Apollo 14 Full Mission - Historical Narration and Footage, Onboard Audio, AI upscale, NASA, Moon

Video from the channel Retro Space HD about Apollo 14, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 1:13:32. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

The video covers the Apollo 14 mission from start to finish. It uses period narration, onboard audio recordings and restored footage. It opens by introducing the crew and the mission's objectives, follows the flight day by day and closes with splashdown and recovery of the capsule. In command was Alan Shepard, returning to space after years away from flying. Stuart Roosa piloted the command module Kitty Hawk and stayed in lunar orbit. Edgar Mitchell went down to the surface with Shepard in the lunar module Antares.

The destination was the Fra Mauro highlands, which Apollo 13 had failed to reach. The main scientific interest was Cone Crater, because material ejected by its impact could come from the Imbrium basin. The mission ran into trouble from the start. After launch, docking with the lunar module failed five times because the capture latches would not engage. They succeeded on the sixth attempt, and no fault was later found in the probe. The third stage, the S-IVB, crashed into the Moon and the seismometer left by Apollo 12 recorded the impact. Before descent, a false abort signal appeared. The computer had to be reprogrammed on the fly, with help from Donald Eyles of MIT. The landing radar also gave trouble.

The first moonwalk lasted 4 h 50 min. During it the ALSEP experiment package was set up, including a nuclear generator, a seismometer, a laser reflector, a mortar and an impact device or thumper. The astronauts used the MET handcart and collected about 44 pounds of samples. The second moonwalk lasted 4 h 35 min and consisted of climbing toward Cone Crater. They had to stop less than 150 feet from the rim for lack of time. During that walk, Shepard hit some golf balls. In total they spent 9.5 hours on the surface, a record at the time. The crew splashed down on February 9, 1971 with about 94 pounds of rock, and were recovered by the USS New Orleans.