On February 5, 1971, folks successfully landed on the moon for the third time as part of the Apollo 14 mission.
Astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell spent a total of 33 and a half hours on the moon, performing two ‘Moonwalks’ during their stay. Fifty years later, data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter depicts what it was like to walk across the lunar surface on one of their mile-long walks – and a critical error.
NASA released the video Monday, recreating the two and a half hour walk of the Apollo 14 astronauts across the moon. But the historic walk ended with a surprise: the two astronauts missed their true destination.
Watch the full video:
Shepard and Mitchell landed between the Doublet and Triplet craters, in the hilly highlands of the Fra Mauro crater. The site is located about 110 miles east of the Apollo 12 landing site.
The couple’s first Extra Vehicular Activity lasted approximately four hours and 49 minutes, during which they implemented the Apollo Lunar Surface Scientific Experiments package.
For their second activity, the astronauts took a walk to Cone Crater, a small crater in the Fra Mauro region of the moon. The Fra Mauro area is made up of rocks ejected and placed during the asteroid impact that formed the Imbrium – the second largest and one of the youngest impact basins on the moon.
Cone Crater was located about 90 meters above the landing site. You wouldn’t think that far to go. But everything gets much more complicated on the moon.
As the video shows, Shepard and Mitchell began their hike to the crater on the right track, walking across the lunar surface for two and a half hours. They followed a path that took them over a fairly steep hill to the crater rim, as illustrated in the video. As they walked, the astronauts also had to haul a two-wheeled transporter around to carry their equipment. During their time on the moon, astronauts Shepard and Mitchell collected 94 pounds of rocks and soil to return to Earth.
But as the path progressed, the rim of the cone crater darkened and slipped from the astronauts’ view. The pair were eventually advised by mission control to return to the lunar module, fearing they might get lost. However, before returning, they collected lunar samples from an area close to the crater.
In fact very, very close.
Incredibly, Shepard and Mitchell were righteous 50 meters away from their destination Cone Crater the moment they gave up trying to find it.
Despite this apparent failure, the Apollo 14 astronauts set a new record for the total amount of time spent on the lunar surface. In total, they spent nine hours and 24 minutes on the moon, outside of their spacecraft. During that time, they covered a record 9,000 feet distance on the moon.