Apollo 16 - Nothing So Hidden
Video from the channel AIRBOYD about Apollo 16, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 29:22. Language: English. Video type: Archive footage.
What it shows
A period film about the Apollo 16 mission, following commander John Young, command module pilot Ken Mattingly, and Charles Duke from the launch on April 16, 1972, to splashdown. It shows the warning of a problem with one of the launch vehicle's gyroscopes, resolved less than an hour before liftoff; a quiet transit with minor issues, such as paint flaking off the lunar module; and arrival in lunar orbit on April 19. The next day, after undocking, Mattingly held off on the circularization burn because of oscillations in the backup control system for the main engine. After about six hours of analysis, clearance came to descend on revolution 16, and Orion touched down on the Descartes plateau. The three moonwalks cover deploying the ultraviolet camera, the broken cable of the heat flow experiment, seismic soundings with explosive charges, the portable magnetometer, testing the Rover, the climb to Stone Mountain and the visit to North Ray crater with its huge House Rock.
When and where it was filmed
The footage was shot during the mission, between April 16 and 27, 1972: at the launch center, at mission control in Houston and its science support room, on the lunar surface, in orbit during Mattingly's spacewalk on April 25 at 173,000 miles from Earth, and during recovery alongside the Ticonderoga.
Context
The title refers to a line from René Descartes that geologist Farouk El-Baz wrote on a blackboard while the astronauts were exploring. The film dwells on the problem-solving method applied during the near-abort: stabilize the situation, analyze, isolate, simulate and evaluate, with teams from the Manned Spacecraft Center, MIT and North American. It ends with the crew back at mission control, celebrating with cigars.