The moon, our natural satellite, that seemed to be out of reach for much of humanity, has been closer than ever in the last half-century or so. For ever since the U.S. and the Soviets got tangled in a space race in the second half of the 20th Century, it was a question of who would land the first humans in space. And once the U.S. pipped the Soviets to it with their Apollo 11 mission in 1969, they made a habit of it in the years that followed.
One of those missions was Apollo 16, that took place over a couple of weeks in April 1972. Apollo 16 was in fact the 10th manned mission in the Apollo programme and the fifth to land human beings on the surface of the moon. The mission’s greatest success was the fact that it overturned prevailing scientific thought about the lunar surface as it was believed then that the lunar highlands were of volcanic origin.
A different destination
The Apollo 16 included a three- man crew: Commander John W. Young, Command Module pilot Thomas K. Mattingly II and Lunar Module pilot Charles M. Duke, Jr. The mission was launched on April 16, 1972 and its destination was quite different from previous Apollo missions.
While three of the previous manned Apollo missions landed in the mare regions, or the lunar seas, on the moon and the fourth one was in ejecta from the Imbrium impact, Apollo 16 was destined for the central lunar highlands. This region was considered representative of three-fourths of the lunar surface and was thought to be the product of volcanic eruptions based on photos from earlier missions.
Vibration causes delay
By April 19, the spacecraft reached the lunar orbit. But shortly after the lunar module Orion separated from the command module Casper, Mattingly noticed some unusual vibration. The two spacecrafts circled the moon for several hours and Orion descended to the moon’s surface only after receiving the go-ahead from Earth.
While Mattingly remained in orbit and performed 15 experiments from his vantage point, Young and Duke succeeded with nine out of 10 experiments on the lunar surface, with the lone failure coming when Young accidentally tore a cable loose from the heat-flow experiment.
Records galore
With a rover at their disposal like in the previous Apollo 15 mission, Young and Duke covered nearly 27 km, collecting rock and soil weighing close to 100 kg from 11 different sites. The two of them, however, never found the volcanic rocks that geologists back on Earth had hoped to find, and instead only found sedimentary breccia rocks (rocks composed of various mineral fragments). Based on these samples and other measurements, it was proven that the hypothesis regarding the volcanic origin of lunar surface was false.
After spending 71 hours on the lunar surface – more than 20 of which were outside Orion – Young and Duke lifted off from the moon on April 24. They rejoined Mattingly in the command module, having set records for time spent on the lunar surface, samples recovered and photos taken. The command module Casper splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on April 27, a little less than 266 hours after it had taken off, but forever changing certain perceptions we had about our moon.
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Meet the crew of Apollo 16
The picture above shows the crew members of Apollo 16 during a photo session in January 1972, ahead of their mission.
From left to right, you can see Thomas K. Mattingly II, Command Module pilot; John W. Young, Commander; and Charles M. Duke Jr., Lunar Module pilot.
The picture above is a plastic-encased photo of Duke’s family that he placed on the lunar surface, forever.
On the other side of this photo, Duke had written the following message: “This is the family of Astronaut Duke from Planet Earth. Landed on the Moon, April 1972.”
The Cat Crater and the Dot Crater on the moon were named after Duke’s family members. While Cat corresponds to Duke’s sons, Charles And Thomas, Dot is named after Duke’s wife, Dotty.
