Last Lunar Footsteps

On this day in 1972, the Ascent Stage of the Apollo 17 Lunar Module Challenger lifted off from the landing site in the Taurus-Littrow Valley, The Moon. Onboard were Mission Commander Eugene A. Cernan (above) and the LM Pilot, Harrison H. Schmitt. The Command Module was piloted by Ronald Evans. Cernan and Schmitt had been on the surface of the Moon for 3 days, 2 hours, 59 minutes, 40 seconds. During that time they made three excursions outside the lunar lander, totaling 22 hours, 3 minutes 57 seconds. Apollo 17 was the last manned mission to the Moon in the Twentieth Century with Cernan as the last man to stand on the surface of the Moon. Apollo 17 was the first mission to have no one on board who had been a test pilot. X-15 test pilot Joe Engle lost the lunar module pilot assignment to Schmitt, a geologist.

More details at Apollo 17

16,000 Hours of Flight Time

 

Lieutenant Colonel Fitzhugh Lee "Fitz" Fulton, Jr. (1925-2015) stands next to fellow test pilot, Colonel Joseph Cotton, with the North American Aviation XB-70A Valkyrie in the background at Edwards AFB, California in the Sixties. Upon his retirement from NASA, Fulton had flown more than 16,000 hours in 235 aircraft types. But his flying days started much earlier during World War II. 

In 1946 Fulton participated in Operation Crossroads, the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. He made 225 sorties flying a Douglas C-54 Skymaster four-engine transport during the Berlin Airlift, and then the Douglas B-26 Invader light attack bomber during the Korean War. Fulton graduated from the Air Force Test Pilot School in 1952. He served as project test pilot for the Convair B-58 Hustler supersonic bomber and flew it to a World Record Altitude of 85,360.66 feet during 1962. He flew the B-52 “mother ships” for the X-15 Program from Edwards, AFB.

Fulton continued as a research test pilot for NASA, flying as project pilot for the YF-12A and YF-12C research program. He flew all the early test flights of the NASA/Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft that carried the space shuttle prototype, Enterprise.  

NASA's Crawlers Are Aptly Named

 

The crawler-transporters (Missile Crawler Transporter Facilities) are a pair of tracked vehicles used to transport spacecraft from NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building along the Crawlerway to Launch Complex 39. Built in 1965, they were originally used to transport the Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets during the Apollo, Skylab, and Apollo–Soyuz programs. Built by Marion Power Shovel Company using components designed and built by Rockwell International, their technology has been upgraded over the years. They each weigh over 6 million pounds and would cover the infield in a baseball stadium. Powered by locomotive and large electrical power generator engines, they use laser guidance and a leveling system to keep the Mobile Launcher Platform level. The crawlers have traveled more than 3,400 miles at a speed of 1 mph loaded or 2 mph empty. Still, more entertaining than watching paint dry. The two crawler-transporters were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2000. Check out an interesting fact sheet from NASA.

The Mercury Seven

 

On this date in 1959, the NASA selection committee of Charles Donlan, a senior management engineer; Warren North, a test pilot engineer; Stanley White and William Argerson, flight surgeons; Allen Gamble and Robert Voas psychologists; and George Ruff and Edwin Levy, psychiatrists, selected the first astronauts for Project Mercury. Beginning January, the committee received and screened 508 service records of a group of talented test pilots, from which 110 were assembled. Less than one month later, through a variety of interviews and a battery of written tests, the NASA selection committee pared down this group to 32 candidates.

Each candidate endured stringent physical, psychological, and mental examinations, including total body x-rays, pressure suit tests, cognitive exercises, and a series of unnerving interviews. Of the 32 candidates, 18 were recommended for Project Mercury without medical reservations. Scott Carpenter, L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., John H. Glenn, Jr., Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Alan B. Shepard, Jr., and Donald K. “Deke” Slayton” were known as the Mercury Seven.