- [Man] Guidance, internal.
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Ignition sequence start.
Engines on.
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- Apollo 15 that was launched 50 years ago
on July the 26th, 1971.
It was a
relatively big step from the previous three missions.
As president Nixon stated,
it would be the most ambitious
scientific exploration in space at that time.
The three astronauts were Commander David Scott,
Command Module Pilot, Al Worden,
and Lunar Module Pilot, Jim Irwin.
The Lunar Rover was an electrically driven, bare bones car
to allow the astronauts to cover much greater distance
on the moon than than the previous
three flights could accomplish.
- [Man 2] This is really a rock and roll ride, isn't it?
Never been on a ride like this before.
Boy, oh boy.
- [John] It had a top speed of about eight miles an hour,
although I think in later flights,
they actually cranked that up to about 11 miles an hour.
Scott and Irwin spent three days exploring
the Apennine Hadley region in the Lunar Rover.
There's actually a plaque on the Lunar Rover vehicle
that was left on the moon that says
"Man's first wheels on the moon."
The heavy focus on science for Apollo 15
was its primary feature.
It was achieved two ways.
One, of course, with the Lunar Rover vehicle
on the moon to gather more lunar data.
And secondly, the command service module
carried a SIM bay of scientific instruments
that allowed Al Worden to gather many photographs
and much data as he circled the moon
for his three days in orbit.
One of the interesting experiments that Scott performed
on the moon was to demonstrate Galileo's theory
that two objects will always drop at the same rate
in an airless environment.
- [Man 2] Well I'll drop it.
And I'll drop the two of them here
and hopefully they'll hit the ground at the same time.
How about that?
- [John] Scott and Irwin, while they were doing
their lunar rock studies on the moon,
came across a single rock
that was determined to be over 4 billion years old.
It was called the Genesis Rock.
Scott and Irwin spent over 18 hours on the moon,
the longest time of any of the Apollo missions at that time.
And they gathered 170 pounds
of lunar material to bring back.
They also set out the Apollo lunar experiments package.
In a private moment, Commander David Scott
made a small aluminum statue of an astronaut
on the moon
to memorialize the 14 astronauts
that the died in the U.S. and Soviet programs.
The Lunar Rover had a TV camera on it,
and for the first time we were privileged to see
the asset stage take off from the moon.
After Scott and Irwin were back in the command module,
they continued to orbit the moon for two days,
and during that time deployed
the Particles and Fields satellite.
During the flight back to earth,
one of the most important tasks required of the crew
was for Al Worden to EVA from the command module
and to capture the cassettes that recorded
all the data that he'd accumulated
during his orbits with the moon.
That was the first time at 197,000 miles from earth
that man has ever done a deep space EVA.
(orchestral music)
During re-entry the burning reaction control system fuel
burned through the risers of one of the shoots,
and that shoot streamed and effectively became
about one fifth of its normal capacity.
Apollo 15 landed on two shoots.
It was designed to do that,
but it did mean a hard landing, but a safe landing.
Apollo 15 broke several records.
The first use of the Lunar Rover,
the first deep space walk by Al Worden,
the heaviest payload in lunar orbit it as 107,000 pounds,
and the longest crewed lunar mission of 295 hours.
Apollo 15 achieved all of its objectives
and accumulated a wealth of scientific information.
(orchestral music)