The final day
A third moonwalk and drive began with trying to rectify the problems the pair had with drilling holes. They extracted some core samples but continued to be frustrated with the drilling and didn’t want to waste too much time focusing on it. They filmed the rover and then traveled to Hadley Rille, arriving at a small crater. Samples collected there were soft; this area is thought to be the youngest explored by moonwalkers. They photographed the rille and looked for exposed bedrock, hoping to find ancient material. In the wall of the rille, they hoped to see layering, indicative of lava flowing over time through Palus Putredinis. Irwin found some exposed bedrock and took samples. Scott found a coarse-grained basalt with large vugs, or cavities. He carted off a football-sized rock that came to be called Great Scott, a 21-pound (9.6 kg) sample.
Back at the LM, with time running out, Scott had one more trick up his sleeve. “Well, in my left hand, I have a feather,” he said. “In my right hand, a hammer. And I guess one of the reasons we got here today was because of a gentleman named Galileo, a long time ago, who made a rather significant discovery about falling objects in gravity fields. And we thought, where would be a better place to confirm his findings than on the Moon? And so we thought we’d try it here for you. The feather happens to be, appropriately, a falcon feather for our Falcon. And I’ll drop the two of them here and, hopefully, they’ll hit the ground at the same time.”
He dropped the two and they hit the lunar surface simultaneously: a win for Galileo once again. Before ending the walk, Scott drove the rover away a distance and planted an object on the lunar surface. It was a sculpture, made of aluminum, created by the Belgian artist Paul Van Hoeydonck. Called Fallen Astronaut, it was a small astronaut figure and was accompanied by the names of American and Soviet explorers who had died in the quest for space. The names were Theodore Freeman, Charles Bassett, Elliott See, Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee, Ed White, Vladimir Komarov, Edward Givens, Clifton Williams, Yuri Gagarin, Pavel Belyayev, Georgiy Dobrovolsky, Viktor Patsayev, and Vladislav Volkov.
Successful return
After four hours and 50 minutes, Scott and Irwin climbed back into the LM. Two days and 18 hours after they had landed, the astronauts blasted off from the Moon’s surface, rejoined Worden, and headed back to Earth. The crew splashed down in the North Pacific on Aug. 7, with 170 pounds (77 kg) of lunar samples in tow.
Apollo 15 had been the most scientifically interesting mission yet. And with the Fallen Astronaut, the anxiety between competitors had now transformed into a bond between fellow explorers.
Explore from home
Mission Moon 3-D: A New Perspective on the Space Race, by David J. Eicher and Brian May (with foreword by Charlie Duke and afterword by Jim Lovell), presents the story of the historic lunar landings and the events that led up to them, told through text and three-dimensional images.
Mission Moon 3-D contains new and unique stereoscopic images of the Apollo Moon landings to show what it was like to walk on the lunar surface. The triumph of the Apollo 11 Moon landing takes center stage, with detailed stories and visually stunning images from the lunar missions that followed. The book includes 150 stereo photos of the Apollo mission and space race — the largest group ever published — and presents photos never seen before in stereo.
The book delivers a comprehensive tale of the space race. New stories appear from the astronauts, including Jim Lovell’s anecdotes about the perilous return of Apollo 13.
Mission Moon 3-D also includes a history of the music and special movements of the 1960s and beyond that transformed the world, from Vietnam and Woodstock to Live Aid. Don’t miss out on this unique treasure.
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