Earthrise (16 page)

Trek to Cone Crater

“I had ambition not only to go farther than any one had been before, but as far as it was possible for man to go.”

—Captain James Cook

“W
ell, it’s nice to be out in the sunny day again,” I said as I climbed down the ladder of the Antares to greet Alan.

“Yes, it’s a beautiful day here in Fra Mauro Base,” Alan added.

It was day two of our Moon mission and we started our second EVA nearly two and a half hours early. We were glad to be outside again. Neither of us had gotten much sleep, but resting in our hammocks and having dinner and breakfast gave us new energy.

As I looked out at the lunar surface this second time, I was amazed at the intense contrast of light. The sun’s rays cast long, stark shadows and everything looked very dark or very light. This looked so different from the softer colors of Earth. Yet, in the Moon’s bleakness, there was a peaceful stillness and calm.

And when I turned my eyes toward the heavens I caught another glimpse of the Moon’s deep black, starless sky. It was mesmerizing. I wasn’t able to see Earth at this point, but I certainly felt very connected to my world that was now so far away.

Although Alan and I had prepared for many years to be able to walk on the Moon, it still felt exciting to be here. We’d already refilled our backpacks with oxygen and loaded the pouches in our spacesuits with fresh drinking water for the full day ahead. Our first EVA focused on observing our new world and setting up and conducting a number of science experiments. Today we were going on a geophysical traverse—in other words we were going to take a long hike. Our objective was to walk more than one mile to the large Cone Crater. As lunar explorers, we were going to use everything we’d learned in our geology training to find and collect Moon rocks that would help provide important clues about how the universe, the Moon, and even the Earth were once created long ago.

As the navigator on our trek to Cone Crater, I was responsible for tracking our journey. I carried a map to guide us during our traverse from the Lunar Module to Cone Crater and back to the Lunar Module again.

NASA geologists had selected designated points where Alan and I were instructed to collect lunar rock samples. A number of craters acted as visual landmarks along the way. We’d look for and pass by Triplet, Weird, Flank, Doublet, and of course, Cone. Each crater’s name made sense. Three craters formed Triplet and there were two craters at Doublet. Flank Crater flanked Cone Crater, and Cone, as its name suggests, was large and cone-shaped. I guess the Weird Crater just looked unusual.

Each crater stop was called a “station” on the map and was designated with a letter. We started out at station A, and four and a half hours later we would end up at station H with a total of 15 stops.

We loaded the MET with our cameras and tools, and also carried an instrument called a Lunar Portable Magnetometer. This instrument could be taken on and off the MET, and we’d use it to measure the magnetic field of the Moon at two specific locations.

As we started our trek from the Antares, the surface of the Moon was relatively flat and not too rocky. The surface was, however, loaded with craters that we had to carefully step over and walk around. Alan and I both pulled the MET at different times, but in the beginning Alan pulled the cart while I followed him taking photos and collecting Moon rocks. The two wheels of the MET left very distinct tracks in the lunar dust, which I described to Mission Control. “The MET tracks make a very smooth pattern in the surface, reminiscent of driving a tractor through a plowed field,” I said. “It smoothes it out and makes a very smooth, distinct pattern, and is probably a quarter of an inch deep, no more.”

Even though it added more bulk to my spacesuit, I really enjoyed using my chest-mounted camera. I took many close-ups and long shots. Because it wouldn’t have been easy to press a button on a camera with our thick Moon gloves, our cameras were designed with a trigger that could be pulled. Whenever I wanted to take a photo, I’d simply point my camera at an object and pull the trigger.

As we got closer and closer to Cone Crater, the terrain became a lot more rugged and there were more rocks and boulders on our path. This made it harder to lug the MET along, and at times the cart would nearly tip over if we didn’t hang on to it tightly.

A Rough, Challenging Hike

“The surface of the Moon is not smooth, uniform, and precisely spherical as a great number of philosophers believe it to be, but is uneven, rough, and full of cavities and prominences, being not unlike the face of the Earth, relieved by chains of mountains and deep valleys.”

—Galileo Galilei

Although I was constantly looking at my map, it wasn’t easy to judge distances on the Moon and our landmarks weren’t always easy to find. One reason for this was because all the craters on the map were shown from a bird’s-eye view taken from above in lunar orbit on earlier Apollo missions.

The craters looked very different at eye level. And it wasn’t easy to tell one crater from another because the lunar surface often looked like a rolling sand dune and the edge of one crater often looked like the edge of another. We didn’t want to get lost, so Alan and I would stand on top of a crater and look around so we knew exactly where we were. Fortunately, we did stay on our route the entire time.

But the work was stressful. We huffed and puffed as we walked, even in the reduced gravity of the Moon. It wasn’t easy to lug along the MET or to walk across the rock-strewn surface. Our heart rates were continually monitored to make sure our bodies were not stressed from overexertion. Every once in a while, Mission Control would tell us to take a break because their monitors showed that our heart rates were too high.

Collecting Moon rocks was both an art and science. Like geologists on Earth, we often used special tools such as tongs to pick up rocks, or a geologist’s hammer to chip off portions of rocks from larger lunar boulders. We placed all of our smaller rocks in plastic “Z bags” and loaded them into the MET.

The rocks came in different shapes, sizes, and formations, and most of them were made of lava. It’s interesting to note that some of the rocks were white, some looked like glass, and others were formed with crystals. We also numbered the rocks and gave some of them names like Saddle Rock or Big Bertha. We were thrilled when we found Big Bertha; it was about the size of a football and the largest rock we brought back.

As the day wore on, our oxygen was becoming depleted and our heart rates were rising. Time was of the essence and Alan and I became very focused on getting to our destination: Cone Crater.

About 1,000 feet across and 800 feet deep, this enormous round crater was formed when a large meteorite impacted the Moon. The impact caused a great deal of material, or ejecta, to be thrown out and around the rim of the crater. The lunar rocks around the rim of Cone Crater would give us important clues about the Moon and Earth. But finding the rim of Cone Crater proved to be very difficult. The climb to the crater was getting steeper by the minute; Alan and I were finding it harder to breathe and our heart rates were starting to soar.

Mission Control asked us to turn back, but we didn’t want to give up yet. We couldn’t tell how close or far we were from Cone, and we needed more time.

“Okay, take 30 more minutes,” CAPCOM Fred Haise told us.

So Alan and I kept plugging along. I was pulling the MET now, which became tougher to do as we hiked up Cone’s steep incline. Alan helped me by picking up the other end of the cart. After 30 minutes, we could tell we were at the edge of Cone Crater because the area was overflowing with ejecta of rocks and boulders.

I talked with Mission Control and gave a highly detailed description of the edge of Cone Crater:

The area here is in an area of considerably more boulders, a larger boulder field, more numerous boulders than we’ve seen in the past. We’ve just come into it as we approached B from A. Now, there were boulders to the north of us; we previously talked of boulders to the north, and doggone it, they may turn out to be a ray pattern. It looks suspiciously like one. However, where we are now, we’re about on the edge of a general boulder population lining the flank of Cone Crater. Now they’re not too numerous at this point and are somewhat patchy. There’s a lot of them buried, half buried, a few of the smaller ones sitting on the surface. These boulders are filleted, and we’ll have to sample that filleting later. The surface texture—the fine—appears very much the same as what we’ve been walking on all along. And about the only difference we could see is probably a larger number of smaller craters. I say ‘probably’; they’re so numerous that unless you really make a population count, you can’t tell. I’m guessing a larger number of craters—probably secondary’s from Cone perhaps—and certainly a larger number of boulders lying around. Now, most of these boulders are rounded. There are a few angular ones. There are a few rocks with angularities; but, by and large, you can see edges that have been chipped off indicating the beginning of a smoothing process. And some of them are far beyond the beginning of smoothing; they’re worn down pretty well. And most of the rough edges are where they have fractured and perhaps turned over. Most of them appear to be along fractures of where other rocks are sitting near them that might have once been a part of that boulder.

Alan and I then got to work collecting specimens and chipping off rock samples before loading them into the MET. The rocks were extremely hard and chipping off the pieces wasn’t easy to do. Our extra 30 minutes had gone fast, and because we were getting even lower on oxygen, Mission Control finally told us that we had to turn back. There was no more negotiating for more time.

Unfortunately, Alan and I didn’t get a chance to stand on the rim of Cone Crater and peer down into it, which we both really wanted to do. I imagine it would have been like looking over the edge of the Grand Canyon and seeing the magnificence of it all. Yes, it was disappointing. But most important, we’d made it to the edge of Cone Crater and we’d collected a huge haul of Moon rocks.

Alan and I then turned around and headed back to the Antares, collecting more lunar samples along the way. When we finally got back to the Lunar Module, there was still a bit of time to make history.

The First Lunar Olympics

Before leaving the Moon, Alan and I decided to have some fun and games. Using a piece of equipment from one of our science experiments, Alan creatively assembled a golf club with the head of a six iron he’d carried with him. We still had the camera going, so everything was filmed for the world to see—and enjoy.

“Houston … you might recognize what I have in my hand as the handle for the contingency sample return,” Alan said to the camera. “It just so happens to have a genuine six iron on the bottom of it. In my left hand, I have a little white pellet that’s familiar to millions of Americans. I’ll drop it down.”

Alan dropped a golf ball he’d been carrying in the pocket of his spacesuit into the lunar dust. “Unfortunately, the suit is so stiff, I can’t do this with two hands,” he added. “But I’m going to try a little sand-trap shot here.” He took a one-handed shot and missed.

“You got more dirt than ball that time,” I joked.

“Got more dirt than ball,” Alan confessed. “Here we go again.”

LUNAR RECORDS

On February 5 and 6, 1971, Alan Shepard and I were on the surface of the Moon for nearly 34 hours. We walked directly on the surface of the Moon for nine hours and 17 minutes and covered a distance of nearly five kilometers. We hold the record for having the longest Moonwalk on foot of all the Apollo missions.

Alan and I accomplished a great deal of scientific work such as observing the lunar surface, setting up a science station, conducting science experiments, and hiking over the lunar surface to collect nearly 100 pounds of Moon rocks and other lunar samples.

Alan finally whacked the ball, which went sailing into a crater about 50 feet away. “Straight as a die. Miles and miles and miles,” Alan said as if he’d made a hole in one.

Not to be outdone, I then took out a thin rod from our solar wind experiment and used it as a javelin. I hurled my javelin through the vacuum of space and right toward the crater where Alan’s golfball had landed. “There’s the greatest javelin throw of the century,” Alan added.

It was great to see the rod zip away, and I’ve always been happy to say that my javelin landed a few inches farther than Alan’s golf ball.

We packed up all our Moon rocks and equipment and started to load our bounty into the Lunar Module. This was another endeavor that required ingenuity. I climbed into the Antares, and the two of us used an innovative rope-and-pulley mechanism for loading. Alan would hook a plastic bag holding a rock onto the line and then send it up to me. It was a simple system but worked quite well.

Before climbing up the ladder and into the Antares for the very last time, I stopped and took one last look. I had the profound realization that I’d never be here again. I then held onto the rails and leaned way back, as far back as I could go. I looked straight up to catch one last glimpse of Earth, in its beautiful crescent shape.