Moon Man
Astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell, lunar module pilot, photographed this sweeping view showing fellow Moon-explorer astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr., mission commander, and the Apollo 14 Lunar Module. A small cluster of rocks and a few prints made by the lunar overshoes of Mitchell are in the foreground. Mitchell was standing in the boulder field, located just north by northwest of the LM, when he took this picture during the second Apollo 14 extravehicular activity, on February 6, 1971. (NASA)
Lost In Space
The crew of Apollo 14 hoped to reach the rim of Cone crater, a more recent impact crater about 1,000 feet wide a little over a mile from the Antares lander.
However, the terrain was hillier than expected, and the crew lost sight of the crater rim among the ridges of the hills. Eventually, they had to turn back because they needed to save enough oxygen and other supplies to return safely to the lander.
High-resolution photos of the area taken with LRO’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) reveal that they had come within about 30 yards of the rim, just a minuscule distance considering they had travelled over 250,000 miles to get there. (NASA)
Photo: Ed Mitchell consults a map on his way to Cone crater during the Apollo 14 mission.
