Apollo 16 The Men, Moon, and Memories (GIGANTISCHER SCHRITT, Full Documentary , Space Videos)

Video from the channel WeDocus - The World in Documentaries about Apollo 16, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 49:50. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

Documentary produced years after the Apollo 16 mission, the fifth crewed moon landing, which reconstructs the flight using mission footage and interviews with its three crew members: veteran commander John Young and rookies Charles Duke and Thomas K. Mattingly, along with technicians and controllers. It covers the crew's formation, training, the flight, surface exploration and the return.

The story starts with Apollo 13: Mattingly was command module pilot of the prime crew, but Duke, from the backup crew, caught measles and infected the group; Mattingly, who had never had it, was replaced by Jack Swigert two days before launch. After an oxygen tank exploded on April 13, 1970, Young, Duke and Mattingly worked on the ground to bring the crew home. Deke Slayton later offered Mattingly another mission, and the three were named the prime crew for Apollo 16. Training lasted more than two years and included field geology in the western United States and Hawaii, practice with the lunar Rover, and about 2,000 hours in simulators and test facilities.

In lunar orbit, after the lunar module Orion and command module Casper had separated, the backup guidance system for the main engine caused oscillations that nearly aborted the landing; they were traced to a broken wire, and the mission went ahead. On the surface of the Descartes highlands, Young and Duke set up an ultraviolet camera for astronomical observations and a heat flow experiment whose cable Young accidentally tore out. They covered the terrain with the Rover at about 11 miles per hour, discovered the large boulder nicknamed House Rock, and Duke left a photograph of his family on the ground. Over three moonwalks they gathered more than 200 pounds of samples. Mattingly, alone in orbit, ran 15 experiments, released a subsatellite, and on the way home made a 1-hour, 24-minute spacewalk to retrieve the film, during which he recovered his lost wedding ring. After splashdown alongside the Ticonderoga, the documentary reviews the crew's later careers: Young commanded the first shuttle mission in 1981, and Mattingly commanded two shuttle missions in 1982 and 1985.