Apollo 15
August 7, 1971
Apollo 15 splashed down today. Nearly eighteen hours of moonwalk time. Three rover traverses. The Genesis Rock. The Feather and Hammer experiment. Al Worden's deep-space EVA. This mission changed the character of Apollo — from "can we do it" to "what can we learn." I am deeply satisfied.
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Apollo 15
August 2, 1971
At the end of the final moonwalk, Dave Scott held a geological hammer and a falcon feather — the mascot of the Air Force Academy, where Scott studied — and dropped them together. In the vacuum of the Moon, they hit the surface simultaneously. Galileo was right. I watched on…
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Apollo 15
August 1, 1971
Dave Scott and Jim Irwin may have found the most important rock ever collected — an anorthosite fragment they're calling the Genesis Rock, estimated to be 4 billion years old. It's a piece of the original lunar crust, from when the Moon was still forming. I've been a space program…
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Apollo 15
July 31, 1971
Dave Scott drove the Lunar Rover on the Moon today and the television camera on the rover broadcast it live. I watched the Moon scroll past — the mountains, the craters, the edge of Hadley Rille — from my living room. Scott's voice narrating the drive. I will never get…
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Apollo 15
July 26, 1971
Apollo 15 launched today and Dave Scott is going to drive a car on the Moon. The Lunar Roving Vehicle — four wheels, electric motor, built by Boeing — will be folded in the descent stage and deployed on the surface. I've been looking forward to this mission more than…
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Apollo 14
February 9, 1971
Apollo 14 splashed down today. Eight men have now walked on the Moon. After Apollo 13, I needed this. After the near-disaster that shouldn't have been, the mission that recovered and continued, this feels like proof that the program is intact. Eight men. I keep counting them.
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Apollo 14
February 6, 1971
At the end of the second moonwalk, Alan Shepard pulled a makeshift 6-iron head from his suit pocket, attached it to a sample-collection rod, and hit two golf balls on the Moon. He shanked the first one. He caught the second one clean. "Miles and miles," he said. I laughed…
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Apollo 14
February 5, 1971
Alan Shepard landed on the Moon today. The first American in space — Freedom 7, fifteen minutes, May 1961 — landed on another world at Fra Mauro. He is forty-seven years old. He waited ten years for this. His first words on the surface: "It's been a long way, but…
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Apollo 13
April 20, 1970
Gene Kranz said "failure is not an option" — or something like it. I don't know his exact words, but I know what the White Team did for six days straight. Mission Control brought three men home from a crippled spacecraft 200,000 miles away. They are the unsung heroes of…
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Apollo 13
April 17, 1970
Apollo 13 splashed down in the Pacific today. Three parachutes. Three men alive. Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise are home. When the parachutes deployed and the capsule hit the water, Betty cried. I wasn't far behind. Six days of this. They made it.
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