40 seconds and counting, Alan Shepard reports that he is performing his final guidance alignment, the final maneuver the astronauts perform before liftoff. 30 seconds and counting, Stu Roosa just said thanks, it's been a good countdown. 25 seconds and counting, we are still GO. 20 seconds, guidance alert, the guidance system now going internal. 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, ignition sequence start, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0.
Launch commit, liftoff, we have liftoff at 14, three minutes past the hour.
The tower is clear.
Roger, you have good thrust on all five engines.
Okay, Houston, roll complete.
Roger, roll complete.
Shepard reports roll program completed, pitch profile still in progress, 37 seconds. Standby for mode 1 Bravo.
Mark 1 Bravo now.
Okay, we're one Bravo.
Kept calm Gordon Fullerton making that report.
Mark, one minute.
Cabin pressure coming down, adjusting from sea level to a space environment. Status check in mission control are coming up all greens on the flight director's console.
Houston, everything looks good here on the ground.
All 14, Houston, the booster is safed, and your orbit is GO.
Roger. Good show, GO orbit, booster safe.
Very shortly, Flight Director Pete Frank will poll his flight control team as to our status for TLI.
14, Houston, go ahead.
You are go for the moon, go for TLI.
Roger, go for TLI.
It's been 30 seconds away now from time of ignition. Our displays show a predicted apogee resulting from this burn of 250,263.7 nautical miles with 2 hours 28 minutes now on to the flight. Standing by.
Ignition.
Roger, ignition.
Buck start, steering's good.
Roger, and we shall good thrust on the S4B.
Roger, Houston, we're about to dock.
Roger.
Stan Mitchell reporting they're getting ready to dock. We're at 3 hours 13 minutes now in the flight.
There's probably a a foot to 18 inches to 2 foot out there.
Roger.
We're at 3 hours 14 minutes into the flight. We show Apollo 14 at a distance of 6184 nautical miles.
And we talked. Roger, we can see the flight oscillation.
Mitchell reporting that Apollo 14 command module Kitty Hawk has docked with the lunar module.
We're at 3 hours 14 minutes now into the flight. Apollo 14 presently 6318 nautical miles away from earth.
Okay, Houston, we cleared it twice and sure looks like we're closing fast enough. I'm going to back back out here and try it again.
Roger.
Yeah, we better back off here and think about this one, Houston.
Roger.
They're unable to get a capture.
Roger that.
That's Stan Mitchell and Ed Mitchell reporting that at least at this point they're unable to get a capture. We'll stand by.
Okay, Houston, we've backed out a little bit, and that last time I hit it pretty good and we're just not getting, getting the capture latches in there.
Roger, we suggest you verify if you haven't already the docking probe circuit breakers on panel eight.
That's verified.
And standby one.
Okay, Houston, 14, I can look in the drogue and I can see three marks about 120 degrees apart, like the capture latches are scratching the the drogue.
They're about, though, I don't know, inch and a half along going into the hole in the drogue, about spaced about 120.
Okay, Houston, we'll review what we're going to do for you. Please it's the right thing to do. We're going to make the approach close at a very slow rate.
until the initial contact, he's going to call out at that time, and apply plus x, I will then go to the retract form one position.
That's it, that's it Al. That should should do it if that if that probe does actually retract, and if our alignment is good enough, the the possibilities are pretty good of picking up the docking latch.
Okay, you you think that it's going to retract because you feel the capture latches are locked?
No, I actually the impression here is that it is not going to retract.
Okay.
Okay, Houston, we're about 12 to 15 ft away.
Roger that, we got a very good picture.
We got some Houston, I got a hard dock.
Roger, that's great. Super job, Stu.
Thank you. That's the deep weak over there.
Okay, Houston, we are GO for DLI.
Okay, go for DLI. Thank you.
Cool, Houston over.
You want the Apollo 14.
Loud clear Al, a lot of people standing by to hear how it went.
The burn went essentially normally.
Okay, buddy.
We're ready to go.
Okay.
Okay, you're moving out.
You're hanging on the end of the probe. We'll wait in a motion damp here.
Okay, we seem real steady, I'm going to back off from you.
Okay.
And we're free.
And then there Houston, you're go for Promode.
Good show, Fredo, thank you. Thank you, you trip to nice job down there. That was beautiful.
Okay. I see you 44 there, okay.
There's flow, my down.
Okay.
There it is, right off the money.
How's the LPD today?
LPD 41.
Okay.
That, and the, 41, beautiful. Right off the window. Just like.
Okay. Houston, you're go for landing.
Here we go.
Thank you.
Here we go.
You're at 3,000, 75 feet a second.
Okay, that LTV.
You're good.
You can move on.
A little fast.
Unclick left.
2000, 50 feet a second, a little bit fast, but not bad.
Okay.
Oh, candy.
It is, 1500.
A little fast, not bad. Moving in well.
LPD's 40 out.
Okay.
It's coming to 3,000 feet.
27 feet, right on schedule.
Right on schedule, now.
We're back on crater right outside to the right.
Okay, the best spot is uh, a little south of track about halfway between Triplet and Dublin.
A little south of track.
Okay.
About 60 meters, let's go. Good from here.
Good from here.
Okay, you're through 500 50 feet.
Okay.
16 ft per second, 500 ft 15 ft per second. It looks good.
The fuel is good, it's 10%.
Give us a tick over and move up a little. Okay.
Yeah, I think so you're through 300, 20. Adhole.
Okay.
Yeah, give give it a few clicks, you're through 200 feet.
10 feet per second. That looks good.
No metal over here.
8% fuel, looks great.
Okay, it looks like you're going right over the middle of Triplet.
170 ft out, 2 ft per second down, 8% fuel, you're looking good.
Okay.
Okay, 170 feet and holding.
About 1 ft per second down. Want to pick, speed it up a little bit. Okay, I'm going to move forward, okay.
7% fuel.
Okay, you're still in the 170 feet and clear it.
And uh, Okay, you can move on. Call when you're just barely crossing north Triplet.
Barely crossing north Triplet.
Percent fuel, okay, 150 ft, there's the big quantities light.
Okay.
Hold a moment.
All right, if you could land over here, there's some dust now, 110 ft, 3 ft per second down.
6% Okay, good dust.
You're on your own. Backup down. Right down. Okay.
It's at 90 ft.
4 ft per second, 5 ft per second down.
Okay, now looking great.
15 seconds.
Okay, 50 feet down.
50 feet.
Good shake, food.
3 ft per second. 40 ft.
3 ft per second, 30.
3 ft per second, looking great. 20 ft.

Okay. Three, two, one, contact down. Stop. Break. Slow. Auto, auto. We are on the surface. Okay, we've made a good landing. Roger, and is 4:13's left, 10,000. That was a beautiful one. And we're slightly off. We landed on the slope, but other than that, we're in great shape and right on the landing site. Okay, Al, beautiful. We can see you coming down the ladder right now. It looks like you're about on the bottom step and on the surface. Sounds bad for it, old man. Okay, you're right. ALSEP's on the surface and it's been a long way but we're here. Yeah, I can see the reason we have a tilt is because we landed on the slope. The landing gear struts appear to be about evenly depressed. Take a look at some of them, tomorrow. I take a look at Cone Crater, I should say, which is right where it should be, and it's a very impressive sight. That is very, very great to be coming down. Roger, bottom step. That one is a long one. That is checked, very easy to do. Okay, what do you think is a good spot for the ALSEP? Oh boy, that's going to be tough, Al. I just headed out toward doublet out there and that looks. Your camera will be uh deployed uh west uh toward doublet uh where the uh ALSEP our scientific uh package uh activity will be viewed. Okay, so you can see where the the area where the football sized rock is coming from. It's essentially uh two thirds of the way back toward the rim from the ALSEP site. Rock appears to have been ejected from the crater which I was describing earlier. Is the uh felt the position. As a matter of fact, it's going to be the a small, football sized rock and I turn out to be two of them. Shepard reports see he's going through the hatch. Second all. Okay. K, the cabin and flow feed water is coming off. Roger, Al, in the cabin and blow feed water off. K, the hatch is closed and locked. Roger, the hatch. I have 10 questions. having to do with EVA. We don't want elaborate answers uh because uh they of course cut into your sleep period. Okay, question number one about uh EVA one. How do you uh feel about your plan second EVA now that you've done the first? Especially uh in terms of time and terrain, over? I think that the second EVA will go a little more smoothly with respect to the timeline. It's not as complicated as far as the equipment is concerned. Uh, we don't spend as much time moving around with with cliffs and scientific equipment, but primarily a geological traverse. Once the thing is done by the first few minutes. And we should be able to build a timeline and hang on to that uh real well. And uh, we of course are again counting on a at least a 30 minute extension to the nominal time, so that's the reason we'd like to start early. Roger, do you uh feel the terrain will be any problem? We don't. We have no difficulty at all traversing the terrain and vast back. We were bounding along even with the uh the bells and the met. Uh the uh traversing is is extremely easy. Uh though we have a rolling landscape, uh and lots of craters to circumnavigate. I believe from looking at the cone, we'll be able to get up there with no trouble at all. Okay, I completely concur that the uh the undulating terrain is just a surprise and not that much more difficult. Roger. Uh, second question is, would you please describe the rim of Doublet, especially the blockiness, over? Well, I don't think uh you'd call Doublet a blocky rim. The uh craters, north and south Doublet are of course both older craters and have some dune rim. There are some uh blocks that ejected uh at and near the vicinity but uh uh and as the there are a few blocks down inside, for example, we can look at the west wall of South Doublet from here and see a few fairly good sized rocks. That's uh three or four feet uh at the largest, but I really wouldn't call it a blocky rim. It's fairly well to dune rim. Concur, and I the biggest blocks that we can see on the on the uh rim of Doublet correspond to these large ones I pointed out in my pass EV paths. Uh, there are some of that size or maybe a little larger, but the population is minuscule with the total uh rim area of uh Doublet. Roger. Third question. How deep is the uh dip erosion crater? That's right. He's going through the hatch. About rating it all. Uh the photographs will show that uh perhaps only 4 inches is maximum depth. Okay and uh can you describe the lineations and how far out they went, their orientation and direction? Are the lineations uh that I referred to earlier? You talking about lineations from the dip erosion? The ones that you referred to earlier, Ed. Okay, they're there, and I saw evidence of them uh in directions different than the uh exhaust would cause, but there just simply was not time to look at them. We'll have to look at them tomorrow. Okay, uh Next question on the football samples. Were they documented? To confirm that, they were documented with stereopair before in the case of both samples and uh they were taken from the crater which is located at uh let's see. Let me Q R, C R C R one and uh six four six. They came from the southwest, and the southwest rim of that crater. Roger, Al. Next question, did you notice any variations in soil mechanics characteristics at various locations where legs or poles were pushed in, such as the uh Solar wind staff, the flagstaff, geophone anchors, uh penetrometer and so forth. There are a few places around, uh, uh primarily fill or rather throw out from craters or what are obviously near the rims of craters, have a softer, uh, there's a softer material around them that there is, just in general. However, there are some mini craters that you find the soft material quite often. Uh, I generally off the fresher ones. Uh, I'll log my traverse, rather I'll log the uh proper geophone line. There are two or three fairly fresh craters along that line that had some, uh, some quite soft material around them. And it was a matter of uh, sinking in two three or four inches instead of the normal half to 3/4 that we're sinking in out here. Roger, Ed. On the surface features of rocks, uh marked, Well, we'd like a description of the surface features of the rocks. If they are marked, variations in rounding, angularity, grain size, size distribution, shape, texture, and color, over? That's another bit of stuff we're going to have to look at tomorrow. We just barely had time to finish the ALSEP and get back. The rocks I see from the cockpit, uh there are some rounded rocks. I can see two or three that are buried that are that have some rounding on top. I see some angular rocks, uh, as far as granularity, uh crystal size, etc, etc. We didn't have time to look at any of that, but just wait till tomorrow. Okay, the next question probably falls in the same category. I'll read it in case you have anything to say about it, and that is to describe the regolith, the general nature, fragment distribution, fragment shapes, variations in texture, color, surface patterns and firmness. Ed, we could give a a quick one on that. I think we've already done most of it. The regolith is is mostly uh a brown or sometimes looking gray powdery material, almost like a uh uh chalk, ground up. It's that fine, that the fine grain. There are a few uh a rock scattered around, population less than a percent, ranging in size from five to six, well, I guess two or three centimeters but the ones that are obvious that aren't buried are five or six centimeters, up to the largest ones that I've seen, are the ones I showed you in the fan, which are four, three or four, five feet across. Uh, the distribution is less than 1%, but you see a few of these blocks sitting all around uh the landscape as far as you can see, and I guess they're even out over toward Doublet, which we didn't say was blocking, but uh, these smaller ones might not be visible at that distance. Okay, did you uh notice any uh variations in the color or surface patterns or texture? It looks all about the same as far as the general regolith here is concerned. But again, we haven't looked at it that carefully, or I didn't look at it that carefully. Uh, just because of the press of time. Uh, by and large, it is all all this very fine grain material with a few scattered rocks on top of it. Let's see if we can do a better job of describing it tomorrow for it. Roger, uh, how abundant was glass? The place I thought I saw glass and I didn't have time to confirm it, was in a very small crater along the supper line. Uh, it looked like there was a pool a little pool of glass in the bottom, and this crater was only about a, uh, two foot across and maybe eight inches deep. It was had quite a bit of a small chunky material in it, but it had a different color and it looked very glassy uh, at the bottom, and I didn't have time to go back and look at it but I'm sure there's some more of that around. Roger, last question is, how abundant were fillets? Do those by the lamb appear to be disturbed by the depth, over? I think uh, we found some fillets. I don't know whether the percentage is as high as 50% or not of the uh surface rocks, but uh yes, there is some fillading and you will notice in the, in the small football sized rocks that there is a fillett pattern around them. There is uh, filleting here of course fairly close to the lamb and it's hard to tell whether it's natural or whether it's from the lamb exhaust. All right, and here's from the OPM is loaded on board the METH. I'll turn on that if you turn the camera around. They just wanted to give get a good uh direction actually, our sight, the A directly toward the center of the crater. Yeah. It's right over that way. You need two, six There's 350 meters or 1000 ft. Okay, let's start up that direction and take a look around. Okay, and I'll aim the camera toward Cone. You're looking at Cone. All right, we have a little bit of a glare across the center, but uh in the background, we can see the uh Crest to cones. And the grades getting pretty steep. And the uh soil here is a bit firmer I think than we've been on before, uh except around what the the mounds in between craters where it's been thrown up, but by and large, it seems to have a little firmer footing. We're not sinking in as deep.

Now I'd just uh help you with the climb there.
Sure helps a little bit.
Al's picked up the
Al's got the back of the mitt now, and we're cheering it up, I think it seems easier.
That's right, that's fine.
There were two guys here that figured you'd carry it up.
Say again?
There were just two guys sitting next to me here that kind of figured you'd end up carrying it up.
A little roll along here except we just move faster carrying it.
We're really going up pretty steep slope here.
Yeah, we uh kind of figured that uh from listening to you.
Okay, well, that's a pretty heavy the rim of call over there.
And um What about uh
almost 2 hours now, is that right, Fredo?
Okay, I wish on uh 157 and a half now, huh?
Okay.
That's at least uh 30 minutes up there.
Yep.
And uh
I would say we'd probably do better to go up to those boulders there.
Got it.
Document that.
Use that as a turnaround point.
Okay.
This is going to take longer than we expected.
Our positions are all in doubt now, uh, Fredo.
What we were looking at was a flank, but the it wasn't really, uh, the top of it wasn't the rim of cone. We got a ways to go yet.
Okay, I'd been uh Now, uh, perhaps you can think Perhaps you can think with us if you want. I'd say uh that the rim is uh at least uh 30 minutes away.
Uh, we're approaching the edge of the boulder field here from the South flank, let's look at the map.
And what I'm proposing is perhaps we use that as a turnaround point.
That seems to me that we spend a lot of time in traverse if we don't, and we not get very many samples.
I've settled my plan.
I'm out in the area of this boulder field. I'm going to photograph many of the boulders, uh the rocks, the broken ones, the big ones, what have you, and then grab as many of the different fragments as I can around these piles of broken boulders.
Uh, I now that I'm here, I see a large number of inclusions. I can't tell whether they're crystals or not. Uh, I think that they are.
And uh,
I'll grab as many of these and give you the before and after shots as I can uh of a whole way back full of rocks.
Okay, Ed, that sounds great.

For Houston, if you're looking at that, you might recognize what I have in my hand is the uh handle for the contingency sample return. I just so happen to have a genuine fix are on the bottom of it. On my left hand I have a little white pillow, that's familiar to millions of Americans.
Uh, drop it down.
Unfortunately, the suit is so stiff. I can't do this with two hands, but I'm going to try a little sand trap shot here.
Okay, more dirt than ball that time.
Before dirt than ball, here we go again.
That looked like a slice to me, Al.
There we go.
For the die, one more.
Miles and miles and miles.
Okay, Houston,
Crew of EVA 2 is leaving from our base.
Roger, Al. Yeah.
You've done an excellent job.
Don't think I could have done any better myself.
Debatable, isn't it, Fredo?
Well, I guess not now, Ed.

And with this closeout, Al Shepard, now at age 2 score and 7 years, becomes the undisputed leader in time spent walking, uh working on the moon.
More than 9 hours, uh
running a close second to, uh his his partner, Ed Mitchell.
The deploy stage is set.
Gas and engine is armed.
6 5 4 3 2 1 0.
What a liftoff.
And liftoff.
Roger, ignition.
There's lift off, 10 seconds.
Roger.
Yeah baby.
It's good.

Okay, we captured.
Captured.
Beautiful, Normal docking.
Okay.
And we got a hard dock.
Beautiful.
A big sigh of relief being breather out here.
The whole long, the world, the is.
You ought to try it from up here.
This world ran out of this world, too.
Apollo 14, Houston.
Come on, Houston, Apollo 14.
That's right, you loud and clear.
Ready to load, clear, Houston.
Okay, Gordo, we had a good burn. A good burner on the way home.

Clean that separation, Houston.
Roger.
Our velocity now showing 36,000 feet per second, 1500 miles from splashdown.
And we're 24 seconds from entry.
We're now at the entry point. In about 18 seconds we should have blackout.
That'll last until about 3 minutes 35 seconds after entry.
Yeah, Apollo 14, that's about 8 seconds to the beginning of blackout. We'll talk to you when you come out the other side.
Okay, Bridge.
We should have come out of blackout. We'll standby for reestablishment of communications through the Apollo Range Instrumented Aircraft.
CAPCOM Mcandles is putting in a call to the crew now.
Apollo 14, Apollo 14, this is Houston through Oryx 3, how do you read, over?
Okay, 14, now you're coming in loud and a little bit of noise through Oryx 3. How to go?
Everything's okay and the things are looking good, too. See them see them check the over.
Good job, too, on telling these looks like a beautiful day out there in the recovery area.
Apollo 14, Apollo 14, New Orleans, over.
This is 14, reading you loud there. Roger, request uh crew status and position.
Oh, the crew is fine and we have completed the dump and the purge. We're on the checklist, everybody's in good shape.
All right, so request position.
Apollo 14, New Orleans uh request a computer readout.
Okay, I'll give you a 2701 and 17266, 270117266.
6 copy.
And passing the 1000.
Roger.
500 500.
Roger.

Thank you, sir.
You're welcome, sir.
Let's see over one everybody's in good shape.
Two ships detached, one, apparently, the boot of the Command Module.
I think that's correct, figure to see it through our window.
I hear some ventilation sound and a bursting out from on and I believe the path not move to the voice of rescue map.
Recovery helicopter, reporting uh astronaut Roosa aboard the recovery net.
That's an affirmative, is that correct?
And he is safely aboard recovery helicopter.
Recovery is positioning for a second backup.
Astronaut Ed Mitchell reported the second crewman on the way up to the recovery helicopter.
The astronaut has successfully made it aboard.
And astronaut Shepard is aboard.
The astronaut Shepard is safely aboard recovery helicopter.
This is Apollo Control. The primary recovery ship reported its estimate on the splashdown coordinates agreed almost precisely with the on board spacecraft readout.
Uh, 27 degrees, 2 minutes south, 172 degrees 40 minutes west.
Uh, that splashdown occurred at one at 216 hours 42 minutes.