The circa 1971 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) color film “Apollo 14 Mission to Fra Mauro” opens with a shot of Freedom 7 on the launch pad on May 5, 1961. Piloted by astronaut Alan Shepard. it was the first manned flight of Project Mercury, the first United States human spaceflight, and the first step toward landing a man on the moon. By mark 00:50, we jump 10 years ahead and see a Saturn V rocket on the launch pad — waiting to send the crew of Apollo 14 to the moon on January 31, 1971. The mission marked the first attempt to return to the moon following the near-catastrophic Apollo 13 mission in 1970. Beginning at mark 01:08 we see Shepard (Apollo 14’s commander) along with Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa and Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell as they prepare to set off for Fra Mauro on the lunar surface. (Fra Mauro is thought to have been formed from debris from the impact of a gigantic asteroid millions of years ago). Mark 03:30 shows footage of Roosa piloting the command module Kitty Hawk to (an unsuccessfully at first) docking with the lunar module Antares, while on Earth engineers are shown trying to remedy the problem. The spacecraft is shown in orbit around the moon at mark 05:20, and despite a series of glitches recounted in the film, Antares makes her slow descent and finally touches down on the moon (mark 10:00).
Shepard is shown stepping onto the surface at mark 10:40, followed by Mitchell, as they plant the American flag in the lunar soil and begin their experiments and sample collection as footage collected of the astronauts on the surface fills the screen. Soon, see Roosa back inside the command module (mark 14:40) making calculations and photographing the moon’s dusty landscape as he circled above. The second moonwalk (mark 15:25) was intended to reach the rim of the 1,000-foot wide Cone Crater. The two astronauts are shown in video and still images. However, they were not able to find the rim amid the rolling terrain of the crater’s slopes. They became physically exhausted from the attempt and with their suits’ oxygen supplies starting to run low, the effort was called off (mark 20:12). With their experiments over, the astronauts lift off from the moon at mark 22:30 and dock with Kitty Hawk at mark 24:35. We see various scenes from inside the capsule as the men begin their journey home (such as Shepard shaving), conducting one final experiment before splashdown at mark 26:32. The film concludes with a “preview” of what’s to come in Apollo 15.
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