Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

Exploring the Unknown
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20 would carry a lunar rover, a small vehicle that would allow the astronauts to
transverse the lunar surface, and could stay on the Moon for up to 78 hours. 74
Apollo 12, carrying Charles “Pete” Conrad, Alan Bean, and Richard Gordon,
was launched during a thunderstorm on 14 November 1969. Lightning struck the
spacecraft during its initial ascent and for a moment it appeared that the mission
would have to be aborted. But this threat passed, and the lunar module made a
precision landing within walking distance of the Surveyor III spacecraft that had
landed on the moon in April 1967.
The next mission, Apollo 13, was launched on 11 April 1970. Its crew included
James Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise. Swigert was a last minute substitute
for T. K. “Ken” Mattingly. There was concern that Mattingly had been exposed to
measles and might become ill during the mission. More than two days away from
Earth on the mission’s outbound journey, an oxygen tank in the service module
exploded, placing the crew’s life in jeopardy. There would be no lunar landing,
and it took heroic efforts by the crew and those on the ground to bring the
crew back safely by using the lunar module as a life boat for most of the journey
around the Moon and back to Earth.
The intended landing site for Apollo 13 had been the Frau Mauro, a location
of high scientific interest. When Apollo 14 was launched, on 31 January 1971, it
was targeted to land at the same site. The crew—Alan Shepard, who had made the
first U.S. spaceflight almost ten years earlier, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell—
carried out two extended Moon walks. The mission became notorious when at
the conclusion of the second walk Shepard used a piece of lunar equipment with
an actual head of a six-iron golf club inserted in it to hit (after two misses) the
first lunar golf shot.
The Apollo 14 crew was the last to be required to undergo quarantine
after their return to Earth. The possibility of lifting the quarantine had been
examined after the first two Apollo missions, but the Interagency Committee on
Back Contamination refused to do so on the recommendation of a committee set
up by the National Academy of Sciences to review the issue. Because Frau Mauro,
the planned landing site for Apollo 13, was a very different type of location on
the Moon than the places where Apollo 11 and 12 had landed, and because
the astronauts would take a deep core sample, “a majority (of the committee)
recommend continuance of the 3-week lunar quarantine period. A minority favor
discontinuance of quarantine.” (II-76) When there was no evidence of possible
back contamination after Apollo 14 returned, the requirement for quarantine
was lifted. 75
Missions Canceled
When Richard Nixon became president in January 1969, he was advised of
the need for decisions on the character of the U.S. civilian space program once
74. For a description of the various stages of lunar explorations, see Compton, Where No Man
Has Gone Before, Chaps. 10–14.
75. Ibid, p. 223.