Apollo program
The Apollo
program was the third human spaceflight program carried out by the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the United States' civilian space
agency. First conceived during the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower as a
three-man spacecraft to follow the one-man Project Mercury which put the first
Americans in space, Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's
national goal of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to
the Earth" by the end of the 1960s, which he proposed in a May 25, 1961
address to Congress. Project Mercury was followed by the two-man Project Gemini
(1962–66). The first manned flight of Apollo was in 1968 and it succeeded in
landing the first humans on Earth's Moon in 1969 through 1972.
Apollo 14
Apollo 14 was the
eighth manned mission in the United States Apollo program, and the third to
land on the Moon. It was the last of the "H missions", targeted
landings with two-day stays on the Moon with two lunar EVAs, or moonwalks.
Commander Alan
Shepard, Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa, and Lunar Module Pilot Edgar
Mitchell launched on their nine-day mission on January 31, 1971 at 4:04:02 pm
local time after a 40 minute, 2 second delay due to launch site weather
restrictions, the first such delay in the Apollo program. Shepard and Mitchell
made their lunar landing on February 5 in the Fra Mauro formation; this had
originally been the target of the aborted Apollo 13 mission. During the two
lunar EVAs, 42 kilograms (93 lb) of Moon rocks were collected and several
surface experiments, including seismic studies, were performed. Shepard
famously hit two golf balls on the lunar surface with a makeshift club he had
brought from Earth. Shepard and Mitchell spent about 33 hours on the Moon, with
about 9½ hours on EVA.
Shepard and
Mitchell named their landing site Fra Mauro Base, and this designation is
recognized by the International Astronomical Union (depicted in Latin on lunar
maps as Statio Fra Mauro).
Shepard's first
words, after stepping onto the lunar surface were, "And it's been a long
way, but we're here." Unlike Neil Armstrong on Apollo 11 and Pete Conrad
on Apollo 12, Shepard had already stepped off the LM footpad and was a few
yards (meters) away before he spoke.
While Shepard and
Mitchell were on the surface, Roosa remained in lunar orbit aboard the
Command/Service Module, performing scientific experiments and photographing the
Moon. He took several hundred seeds on the mission, many of which were
germinated on return resulting in the so-called Moon trees.
Shepard, Roosa, and Mitchell landed in the Pacific Ocean on February 9.
Shepard, Roosa, and Mitchell landed in the Pacific Ocean on February 9.
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