Experts Looked Closer At This 50-Year-Old Moon Footage, And One Detail Solved A Crazy Mystery
Like Neil Armstrong, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard is a hugely revered figure within American history and culture. That’s hardly surprising, though, considering that he was the first U.S. citizen to ever travel into space and that he later reached the Moon in 1971. It was during this latter mission, in fact, that he did something crazy that’s fascinated people ever since. What he did up on the Moon has been the subject of intense speculation over the decades, but now an expert has finally cleared things up.
Shepard’s trip to the Moon was part of the Apollo 14 mission, the third such operation of its kind. Together with his colleagues Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell, Shepard was tasked with making it to the Moon to explore, grab samples and conduct experiments. But that’s not all he did while he was up there.
The crew landed on the lunar surface on February 5, 1971, with their first venture outside in their spacesuits occurring only five hours later. Only Shepard and Mitchell were lucky enough to go for a wander, though, with Roosa’s role being to stay put inside the command module. The other two, meanwhile, raised an American flag and carried out tests.
In fact, not content with one expedition, Shepard and Mitchell were tasked with getting out onto the lunar surface a second time. During this second foray, the pair had to do some climbing up a crater. This must have been quite an exhausting task, as it saw them ascending for well over a mile-and-a-half. They were out there for more than four hours.
During these two moonwalks, Shepard and Mitchell managed to gather around 94 pounds of stone and residue for analysis back on Earth. It was a job well done, and it helped to cement their reputations as American icons. But Shepard did something up there which makes him stand out even further – and his bosses didn’t necessarily like it.
