Word: astronaut
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...disappearing in a swirl of gray dust as the lander touches on the surface. There are also still shots that strikingly convey the eerie desolation of lunar distances. None is more dramatic than one that shows the Lunar Rover parked on the far edge of a yawning crater while Astronaut Duke picks up soil samples in the foreground (see color pages). One alarming view of Orion, shot from Casper by Mattingly, shows mysteriously damaged panels on the side of the lunar module as it returns from the surface of the moon...
Some of the most exciting film involves the electric-powered Lunar Rover. One sequence, shot from the Rover, provides a driver's-eye view of the passing landscape as the little vehicle skitters across the rock-littered surface. Others show the Rover bouncing off rocks as Astronaut John Young hot-rods along the Cayley Plains or throwing up rooster tails of moon dust as he puts it through a series of skidding, Le Mans-type racing turns. "It's simply a superb vehicle," said the high-spirited Duke after his return to Houston. The vehicle's designers...
Russian Poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko was impressed by the Apollo 16 launch, but what really grabbed him was his visit to the launch pad the night before, accompanied by Apollo 15 Astronaut David Scott and a bottle of champagne. He forgot to open the bottle, so moved was he by "the white, tender body of the rocket, supported by the clumsy, tender hands of its red tower. It was like big brother embracing his sister before going a long way. It was a great impression." And that was not all. The tower was also "a sea crab that accidentally found...
...While Astronaut Ken Mattingly orbited overhead in the command module Casper, Duke and Young stared out their cabin window onto the sundrenched Cayley Plains. Near their spacecraft, they excitedly reported to scientists back in Mission Control, was a large variety of rocks and boulders, some as big as 10 ft. across, glistening in shades of white and pink and gray. "All we have to do is jump out the hatch and we've got plenty of rocks," exclaimed Duke. The astronauts also reported brilliantly gleaming ray patterns -splashes of material gouged from the moon's interior by meteorite...
Before the first moon walk ended, scientists in Houston were surprised to hear that the multitude of rocks gathered by the astronauts apparently included few crystalline, or heat-formed specimens; that cast doubt on the theory that the Descartes area's Cayley Plains were once the site of volcanic flows. The day's prize find was made by the Houston scientists themselves. With the TV finally on after a second antenna had been aligned with earth, they could direct Duke's attention to a large, football-sized rock that glittered with imbedded black glass fragments...