Exploring the Moon | The Road from Apollo 12 to Apollo 15 | The Apollo Mission #5

Video from the channel Mr. Cosmos about Apollo 15, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 13:00. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

A documentary narrated in English covering the Apollo 12, 13, 14 and 15 missions. It presents them as the stage in which the program moved from proving that the Moon could be reached to exploring it systematically. It combines narration with original audio from the communications and launches.

Apollo 12 lifted off on 14 November 1969 with Pete Conrad, Richard Gordon and Alan Bean. Lightning struck the rocket at 36 seconds and the crew restored the systems after flight controller John Aaron's call to switch the SCE to auxiliary. The Intrepid module landed on 19 November about 163 m from the Surveyor 3 probe. Apollo 13 lifted off on 11 April 1970 with Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise; an oxygen tank explosion forced the crew to abandon the landing, and they returned using the Aquarius lunar module as a lifeboat until splashdown on 17 April. Apollo 14 lifted off on 31 January 1971 with Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell; it overcame a fault in the abort switch and landed at Fra Mauro on 5 February.

Apollo 12 brought back more than 34 kg of samples, deployed the first ALSEP and retrieved parts from Surveyor 3. On Apollo 14, more than 40 kg of samples were collected and Shepard hit golf balls with an improvised 6-iron. Apollo 15 lifted off on 26 July 1971 with David Scott, James Irwin and Alfred Worden. It introduced the LRV lunar rover, which covered more than 27 km over three excursions in the Hadley-Apennine region; during these the so-called Genesis Rock was collected and Scott repeated the hammer-and-feather experiment. Worden carried out the first deep-space spacewalk, and the mission splashed down on 7 August 1971.