Apollo 14

Lore & Background

Commander Alan Shepard, one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts, became the first American in space in 1961. He was grounded by Ménière's disease and served as Chief Astronaut until experimental surgery in 1968 allowed his return to flight status. At age 47, Shepard was the oldest U.S. astronaut to fly and was the oldest person to walk on the Moon at the time, though Eugene Cernan (Apollo 17) later surpassed him. Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa, aged 37, had been a smoke jumper before joining the Air Force, became a fighter pilot, and completed Aerospace Research Pilot School before his selection as a Group 5 astronaut. Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell, aged 40, joined the Navy in 1952, served as a fighter pilot, and also completed the ARPS prior to his selection. Shepard and his crew

Reader's Guide

Apollo 14 was a pivotal mission for NASA, coming after the near-disaster of Apollo 13. The crew overcame malfunctions en route that might have resulted in a second consecutive aborted mission and possibly the premature end of the Apollo program. Their landing in the Fra Mauro formation—originally the target of Apollo 13—allowed collection of 94.35 pounds of Moon rocks and deployment of scientific experiments. Although they did not reach the rim of Cone crater as planned, they came close. The mission's most famous event was Shepard hitting two golf balls with a makeshift club. Roosa, in lunar orbit, performed experiments and photographed the Moon, including the future Apollo 16 landing site. He also took several hundred seeds, many germinated on return, resulting in the so-called Moon trees distributed in following years. The mission's success restored confidence in the Apollo program after Apollo 13.

Did You Know?

• Apollo 14 was the last of the 'H missions' with two-day stays and two moonwalks.
• Shepard, at age 47, was the oldest person to walk on the Moon.
• Roosa took several hundred seeds on the mission, which became 'Moon trees' after germination.
• The landing site, Fra Mauro, was originally the target of Apollo 13.

The Crew's Long Road to the Moon

Alan Shepard had been the first American in space back in May 1961, yet by the time Apollo 14 launched, he had spent nearly a decade grounded by Ménière's disease, a debilitating inner-ear disorder. His experimental surgery in 1968 finally restored him to flight status, and at forty-seven he became the oldest U.S. astronaut to fly and the oldest person to set foot on the Moon. Stuart Roosa, the Command Module Pilot at thirty-seven, had an unusual pre-astronaut life as a smoke jumper before joining the Air Force in 1953, eventually completing the Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards in 1965 before his selection as a Group 5 astronaut. Edgar Mitchell, forty at launch, had served as a Navy fighter pilot aboard aircraft carriers starting in 1954, later completing the same pilot school before joining the astronaut corps. The three men had originally been slated to command Apollo 13, but NASA's leadership judged that Shepard needed additional training after his long absence from space and reassigned him to the next landing. The crew that had been designated for Apollo 14—Lovell, Mattingly, and Haise—stepped into the Apollo 13 slot instead.

Two Walks in the Fra Mauro Highlands

On February 5, 1971, Shepard and Mitchell touched down in the Fra Mauro formation, the very site that Apollo 13 had been targeting before its catastrophic abort. As the first crew to land in the lunar highlands, they spent two days conducting extravehicular activities that yielded 94.35 pounds of lunar rock samples and the deployment of multiple scientific instruments. One planned objective—reaching the rim of Cone crater—proved just out of reach, a frustration for the geologists who had envisioned the vantage point. Yet the mission's most iconic moment was decidedly unscientific: Shepard swung a makeshift club at two golf balls he had brought aboard, an act that captured the public imagination far more than any core sample. The entire landing represented the final H mission in NASA's sequence, a format designed for two-day stays at scientifically chosen sites with two surface walks. After their time on the surface, the crew lifted off, docked with the Command and Service Module in orbit, and began the long flight home.

A Program Hanging by a Thread

Apollo 14 was not supposed to launch until 1970, but the catastrophic failure of Apollo 13 to reach the lunar surface forced a full investigation and a wave of spacecraft modifications that pushed the schedule back. When Shepard, Roosa, and Mitchell finally lifted off on the evening of January 31, 1971, the stakes were enormous. En route to the Moon, the crew encountered malfunctions that threatened to produce a second consecutive aborted landing. Had those problems not been resolved, the Apollo program itself might have been terminated prematurely, ending the era of human lunar exploration. The shadow of Apollo 13's failure hung over every systems check and every communication with Mission Control. The flight directors—Pete Frank on the Orange team, Glynn Lunney on Black, Milt Windler on Maroon, and Gerry Griffin on Gold—operated under a single sweeping mandate: they could take any action necessary to protect crew safety and ensure mission success. The CAPCOM team included Fred Haise, who had trained extensively for the very same Fra Mauro target during the aborted Apollo 13, giving him intimate knowledge of the terrain the crew would now traverse on foot.

Seeds in Orbit and a Legacy Beyond the Moon

While Shepard and Mitchell worked on the surface, Roosa remained in lunar orbit aboard the Command and Service Module, conducting his own scientific experiments and photographing the Moon's terrain. Among his tasks was capturing images of the landing site earmarked for the future Apollo 16 mission, a practical contribution that would save future crews valuable planning time. Perhaps more memorably, Roosa carried several hundred seeds into space, and upon their return to Earth many of those seeds were successfully germinated. The resulting saplings, affectionately called Moon trees, were distributed widely across the country in the years that followed, giving ordinary citizens a living connection to the lunar program. The three astronauts completed their nine-day journey by splashing down safely in the Pacific Ocean on February 9, 1971. The mission closed out the H series of highlands landings, but its ripples extended well beyond the program's final flights, from the trees planted in communities to the photographic record that guided subsequent crews toward their own targets on the Moon.

Gallery