racket of latches closing and joining the two spacecraft. For the time being we were back on a nominal mission to the moon. Here lives and missions were saved by improvisation.
For three days we flew across the abyss of space at the rate of several miles per second, making only a small adjustment along the way to assure our arrival at the precise point behind the moon to achieve lunar orbit. As the arbitrary calendar of days passed, the moon grew in the window, and the topography of the craters became clearly discernible. Slowly the view took on a surreal beauty.
Space travel requires intense concentration for long periods of time, interspersed with moments of high drama when either a burn is required or trouble arises. In the vocation of flying it is called hours-of-intense- boredom-punctuated-by-moments-of-stark-terror. However, spaceflight was—and still is—too new for actual boredom to arise. But it is not an exaggeration to say that with each burn the outcome is uncertain, and the success of the mission is at stake. Especially during the early space missions. Before the construction of reusable shuttle craft, each piece of flight hardware was new and untested in the space environment. Unlike earth- bound equipment, there is no opportunity for a test flight. And without precise execution of burns, the craft might assume a trajectory that would send it into deep space, skittering across the Earth’s atmosphere, or into an unforgiving heavenly body such as the moon. Preparing for a burn is serious business, and before each one, Stu would announce, “It’s sweaty palms time again, gentlemen.”
But there was another task I’d planned to perform that wasn’t on the checklist. And there were but four people on Earth aware of it. Every evening as the crew settled in for an attempt at sleep in zero-gravity, and the cabin grew quiet, I would take a moment and pull out my kneeboard, on which I had copied a table of random numbers, along with the five “Zener symbols” used in ESP experiments and made popular by Dr. J.B. Rhine: a square, a circle, a star, a cross, and a wavy line. Then I promptly and discretely began the simple experiment that Ed Boyle, Ed Maxey, and I had devised. Not even Al or Stu knew what I was up to.
On four evenings, twice on our way to and from the moon, I matched one of the symbols with a random number between one and five, and then organized the numbers with a random number table copied from a math textbook. In this setting I would concentrate on a symbol for 15 seconds. Meanwhile, through tens of thousands of miles of empty space, my col- laborators in Florida would attempt to jot down the symbols in the same sequence that I had arranged on my kneeboard. We each had a column of 25 spaces in which to write symbols for each of the six days I would be in transit. Then I zipped myself into my hammock each “night” after performing
this seven-minute task. In the “morning” it was again business as usual, without a second thought of the experiment.
After three days, during which we traveled more than 240,000 miles and slowed into lunar orbit, Al and I climbed into the lunar lander, bid farewell to Stu, and prepared to undock. Stu deposited us in the 10-mile orbit from which we would descend to the surface, and returned through the vacuum to a 60-mile orbit for his work of mapping that barren world. As Al and I orbited only a few thousand meters above the highest lunar peaks, the familiar gray landscape became recognizable. In a most austere way, it was hauntingly familiar. There were mountains and valleys, a sun in the sky. For the first time in three days there was a relative up and down; the tiny earth in the distance appeared a satellite of the moon. But little else resembled anything we had ever seen. No flora, no softening features. Here the land was presided over by an omnipresent night sky. Without an atmosphere, sunlight lent an unreal clarity to the landscape. If we were to open the hatch, it seemed as though we could reach out and run our fin- gers over the ragged lunar surface.
As for our the mission, there was a tentative sense of optimism. We knew we were over the right area because we could see Cone Crater and the entire topography of Fra Mauro beneath us coming into lunar sunrise, just as we had imagined it would appear out the window of Antares. Then I was struck with a sense of wonder. The same sun rose this morning over the Atlantic, I thought, as we silently flew over this strange world.
As we flew through the terminator into the lunar night, barely 90 minutes from beginning our powered descent to the surface, trouble arose once again. The computer guidance software, we discovered, was receiv- ing incorrect information, thereby producing a signal that would abort the landing once it began. Moreover, we would soon be passing behind the moon into a communications blackout, cutting off our lifeline of informa- tion and support from Houston. Once again, we had to carefully, accu- rately, and quickly find a way to bypass a problem that threatened the mission. But of the 90 minutes available to us to solve the problem in this case, we would be behind the moon and out of radio contact for 60.
In Houston, where it was 2 o’clock in the morning, they were working on the problem. When we emerged from behind the moon, we expected they might have procedures for a fix prepared for us, likely a revised com- puter update to get around the problem. But it was much more than that. After regaining communications we would have but a stark 10 minutes to complete the pre-descent checklist, enter navigation updates, and manu- ally program the remedy into the computers. Because of fuel constraints, time was not on our side. We simply could not afford another trip around this rugged world without major changes in our cramped schedule.
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By reprogramming the computer manually with Houston’s instructions, we could get it to ignore the false signal and not actually initiate an abort when the engine ignited. But there was a penalty in this. If an abort were actually required anytime during the landing, we would need to perform the lengthy series of tasks manually and fly for a time without computer assistance. In order to continue the mission, we were surrendering the help of an automatic abort system that could deliver us into a safe upward trajectory at the push of a single button, were another emergency to oc- cur during or immediately after landing.
The entire team performed magnificently during the 90 minutes avail- able before descent. All the required tasks were completed, with a few seconds to spare, as we rotated Antares into position for descent engine ignition.
As is often the case, however, errors in a system tend to propagate. Although no one realized it at that moment, what we had done to fix the abort switch would cause the computer not to recognize and lock on to the radar signals bouncing off the lunar surface as we descended and ap- proached the landing site. Thus, we couldn’t check our altitude with these updates, nor could we just look out the window, as we were quite literally on our backs, feet forward during powered descent, the windows display- ing nothing but a striking pattern of stars. What made this particularly unsettling was that the Fra Mauro region happened to be a rather rugged area of the moon, filled with hills, valleys, and craters. Even if our landing approach was perfect, we wouldn’t have the benefit of a computer abort system in case of trouble with the terrain. But more immediately, our mission rules forbade us to descend below known mountaintop levels with- out the radar—a height we would reach within the next minute or so.
We worked quickly, our eyes sweeping the control panel, hoping to spot the problem that prevented the radar system from measuring the surface of that meteor-scarred region into which we were rapidly descend- ing. I recall the unusual sense of detachment, one I’d known before on occasion, in which the mind focuses impersonally on the pattern of re- quired tasks. Feeling and emotion were vanquished, and just a body was left, automatically performing the job, searching for a solution to a di- lemma, functioning as an extension of the computers at my fingertips. Then something occurred to me in this trance-like state. Through some deep recess of memory I realized that the radar might need to be reset after the abort switch fix, and that there were but two quick possibilities. But which to try first? Just then, as though reading my mind, Houston came in with the right call. Al recycled a circuit breaker, the radar locked on, and we could see that the data we were receiving was accurate and the computer had been guiding us perfectly. The mission had been salvaged once again with the help of Houston, this time within scant minutes of landing.
As we slowed our descent and pitched forward to a “feet down” posi- tion in the manner of a helicopter, the moon’s rocky horizon rose up, its broken gray surface appearing in the fine texture that is perceptible only at close range. And there loomed Cone Crater, just as in simulator train- ing. After locating what appeared to be a smooth landing zone, and easing
Antares toward it, we could soon see the mysterious lunar dust being swept
away, as the craft’s descent engine was now close enough to stir it up. The landscape was altered. We were lowering into a silent, dead world, a place where nothing moved. All lay still, except for our craft, just as it had, seemingly, since the beginning of time. Eventually Antares’s landing sensors touched the soft lunar soil, and the engines were promptly stopped. We dropped the remaining inches to the surface. We had arrived. Alan Shepard’s and Edgar Mitchell’s craft was resting on the face of the moon. Two extraterrestrials in a very foreign land.
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During such drama, relief and elation are momentary. They rise to the surface in soft, tingling flashes. After the ship’s circuits were methodically safed and reconfigured for emergency liftoff, there was little more emo- tion shown than an ecstatic grin. The cabin fell quiet as we both listened for that elusive sound of safety. We were on the moon, secure for the moment, yet joy was eclipsed by alertness. There is a sense of wariness you guard with every bit of conscious candlepower at your disposal at such times. You recognize this faculty as one of the vital mechanisms that has kept you alive and well all these years, and you do not betray it by indulg- ing in excessive celebration, even after landing on the moon. A handshake and a word or two would suffice for the moment. After taking careful accounting of the condition of our craft, performing our respective check- lists, and exchanging status reports with Houston, we were ready to begin the procedures that would lead to opening the hatch. Then we would leave the sanctuary of Antares.
A rumor circulated widely for many years following the landing that I had questioned Al as to his intent had we arrived at the minimum altitude without landing radar. Would he have called for an abort, or continued? His presumed response was: “You’ll never know!” I must report, that con- versation never took place, as we both knew that the abort software prob- lem had forced us into manual abort mode, not automatic mode. We would have been required to manually pitch forward as the first step of the abort, and there before us would have been the landing site, just as we had prac- ticed. Computer guidance was dead-on even without the landing radar. Without question, we would have proceeded.
The plan of surface exploration called for two 4 1/2–hour excursions outside, during which we would erect the flag, set up the television equip- ment and scientific instruments, collect lunar rock and soil samples, take
hundreds of pictures, and then make a trek by foot up to the rim of Cone Crater. We believed the summit would provide a sweeping view of the ancient aftermath of a cataclysmic meteor impact that spewed layers of debris over the lunar surface a billion years ago. The diameter of the rim was more than a thousand feet across. It was this field of ejected debris from the crater that earthbound geologists wanted us to sample in order to find clues to the inner structure of the moon.
There is a dramatic difference between viewing a landscape from be- hind a window and walking out into it yourself. By entering it and walking among its hills and valleys you become a part of its topography, a part of its history. When Alan opened the door to the lunar module and descended the ladder to the dusty surface, with me following a few minutes later, I felt we were suddenly native to this land—the only ones it ever had. The stillness seemed to convey that the landscape itself had been patiently await- ing our arrival for millions of years.
Though there isn’t such an emphatic sense of “down” on the moon due to the reduced gravity, there’s no doubt that you are walking about the surface of another world—a stunningly beautiful and foreign world. The sheer eerieness of the view assaults the senses. The shapes and starkness of the sun-drenched landscape are more dramatic than similar geologic forms on Earth, which are softened by atmospheric diffusion. The glare of sun- light relentlessly burns at the edges of shadows, and there is the startling sense of silence in this land that has never known sound. Beyond the cur- vature of glass of my helmet, inches from my face, lay an infinite vacuum. There was work to be done before we could begin our journey. Dur- ing the first outing we would set up a thermonuclear station, which would power many of the scientific instruments for years to come, as well as the television station, which would transmit the progress of our journey to an enormous audience of Earthlings more than a quarter of a million miles away on the beautiful blue and white planet that loomed directly over- head in the black sky. Time was always draining away. Long checklists had to be attended to in order to assure that nothing would be missed. Our presence here had cost the American taxpayers millions of dollars, a fact that wasn’t lost on either of us. Each minute had to count for something. Such thoughts came to mind as a recalcitrant fitting or a stiff fastener bled a few more seconds from the schedule. Meanwhile, we kept our wonder in check, or at least under our breath.
After our first “day” on the moon, we tried to sleep through the artifi- cial night. The lunar day consists of 28 Earth days, so dusk is almost always a long way off. But after that first day of work, Al and I retreated to the lunar module, where we closed the blinds and crawled into our hammocks, which lay crosswise, one below the other. Then we attempted to sleep on the surface of the moon.
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Though exhausted, rest would be at best fitful, as we had landed on a slight incline. Always there was the sensation that the lunar module was about to topple over, due to the slope and the lessened sense of “down.” With only a sixth of normal gravitation tugging at the fabric of our bodies, there was the phantom feeling of instability. This led to the tendency of the imagination to run away with itself, though intellectually we knew what caused this sensation, and that we were quite stable. But if Antares did topple over, we would doubtless be stranded on the moon for the rest of our brief lives, with only a few hours of oxygen and other vital supplies at our disposal. Such thoughts produced a strange and subtle energy when it came time to rest. Edgy half-dreams would surface. So we more or less spent the night listening to the tiny sound of an occasional micrometeorite colliding with our fragile home, our minds secretly turning over the knowl- edge that we were the only two living creatures on this dead world. The knowledge that survival was not guaranteed mingled with the exhilaration of being the first to explore this place. Two extraterrestrials asleep in their spaceship.
When it was time to arise a few hours later, we knew that our day was centered around a trek to the rim of Cone Crater. We would command a view that no humans had ever beheld: an ancient lunar crater 750 feet deep and 1,100 feet across. A general fatigue from sleeplessness was sur- mounted by thrilling anticipation. Again, we pulled on our extravehicular equipment, depressurized the cabin of Antares, and walked into this strangely lit world where sunlight left black shadows. We then loaded equip- ment on the MET, or modular equipment transporter, consulted our check- list, and set out for the rim of Cone Crater, the summit of which could be seen on the eastern horizon.
We left Antares surrounded by a cluster of scientific equipment we had assembled and placed in position, taking with us our MET, the first wheeled vehicle on the moon. Stone Age technology somehow seemed fitting here: The MET was a sort of wheelbarrow to be carried backwards, a rickshaw with a single handle. As we set out for the summit, we would look back from time to time to see the silvery pair of tire trails leading all the way back to the spider legs of Antares. When looking toward the sun in the strange glare of lunar light, the tire tracks looked like the greasy trails of earthly slugs. The scene as a whole was so otherworldly, at once hauntingly familiar and unfamiliar.
Embarking on a journey on the moon by foot was a more puzzling experience than anyone had anticipated, certainly more difficult than could be imagined by merely studying high-resolution photographs of the sur- face, which were what we used to navigate by. Landmarks clearly depicted on the photographs were obscured by larger than expected undulations of