The Return of "Kitty Hawk"

HIGH above the Pacific, some 900 miles south of American Samoa, the spacecraft suddenly plummeted from the sky. A voice crackled over the radio: "Things are looking good." Then, in clear view of the recovery task force and millions of television watchers round the world, three big white-and-orange-striped parachutes unfurled, braking the descent of Apollo 14's command module, Kitty Hawk. Moments later, only 900 yards off the predicted target and just four seconds behind schedule, the heat-seared ship splashed into the water in a spectacular finale to man's third and most successful expedition to the surface of the moon.

Extra Poundage. Less than an hour later, the three Apollo 14 astronauts boarded the helicopter carrier New Orleans, stepped inside a mobile quarantine van and began their 2 1/2-day journey back to Houston. "We have had a terrific flight," said Apollo 14's skipper, Alan Shepard. He and his fellow travelers were in high spirits and apparently good health, and doctors later discovered that Shepard had actually gained weight (1 Ib.) during his 941,825-mile journey. Indeed, the astronauts' condition--and the fact that no alien organisms had been found on the Apollo 11 and 12 spacecraft--strongly suggested that the lunar travelers' 21-day quarantine is unnecessary; it probably will not be imposed on the next mission.

In Houston, mission controllers jubilantly lit up traditional splashdown cigars, bottles of champagne were uncorked, and celebrations expanded at the homes of the astronauts. After watching her husband Stu on TV, Joan Roosa bubbled: "He looked like the most handsome man I have ever seen in my life."

Only slightly less overjoyed were high NASA officials, who badly needed a morale booster after congressional cuts in the space agency's appropriations, the near-disastrous flight of Apollo 13 last April, and the recent successes of Soviet space robots. Indeed, the unmanned moon rover, Lunokhod 1--which came back to life last week on the lunar surface 900 miles north of Apollo 14's Fra Mauro landing site--seemed very much on the mind of Acting NASA Administrator George Low. The flight of Apollo 14, Low said, "demonstrated that man belongs in space, that man can achieve objectives well beyond the capabilities of any machine that has yet been devised." Although he has not been overly enthusiastic about the space program lately. President Nixon also was exhilarated. "You gave all of us older fellows hope," he told Shepard, who at 47 is the oldest American ever to venture into space.

Puzzling Boulder. Scientists were equally pleased. Even before the astronauts returned, astronomers at McDonald Observatory in Texas reported that they had managed to bounce laser beams off the newly placed corner reflector at Fra Mauro; such experiments may provide valuable clues to the movements of the earth's crust and the slight wobble of the globe (see following story) as it spins on its axis. The rest of the $25 million package of experiments deployed by the astronauts also performed extremely well under unusually trying circumstances; four days after the instruments were set up in the lunar highlands, there was an eclipse of the moon. As the earth passed between the sun and the moon, blocking the solar rays, temperatures at Fra Mauro plunged from 154.1DEG F. to -153DEG F., a drop of more than 300DEG within only a few hours. The sturdy instruments survived the drastic change and continued transmitting data back to earth.

As they began their investigation of Apollo 14's 96 Ibs. of rock, equal to the total haul from Apollo 11 and 12, geologists in Houston were optimistic that the samples would yield new and important facts about the moon. Dr. Robin Brett, chief of the Manned Spacecraft Center's geochemistry branch, noted that "in a preliminary look, the rocks appear to be quite different from what we saw on Apollo 11 and 12." Since most lunar rocks are gray, the geologists were particularly eager to analyze a fragment chipped from a puzzling white boulder that the astronauts spotted on the slope of Fra Mauro's Cone Crater. The odd white sample, which contains a few dark flecks and streaks, may be as old as the moon and solar system: 4.6 billion years. As insurance against any loss of Apollo 14's precious cargo, NASA divided the rocks into two batches for the trip to Houston, shipping one with the astronauts and the other by special courier plane. So expertly had the astronauts operated as field geologists, that on future trips, said Paul Gast, the space center's chief lunar scientist, moon visitors should be given greater freedom to explore on their own.

Shepard and his fellow moon walker, Ed Mitchell, shared that view. In a televised news conference from space, they insisted that their spine-tingling climb up the side of 400-ft.-high Cone Crater was not overly fatiguing and that it was cut short 100 yds. or so from the crater's rim only because time was running out. But they still seemed to disagree on one point. Mitchell, who had wanted to continue the hike over Shepard's protestations, said the rolling, boulder-strewn terrain made it extremely difficult for them to keep their bearings. "You simply couldn't see more than 100 to 150 yards away and see landmarks," said Mitchell.

Pictures taken by the astronauts on the moon and released at week's end seemed to support his opinion; all showed a nearby and relatively featureless horizon that would make it difficult for explorers to get their bearings. But Shepard demurred. "I don't believe that we were disoriented or lost at any time," he insisted.

Snaking Rille. There was no disagreement, however, on Shepard's ability as the moon's first golfer. Even though he confessed that he had missed his first one-handed swing, Shepard said that he drove the second a couple of hundred yards in the weak lunar gravity and the third about 400 yards. "Not bad for a six-iron," he boasted. "Let me add, there wasn't any green in sight," said Mitchell.

NASA was too elated by the mission to quibble over such shenanigans. For all Apollo 14's technical flaws on the outbound leg--the balky docking mechanism, the mysterious voltage decline in a battery, the switch glitch involving the lunar lander's computer--the voyage home was close to perfection. Basking in the glow of the successful mission, NASA officials allowed the crew members of the next American moonshot to take time out from their training to describe their mission in July. Apollo 15 should be an extraordinary flight. After swooping down over mountains 5,400 ft. high, Astronauts Dave Scott and James Irwin will touch down a mile away from Hadley Rille, a snaking 1/4-milewide canyon 700 miles northeast of Fra Mauro. During their 66 hours on the moon--twice the duration of Apollo 14's lunar stay--they plan to venture out of their LM on three moonwalks for periods of up to seven hours and distances as far as five miles. Chances are, however, that even so they will exert themselves less than the Apollo 14 astronauts did; their longer excursions will be made in the first self-propelling, manned vehicle ever to traverse the moon--a four-wheeled battery-powered lunar rover.

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