Apollo Expeditions to the Moon
CHAPTER 12.4
CHOOSING A SMOOTHER SPOT
The targeting data for the Apollo 14 landing site were every
bit as good as the data for Apollo 12; but we had to fly around
for a little while for the same reason they had to. The landing
site was rougher, on direct observation, than the photos had been
able to show. So I looked for a smoother area, found one, and
landed there.
Our first EVA was similar to those before; we got out, set
up the solar-wind experiment and the flag, and deployed the
ALSEP. The latter had two new experiments. One was called the
"thumper." Ed Mitchell set up an array of geophones, and then
walked out along a planned survey line with a device that could
be placed against the surface and fired, to create a local impact
of known size. Thirteen of the 21 charges went off, registering
good results. The other different experiment we had was a grenade
launcher, with four grenades to be fired off by radio command
some time after we had left the Moon. They were designed to
impact at different distances from the launcher, to get a pattern
of seismic response to the impact explosions.
While Ed and I were working on our first EVA. Stu was doing
the photographic part of the orbital science experiments. One job
was to get detailed photographic coverage of the proposed site
for the Apollo 15 mission, near the Descartes crater.
He was asked also to get a number of other photos of the
lunar surface, in areas that had not been well-covered in earlier
missions. Stu produced some great photos of the surface, rotating
the command module Kitty Hawk to compensate for the motion of the
image. He photographed the area around Lansberg B, which had been
the predicted impact site of the Apollo 13 S-IVB stage. It was
calculated that the impact could have produced a crater about 200
feet in diameter, and scientists wanted good pictures of the area
so they could search for the brand-new crater on the Moon.
Stu also found them another new crater on the back side of
the Moon. It was serendipity; he was shooting other pictures and
suddenly this very bright, young crater came into view directly
under Kitty Hawk. So he swung the camera around, pushed the
button, and then went back to his original assignment.
