US Spaceflight - Apollo 14 Traditional Geocache

Apollo 14

One of 27 caches representing all United States Spaceflight Missions of Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. This was the 8th of 11 Apollo flights and the 24th of the 27 flights. Click here to see all 27 US Spaceflight caches.

The Apollo 14 spaceflight was the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, the third to land on the Moon, and the first to land in the lunar highlands. It was the last of the "H missions," targeted landings with two-day stays on the Moon with two lunar EVAs, or moonwalks.

Commander Alan Shepard, Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa, and Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell launched on their nine-day mission on Sunday, January 31, 1971, at 4:03:02 p.m. EST. Liftoff was delayed forty minutes and two seconds, due to launch site weather restrictions, the first such delay in the Apollo program.

Shepard and Mitchell made their lunar landing on February 5 in the Fra Mauro highlands – originally the target of the aborted Apollo 13 mission. During the two lunar EVAs, 94.35 pounds (42.80 kg) of Moon rocks were collected, and several scientific experiments were performed. Shepard hit two golf balls on the lunar surface with a makeshift club he had brought with him. Shepard and Mitchell spent 33​1⁄2 hours on the Moon, with almost 9​1⁄2 hours of EVA.

In the aftermath of Apollo 13, several modifications had been made to the service module electrical power system to prevent a repeat of that accident, including a redesign of the oxygen tanks and the addition of a third tank. The launch had been scheduled for October 1, 1970, and was delayed about four months.

While Shepard and Mitchell were on the surface, Roosa remained in lunar orbit aboard the command and service module Kitty Hawk, performing scientific experiments and photographing the Moon, including the landing site of the future Apollo 16 mission. He took several hundred seeds on the mission, many of which were germinated on return, resulting in the so-called Moon trees.

Shepard and Mitchell successfully lifted Antares off the Moon to dock with the command module and, after a total of 34 lunar orbits, the ship was flown back to Earth where the three astronauts landed in the Pacific Ocean on February 9.

WHY HERE?

The center point of all the US Spaceflight caches is located in the middle of the intersection where John Glenn Drive changes into Galaxy Way in Concord, CA.

The distance ranges from this point to the various caches representing the spaceflights are:

• about ¼ mile - Mercury sub-orbital missions
• about 2 miles - Mercury orbital missions
• about 5 miles - Gemini missions
• about 5 miles - Apollo Earth orbital missions
• about 25 miles - Apollo moon missions

FLIGHT SUMMARY:

FTF Prize:

This is 1 of 27 caches in KCSearcher's US Spaceflight series that were given away as FTF prizes at his “Man on the Moon, July 20, 1969 - 50 years later” event. For those attendees that received this as a prize, they had an 88 hour head start on those that didn’t attend the event. The prize winners were instructed to sign the log in the “Pre-Publication FTFer(s)” space.

However, for the FTF Hounds that were not able to attend, they too had the opportunity to be FTF on this cache after publication that was targeted for 7/24/2019 @ or around 9:50 AM Pacific Time (splashdown of Apollo 11 + 50 years). All they had to do is find the cache and be first to sign in the “Post-Publication FTFer(s)” space on the log.

BONUS:

Don’t forget to record and save the Code Letter and its associated Number that is on the log sheet and inside the container lid. It will be needed to find a bonus cache on the 51st anniversary of the Moon Landing, July 20, 2020.

Please DO NOT post or include an image of the Code Letter and Number in any of your online logs for this cache

TO LEARN MORE:

Click here to see the Wikipedia description for Apollo 14.

Click here to see the Wikipedia description for Project Apollo.

Click here to see the Wikipedia description for the Space Race.