NOTHING SO HIDDEN

April 16 1972 apollo 16 man's fifth lunar landing SAT silently on the pad awaiting its mission inside the astronaut quarters it's relaxed crew 8 Sunday breakfast John Young the veteran of three previous space flights with commander ken Mattingly command module pilot would conduct orbital experiments around the moon while Charles Duke explored the lunar surface with young April 22nd young and Duke would find themselves strapped into a small electric car called the rover bouncing across the lunar plateau known as Descartes as young and boot rode the bucking rover to the lunar formation called stone mountain NASA geologists Farouk Elbaz wrote on a blackboard on earth there is nothing so far removed from us to be beyond our reach or so Hitler that we cannot discover it Rene Descartes as John Young would later remark apollo 16 would certainly help prove that Rene Descartes was rightly almost like a freshly ploughed field it's behind on yet less than two days before it looked as though this would never happen it was in Young's words a real cliffhanger the Marshall Space Flight Center team was working on a launch vehicle gyroscope problem that threatened to scrub the mission less than an hour before liftoff their advisory to the Kennedy Space Center launch team was go the lift-off had been perfect during the three-day flight to lunar orbit the problems encountered had been more annoyances than critical such as paint flaking off the lunar module later a jammed antenna in one of the lunar modules several communication system all in all it had been a quiet flight april nineteen the burn into lunar orbit was right on the subsequent maneuvers all went without a hitch then the next day April twentieth young and Duke undocked the lunar module preparatory to landing leaving Mattingly in the command module find your mom and we're sailing free the next maneuver was for Mattingly to burn the main engine of his spacecraft to put it into a circular orbit but as the lunar module emerged from behind the moon no sir in preparing for the circularization burn Mattingly had found a parent uncontrolled oscillations in the main engines backup control system following mission rules he did not make the burn how long do you think it started thinking to get rather than the fury I think you're in a couple of our us with the backup system having trouble on our way right only the primary system was known to be usable on the engine needed to get the astronauts out of lunar orbit and back to earth however the lunar module engines could be used if the two spacecraft were docked the first step in the problem solving technique stabilize the situation in the safest manner get the two spacecraft which had separated close enough together to dock if necessary and all the back together can think back if you want to get them mentally prepared to do what you're going I don't see any way at that moment the chances for a landing looked pretty slim but you look at a problem step by step step one under way you look at step to analyze the problem as completely as possible within the time frame wish you make sure that that's common there's no way no redundancy or and in lunar orbit Mattingly flew the command module to a rendezvous as young talked him in okay the early night plan initially from North American if I suspected good day killing 45 Jim McDivitt the team was coming up to speed not only at the manned spacecraft Center but from MIT in Massachusetts to North American in Southern California isolate the trouble simulated evaluated you can't use it if you got broken wire you don't know it's gonna come back again not a cork upon people then you would go out here I mean that it's full speed ahead I just don't much see how I get on this next trip thank you guys ought to continue to work good so you'd only do it if you had a failure on the primary well how would you ever get the damn thing trimmed in a primary I'd shut again isolate simulate evaluate the results were coming in it was beginning to pay off the simulator tests and other data were showing that with the engine on the oscillations would do no harm despite the earlier pessimism it was beginning to look pretty good okay when you come up on a OS on an x-ray of rough 15 will give you a toe or no go for another try manned spacecraft Center director dr. Christopher C crap jr. just came back into the control center after having attended a meeting by management people in one of the back rooms the situation is go for landing well have anything that went on fire you do have a go for another try here at the PDI on ref 16 once more they would pass behind the moon and on the next revolution John Young and Charlie Duke would start their swift descent to the Descartes plateau okay your initial session looks good 200 pro October picked over hey Darius Gators low side okay 42 38 degrees north way hey looks like we gonna be able to make it God is not too many blocks up there line your go for landing yeah right right now is pretty good pretty dinner man was actually born one egg that comes the shadow okay down is 350c done it for anyone to pick up backin up slightly take you down stand by for contact from a letter down to level off center on bail a step six is twenty fat and back stop the original plan had called for young and Duke to get out and explore shortly after landing however the near abort had lasted six hours the tired astronauts would sleep April 21 mission commander john young stepped onto the descarte formation 1158 a.m. eastern standard time while their activities were monitored by Mission Control young and Duke were also observed by scientists located across the hall in the science support room after unloading the rover from its storage bay in the lunar module they planted the flag there we go young set up an ultraviolet camera to provide the first astronomical observations from the moon he took pictures of the Earth's upper atmosphere and magnetosphere and their interaction with the solar wind he also photographed the interstellar gas present throughout space and the ultraviolet halos that appear around galaxies astronomers have long wanted a telescope on the moon perhaps this experiment would show the moon and ideal base for future astronomical observations if you want to be drilled a hole into which a heat flow probe was to be placed part of one of the experiments attached to the station as Duke drilled young set up the central station and the remainder of the experiments then what many considered the biggest disappointment of the mission later we saw back there the lamb belly up here I don't know here's why they pull those Oh pull it off story they knowed it I didn't even know it that means you've got to gotta make all those wires numbered wires in there and have an excellent mother and if that doesn't occur world a chance of shorting out participation well that's another one that they're working on earth they tried to figure a way to fix the heat flow on the moon the astronauts continued with the other experiments young placed a series of sensors in the soil then fired explosive charges mapping the lunar subsurface much as geologists on earth use explosives to search for oil they continue to sample the area and activate the experiments then they return to the rover and prepared for their first trip away from the landing site in search for geological samples and here we go there first Traverse would take them about one kilometer west of the landing site they would make two stops to collect samples and conduct experiments the most beautiful sight young used a portable instrument to measure the local magnetic field he would later record the most intense magnetic field ever found on the moon far higher than scientists ever suspected as you come around there there's a rock in the near field on this rim that had some fight on the top of it we'd like you to pick it up at the grab sample that's if you got it right there okay we gotta go there would be one more stop before they got back to the lunar module to close out this EBA with Duke acting as photographer and young as driver they put the rover through a pull test is he on the ground at I'm a 10-kilometer huh he's got about two wheels on the ground Gators yard I have no to God okay here's a sharpie hey that's right he's a big rooster tail at all four wheels and is deterred be scared the back end breaks loose just like on snow come on back John in a jacket on him now out a Amy's never seen a driver like this okay when he hits the crater if it starts bouncing is when he gets his route to fail he makes sharp turn then it was back to their lunar base activate experiment and close out ETA 1 be wise exercise their rights a little bit level hey that's right those big pictures of the enjoy the low residue life protein diet on earth the scientists took a break tomorrow would be another busy day April 22nd the lunar surface temperature of the Sun should be around 135 degrees today today they were headed a little over four kilometers south to climb their Rover up the side of Stone Mountain yeah we are really going up a hill I'll figure their first station a crater 700 feet above their lunar module we got the soil we got a certainly something if you go to one man battling and maybe do it they would make a total of six stops on this Traverse collecting samples from large rocks down through the intermediates to the smallest soil particles they would operate experiments measuring the strength of local magnetic fields to measuring the resistance of the soil to compaction we come away hey is either go straight across that was fun finally a troll okay Oh walking up here the sampling time used up it was time to return to the rover or head back to the lunar module and they did it a two minutes less travel time in their attendant pre-plan fantastic we feeling good dad always go dude enough serious talk but with the limited oxygen and water in the backpacks it was finally time to close out EBA to now I think they realized that it's not more well gee whiz like my friends a thrill but it's real exploration and this is much more serious and much more important for the future of mankind than just to claim exploit to technical or technological exploit this is exploration Ray Bradbury claims that what mankind sees in the exploration of space is his first chance of immortality since he's since he invented religion April 23rd the decision had been made not to try and fix the broken heat flow experiment because of the time and complexities involved perverse number three today young and Duke would head north about five kilometers to north Rey crater the largest lunar crater to be sampled by men I'm spinning hey Tony it seems to me this is a more subdued surface over here then going towards outbreak Oh spectacular just spectacular Wow sorry Charlie hittable I gotta keep on the crop that's great yeah Jack that's a good point to remember all free cruise now attend Oh take her there before they get back I remember and if this thing has people hey hit 60 degrees now I tell you I can't pee to the bottom of it now much quotes the agent I've got a care that's now that I'm team if anything on the moon can be called that test colac photograph keep moving time is precious on the moon what they look like dude Edwin picture can you get a round fake here you get per malisha at all how about rolling that one over no way then one of the most spectacular discoveries of the mission is a big hit it makes further away than we think play which is right behind you and we better press on for the big boulder okay we're headed that way you get the tongs carry the rake big black dog okay i know we got it I can't even okay let's go back and we encourage us to look for some variety but now it was time to head back to their base and close out the Evo all right we think you could just about the head stop now the only during the previous e VA a section of a rear fender had come off the rover causing the astronauts to receive occasional showers of lunar dirt and that's a beautiful sight young park the rover then moved out to join do enter the lunar module and prepare for liftoff smile fao don't be mad we'll get it up there see how nice and leisurely a spin that's why it should be getting ready for a spin Jim's gonna ride for a ride head over talk time together in orbit the two spacecraft pure whether each inspecting the other one over top made all time the inspections complete command module and lunar module maneuvered to docking John Young Ken Mattingly and Charlie Duke reunited aboard the command module settled down for tomorrow's tasks jettisoned the lunar module and burn out of orbit to come home April 25 Ken Mattingly left the confines of the command module cabin 173,000 miles from Earth as he orbited the moon he had not only made visual observations he had been operating a complex series of experiments many of these had returned instant data to houston to had taken thousands of high-resolution pictures of the lunar terrain now Mattingly retrieved the film canisters and made his way back to the cabin with them as Charlie Duke stood in the hatch to help him it had been quite a mission in John Youngs words I think we clean as much in 10 days and most people play at lifetime April 27 the last day the crew looked out their windows through the 5,000 degree fireball of reentry at their native planet that is beautiful now they're blooming really follow control you stood an observer on the Ticonderoga estimates the distance from the ship about the woodpile we saw an example of goal oriented teamwork in action the kind of thing that made this country great and the kind of thing is going to keep it that way real smooth shot every bit of it Jerry yeah protoman beautiful all done young man standing I am I cannot imagine that cigar anymore I cannot word