passed, the astronauts settled down to the normal routine of space travel--mid-course corrections, meals at odd hours, comments on the beauty of the receding earth. "I hope we can keep it so inviting," said Mitchell. Still, they were hardly a talkative crew. After one especially long silence, Houston jogged them a little: "Just wanted to see if you all were still around." A little later, Shepard remarked: "Everything is quiet, going along extremely smoothly, and we have a happy little ship here."

Not quite. After Shepard and Mitchell made the usual in-flight inspection of the lunar lander, an unexpected voltage drop was discovered in one of the two batteries of Antares' ascent stage, which would take the astronauts off the moon. The reading was only three-tenths of a volt lower than normal; yet mission controllers felt that it might be a sign of more serious trouble--a leakage in the LM's critical electrical circuitry, for example. That too could have barred a moon landing. Happily, a subsequent check by Mitchell, who holds a doctorate in astronautics from M.I.T., showed that the battery had suffered no further deterioration. Vastly relieved, Apollo Program Director Rocco Petrone said in Houston: "We haven't seen anything to preclude a descent to the moon."

Early Thursday morning, as the approaching lunar landscape filled the windows of the command ship, Roosa fired Kitty Hawk's main engine for a full 6 min. 12 sec. Its velocity slowed, Apollo 14 swung into a 168.8-by-58.5-nautical-mile "rollercoaster" orbit. Gazing down on the wild landscape below them, the astronauts became more talkative. "You're not gonna believe this," joshed Roosa, "but it looks just like the map." Added Mitchell, who grew up on a ranch in New Mexico: "That's the most stark, desolate looking piece of country I've ever seen." Four hours later they got an even closer look at the lunar countryside. By firing Kitty Hawk's engine for another 22 sec., they reduced their orbit to a tight loop of only 9.6 by 58.8 miles; Kitty Hawk was now traveling closer to the lunar surface than any of its predecessors. It was only about seven miles above the moon's highest mountain ranges.

Then, shortly after Shepard and Mitchell crawled into the lunar lander and cast off from the mother ship, flight controllers found still another pesky problem: a spurious signal was being fed into the LM's on-board computer. Apparently caused by a defect in a switch, the signal would have ordered an automatic abort shortly after Antares' descent engine was fired. The ascent engine in the lander's upper stage would then have fired immediately, stopping Antares' descent and blasting it back into orbit.

Hastily called by Mission Control, the computer's designers at M.I.T.'s Charles Stark Draper Lab improvised a solution while Antares was behind the moon and out of radio contact. The electronic brain's logic circuitry would be instructed to ignore the false signal. This required that Mitchell start feeding 60 new numbers into the computer before the descent engine was fired. Had the computer team lost its race against the clock, Antares would have had to make another time-consuming swing around the moon before the descent could be attempted.

There were more tense moments ahead. On previous missions the onboard landing radars that control the descent rate of the LMs had locked onto the moon's terrain when the craft were about 30,000 ft. above the surface. As Antares swooped below that altitude, its radar remained ominously inactive. "C'mon, radar," Mitchell implored. "Get the lock-on." No response. Up from Houston came instructions to flick a circuit breaker off and on. Then, at 23,500 ft., the radar suddenly came alive. "Whew," said Mitchell. "That was close."

Bull's-Eye. At 7,600 ft., the LM pitched over into an upright position, giving the moon-bound astronauts their first view of their target. For the first time, Shepard's voice betrayed his excitement. "There's Cone Crater!" he shouted as he picked out the 1,000-ft.-wide landmark that the astronauts hoped to scale. "Right on the money," he added. "Shoot for the moon, Al," urged Mitchell, who calmly called off the altitude, rate of descent and remaining fuel reserves: "Sixteen feet per second, 500 feet, 15 feet per second. Your fuel is good at 10%."

At 170 ft., Shepard momentarily kept the mooncraft at a helicopter-like hover; then he steered it forward. "O.K., 7% fuel. You're still at 170 ft. indicated." As the rocket exhaust pounded the lunar surface, Mitchell said: "There's good dust. You're on your own. Starting down, starting down. Forty feet, 20 feet, 10, contact, Al. We're on the surface. We made a good landing."

They had. After a journey of more than a quarter of a million miles, Apollo 14 had set down on a gentle, dusty slope between two small lunar features called Doublet and Triplet Craters, a scant 87 ft. north of the preplanned target. "About the flattest place around here," commented Shepard proudly as he surveyed the narrow, boulder-strewn highland valley.

Despite the bull's-eye landing, problems continued to dog Apollo 14. Once he donned his $100,000 moon suit, Shepard discovered that its urine tube was badly twisted and that its radio did not work properly. The tube was soon untwisted and 49 minutes later the radio trouble was tracked down: a circuit breaker had been left in the wrong position. Already late when they started on their first EVA (ExtraVehicular Activity), the astronauts were beset by more nagging delays. Among other problems, the large umbrella-shaped S-band antenna (used to beam signals to earth) refused to open properly. Most exasperating of all, it took nearly ten minutes to erect the third U.S. flag on the moon.

White Blobs. Finally the preliminary chores were completed, and the two astronauts loped off with their cargo of experiments and geological equipment. Mitchell lugged the familiar barbell carrier for the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP). "This darn thing is heavier than I expected," he said, pausing for a moment to regain his breath. Shepard, pulling his gear along on a ricksha-like handcart, which left three-quarter-inch-deep tracks in the lunar soil, seemed to be exerting himself less. As they headed into a depression in the lunar terrain, the two astronauts (who looked like gleaming white blobs on TV screens) seemed to be sinking slowly into the moon. Informed of the strange sight, Shepard answered: "Nothing like being up to your armpits in lunar dust."

The fine dust was no joke. It sorely tried the patience of the astronauts as they tried to set up nuclear-powered experiments about 400 ft. west of Antares. Complaining that he was having "a devil of a time," Mitchell struggled to loosen a dust-clogged fastener on the suprathermal ion detector that was designed to record the presence of any gases on the moon. Another particle detector, the cold cathode ion gauge, fell over repeatedly in the dusty soil. The most frustrating experience occurred when Mitchell tried to work the thumper, a walking-stick-like device with explosives packed into a canister at its bottom. It was designed to slam a bottom plate against the moon's surface, thus producing shallow seismic waves from which scientists can draw conclusions about the moon's "topsoil." For all of Mitchell's efforts, only 13 of the thumper's 21 charges actually fired. "A hair trigger this isn't," Mitchell grumbled. Slightly bemused by his moonmate's troubles, Shepard observed: "Fair batting average, big league stuff."

Unqualified Success. To the relief of the geologists, Mission Control was impressed by the astronauts' physical reactions and extended their first moon walk an extra half-hour. As a result, they were able to collect a booty of 50 lbs. of rocks, including two large specimens each nearly as big as a football. Shepard tantalized the geologists by reporting that one of those heavyweight samples contained a "large crystal deposit" and was also well pitted. Then, as time began to run out, the astronauts used their peculiar, low-gravity lunar lope to hurry back to the LM. As Shepard struggled with the rock-filled ricksha, Mitchell warned: "Don't run into that crater, Al." "Don't worry, babe," Shepard replied cheerily.

For Mitchell, there was one final frustrating moment. Just as he was about to stow his sample-carrying rock bag in the moon ship, it slipped out of his hands. He had to retrieve it with a rock-gathering tool. Tired and dust-stained after a record moon walk of 4 hr. 47 min., the astronauts re-entered the LM for a necessary and well-earned rest. Despite the annoyances, their first EVA had been an unqualified success.

Stimulated by their first tour and impatient to continue their exploration, Shepard and Mitchell emerged from Antares for their second moon walk two hours ahead of schedule. They headed off-camera to the east with their equipment-loaded ricksha, stopping often to grab rocks, photograph the terrain, take core samples of the soil, and regale the eager scientists at Mission Control with detailed geological descriptions.

After walking more than half a mile across the bewildering terrain, Shepard and Mitchell slowly began to climb up the steeper side of Cone Crater. But as they picked their way past the many car-sized boulders on the dusty slope, the going got tougher and tougher. Once, after he had dropped to one knee to pick up a rock, Shepard needed help getting back to his feet. Halfway up the slope, puffing under the burden of his stiff suit and heavy equipment, Shepard began to voice doubts that they would be able to reach the rim, where they had hoped to recover the geological prize of the voyage: 4.6-billion-year-old rocks carved out of the moon's original crust by the meteorite that created the crater. "Aw, gee whiz," said Mitchell, urging him on. "Let's give it a whirl." Shepard objected. Climbing farther, he said, would waste too much of the remaining time. Finally, after Mitchell's heartbeat had increased to 128 and Shepard's to 150, Mission Control interceded. Orders were given to halt the hard climb. "I think you're finks," Mitchell protested. Disappointed, he and Shepard turned back. They had climbed only two-thirds of the way up the slope.

Lunar Duffer. Their spirits did not sag for long. As they moved back into the camera's field of view at the end of their rock-gathering tour, Shepard reached into a pocket in his space suit and pulled out the surprise of the mission: two golf balls that he had smuggled onto the moon. In pre-astronaut days he was an avid golfer; now, using one of the implements from his tool cart as a club, he took a one-handed swing at the first ball. "I'm trying a sand-trap shot," he joked as he sprayed lunar dust. "Looked more like a slice to me, Al," said Mitchell. Shepard's second swing was apparently more successful. "There it goes," he shouted, "miles and miles and miles." Then Shepard had one final fling: a javelin-like heave sent a discarded pole from a lunar experiment soaring out of sight. Well satisfied by their second EVA, a walk of 41 hours that netted 58 more pounds of moon rock, Shepard and Mitchell re-entered the lunar module and prepared for the trip home.

Unlike the rainy launch from Cape Kennedy, the blast-off from the atmosphere-free moon was entirely uneventful; the astronauts headed directly for a rendezvous with their lonely buddy, Stu Roosa, in the command ship still in lunar orbit. They docked only 1 hr. 38 min. later on their, first attempt. There was no repetition of the mysterious difficulties encountered early in the flight. After Mitchell and Shepard transferred to the command module with their precious lunar samples, the burned-out ascent, stage of their lunar lander was sent crashing into the moon--providing seismologists with still another set of revealing shock waves. Next the astronauts fired Kitty Hawk's main engine once more to push them out of lunar oxbit and put them on a course toward earth and a splashdown in the South Pacific Tuesday afternoon. For all its nerve-racking moments, Apollo 14's mission apparently provided a rich new storehouse of material and scientific data from the moon. It also proved that, for the time being at least, man as a lunar explorer is still superior to a machine.

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