Word: astronautical
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Next day millions of TV viewers on earth watched as Challenger, in a dramatic pyrotechnic display, lifted off from the moon's mountain-rimmed Taurus-Littrow valley. Two hours later, Cernan and Astronaut-Geologist Jack Schmitt reunited with Ron Evans, who was whirling overhead in America. Then, after two more days of observing the moon from the orbiting command ship, the astronauts fired themselves out of lunar orbit and began the three-day journey home. By week's end, the final U.S. expedition to the moon was headed for its scheduled splashdown this week in the South Pacific...
Deeply Moved. Schweickart himself is a striking example of what might be called the Lunar Effect. Before the flight he was totally committed to his life as an astronaut. But as he floated outside Apollo 9 on his space walk 160 miles above the earth, he was overwhelmed by emotion. "I completely lost my identity as an American astronaut," he says. "I felt a part of everyone and everything sweeping past me below." Now he spends long hours at a Houston clinic for drug addicts, takes part in a volunteer telephone-counseling service for troubled youngsters, and is involved...
...Something happens to you out there," explains Apollo 14 Astronaut Ed Mitchell. As a result of what happened to him, he has since quit the space program, divorced his wife and begun to devote himself full-time to an unlikely pursuit for an M.I.T. graduate: research into extrasensory perception (ESP), which he feels may help people round the world to achieve greater "intuitive" communication...
Walking on the moon was a religious experience for Apollo 15 Astronaut Jim Irwin, who was "deeply moved by the beauty of the lunar mountains and felt the presence of God." A month after his return, he says, "I knew that God had called me to his service." He quit the astronaut program, dubbed himself the "moon missionary," and became a lay preacher on the Southern Baptist evangelical circuit...
Nonetheless, they expect the last mission to be the most scientifically productive. In Scientist-Astronaut Harrison Schmitt, they will finally have the services of a professional geologist on the moon. The Taurus-Littrow landing site contains what may be small, volcanically created cinder cones; they seem to be miniature versions of earthly features like Honolulu's Diamond Head. The cones may well be remnants of what NASA Geochemist Robin Brett calls "some of the last belches of lunar activity before the moon turned off." Finally, Apollo 17 planners have scheduled a program of experiments and observation far more sophisticated...