Word: cernan
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...perfect landing only about 300 ft. from target near the Crater Camelot,* Geologist Schmitt made it clear that he regarded the stark, rock-littered valley as his special turf. "A geologist's paradise, if I've ever seen one," said the Harvard-trained scientist as he and Cernan began their preliminary chores: familiarizing themselves with the terrain, photographing the area and, finally, maneuvering the rover out of its berth in the side of the lunar module. Then, after a fast test spin by Cernan ("Hallelujah, Houston, Challenger's baby is on the road"), the moon...
...Cernan also had reason to be embarrassed. With one swing of his geological hammer, he accidentally clobbered the $13,000,000 moon car, knocking off part of one of its rear fiberglass fenders, which act as shields against the spray of dust churned up by the rover's wire mesh wheels. Cernan tried to reattach the section of fender with gaffer tape. But because of the everpresent, clinging fine-grained lunar dust, it would not stick. As precious minutes ticked away. Mission Control suggested that the astronauts abandon the fender repair work and get on with the more important...
...experiments also posed problems. Cernan worked so hard trying to drill holes for the important heat-flow experiment-which had been inadvertently disconnected on the Apollo 16 mission-that his pulse climbed to 150 beats per minute. NASA doctors, monitoring his heartbeat, ordered him to rest. Coming to Cernan's aid, Schmitt took a dramatic spill as he tried to extract a balky core tube from the ground. All of the experiments were finally set up, but it was learned later that a key instrument-the surface gravimeter-had jammed. It was a bitter disappointment to scientists...
...lunar maps made of stiff photographic paper and attach the resulting 15-by 20-in. rectangle to the damaged fender with clamps taken from Challenger's interior light fixtures. The scheme worked. Indeed, the paper fender was so effective that it shielded the astronauts from dust even when Cernan opened the rover's throttle to more than 7 m.p.h. on the way to South Massif, about four miles away. "Whoooaa, let's slow the speed up," Schmitt pleaded as the car narrowly missed dipping into one steep little crater. Cernan, however, showed a sure hand...
...crater named Shorty (after a character in Richard Brautigan's novel Trout Fishing in America). Suddenly, as his space boots scuffed some of the gray topsoil from the crater's rim, he exclaimed: "Hey, there is orange soil. It's all over." Chugging toward him, Cernan shouted: "Well, don't move until I see it!" The astronauts' enthusiasm on the moon was shared by scientists watching in Mission Control's "back room." Caltech's Gerald Wasserburg jumped up from his fourth-row seat and practically pressed his nose against the TV screen...