Word: lunar
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...national mood has changed sharply since Neil Armstrong made the first human footprints on the lunar soil 18 months ago. Public concern has shifted from space to more pressing earthly problems. In addition, the Russians have dramatically demonstrated that unattended robots like Lunokhod 1 -still alive and moving after eight weeks on the moon-may eventually achieve some of the goals of manned flight at a fraction of the cost and with none of the risks to life. Thus, as it prepares to launch Apollo 14 and Astronauts Alan Shepard, Stu Roosa and Edgar Mitchell on man's fourth...
...lift off on Sunday, Jan. 31, at 3:23 p.m. E.S.T., will head for the same hilly region near the crater Fra Mauro that was the target of its ill-fated predecessor. If all goes well, the Apollo 14 astronauts will become the first human visitors to the lunar highlands. There they may be able to recover rocks dating back to the birth of the moon, more than 4.5 billion years ago. The lunar landing maneuvers will differ in important details from the two previous successful manned lunar expeditions. For one thing, the command ship Kitty Hawk will descend...
Shepard and Mitchell plan to spend 331 hours on the moon, including 9 hours or more in the lunar outdoors. Many of their activities should be visible back on earth. As Shepard climbs down from the lunar module, he will pull a cord to open up an exterior equipment bay, thereby switching on a color TV camera, which will later be carried around to record the astronauts' work. For insurance against an Apollo 12-type television breakdown, a black-and-white camera has been provided as a spare. Shepard, who will be recognizable by red arm and leg bands...
Rock Festival. This time the EVA (ExtraVehicular Activity) will include some fireworks-real ones. Earlier lunar seismic experiments have been largely passive; that is, the seismometers have usually depended on the occurrence of moonquakes or other natural rumblings to make readings. Now, with the help of a new gadget called a "thumper," which resembles a heavily weighted walking stick, Mitchell will create some miniature moonquakes of his own. As he walks past three widely spaced seismic listening devices called geophones, he will place the thumper on the surface and detonate one of 21 explosive charges in its base plate...
...more powerful explosive device: a mortar containing four rocket grenades that will be fired after Apollo 14 returns home. Together with the shock waves that will be generated in the moon when Antares' abandoned ascent stage and Apollo 14's discarded S-4B rocket hit the lunar surface, tremors from the explosives should give seismologists many more clues to the structure and composition of the moon...