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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Space Race
June 30, 1971
The Soyuz 11 crew — Dobrovsky, Volkov, Patsayev — spent 23 days on Salyut 1 and set a new space endurance record. They died during re-entry when a pressure valve opened prematurely.
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May 25, 1971
The last three Apollo missions are going to the highlands — the old, heavily cratered terrain that makes up most of the lunar surface. Here's why that matters scientifically.
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Space Race
April 19, 1971
The Soviet Union launched the world's first space station on April 19. Salyut 1 is in orbit, waiting for a crew.
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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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February 5, 1971
Alan Shepard walked on the Moon today. The first American in space, fifteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds in 1961, just hit a golf ball on the lunar surface.
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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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January 20, 1971
It's been almost two months since Apollo 13 came home and two months until Apollo 14 will (hopefully) land. This is the between time.
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