Apolo 16: Los hombres, la Luna y los recuerdos (ARCHIVO, Imágenes, Documental en inglés, ESPACIO)

Video from the channel DocuEra – The History Channel about Apollo 16, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 49:50. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

A documentary about the Apollo 16 mission, the fifth crewed Moon landing, told through interviews with its three crew members (commander John Young, a veteran, and rookies Charles Duke and Thomas Ken Mattingly) and with mission control staff, combined with NASA footage and audio. It covers the eleven-day flight, from training through the return, and the astronauts' later careers.

The story begins with Apollo 13. Mattingly was part of its prime crew, but two days before launch he was removed for having been exposed to measles, which backup crew member Duke had contracted; Jack Swigert replaced him. After an oxygen tank exploded on 13 April 1970, Young, Duke and Mattingly worked five straight days on the ground to help bring that crew home. Deke Slayton, head of the astronaut office, later promised Mattingly another chance, and the trio ended up designated as the prime crew of Apollo 16. Preparation lasted more than two years and included about 2,000 hours in simulators and test facilities, geological training in the western United States and in Hawaii, and practice with the lunar rover: electric, with a motor in each wheel and a single control stick.

After the lunar module Orion separated from the command module Casper, violent oscillations in the backup steering system of the main engine nearly forced the landing to be cancelled. The fault was attributed to a broken wire and the mission went ahead. On the surface, Young and Duke set up an ultraviolet camera and spectrograph, described as the first space telescope, and a heat flow experiment that was disabled when Young's foot caught and pulled out its power cable. With the lunar rover they reached, by their own account, a speed record of 11 miles per hour. They also found that a rock they thought was medium-sized was as big as a house, and named it House Rock. Over three moonwalks they collected more than 200 pounds of samples, and Duke left a photograph of his family on the ground. In orbit, Mattingly carried out 15 experiments and a solo flight of 81 hours and 40 minutes. Before heading home, a small satellite was released to study the solar wind, the interplanetary magnetic field and lunar gravity. During a spacewalk of 1 hour and 24 minutes, Mattingly retrieved the wedding ring he had lost on the outbound trip. Splashdown took place near the carrier Ticonderoga. The documentary ends by reviewing their later careers: Young commanded the shuttle's first flight in 1981, Mattingly commanded two shuttle missions, in 1982 and 1985, and Duke left NASA to go into business.